Dell G7 17 Review: A Mid-range Gaming Laptop

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Purchasing a laptop is an important decision, especially one as pricey as the Dell G7 17. Based on this fact, I have written this Dell G7 17 review to provide you with all the details you need before making a purchasing decision.

Dell G7 17: At First Glance

The Dell G7 17 7790 is the first 17.3-inch model of the G7 series of gaming laptops. The G7 series are mid-range gaming laptops that sit between the low-budget G3 series and the high-end Alienware.

Dell made several variations of the G7 17 laptop with varying configurations. With different variations available, users can choose a model based on the specification they need.

As at the time this review was published, the Dell G7 17 starts at a price of $1,399. However, you can get models with higher specifications which of course would be costlier.

At first glance, Dell G7 17 may seem like the perfect gaming laptop that doesn’t cost much, but at the price of $1,399, is that really the case? Let’s find out if Dell G7 17 offers enough value for its price.

Dell G7 17: Design, Dimension & Weight

Gaming laptops are mostly known for their flashy designs. However, the Dell G7 17 is a sharp contrast to this.

The laptop’s overall design is somewhat boring. However, its boring appearance could be a good thing if what you’re looking for is a laptop that smashes most games but doesn’t scream “I am a gaming laptop” from its look.

Unfortunately, I have a major concern with the build quality of the Dell G7 17. The entire chassis is made of plastic which honestly doesn’t befit a laptop in this price category.

To make matters worse, the chassis is a magnet for fingerprints and smudges. Therefore, to keep its chassis from looking unsightly you may need to keep a napkin close by.

For color options, the laptop is available in dark gray with blue accents.

Moving on, the Dell G7 17 has a distinctive feature of horizontal stripes along its edges. 

The top of the lid bears the Dell logo in blue accents. This would have been simply chic if the lid is not so much prone to fingerprints.

On opening the lid, you will find the screen with thin bezels around it, except for the bottom bezel which is thicker. Additionally, the more prominent bottom bezel has a Dell imprint on it.

Furthermore, moving your gaze to the deck, you will find a shiny surface just above the keyboard. The shiny surface houses the G7 logo as well as the power button – the power button also serves as the fingerprint scanner.

Speaking of the fingerprint scanner, it is one of the best i’ve seen around. It is super accurate and logging on to Windows was super easy and convenient.

Moving on to the keyboard, it is quite sufficient for gaming as well as typing. The keys have a rather short key travel however, it has a nice clicky sound, which gives it sufficient feedback.

Furthermore, the keyboard features a quad-zone RGB backlighting which is a contrast to the single-zone backlighting of most newer Alienware machines. Nonetheless, the laptop uses the Alienware Command Center software for lighting control.

The keys are decently sized, the exceptions are the arrow keys and NumPad keys which are smaller than the main keys. For such a large chassis, there is no justifiable reason for Dell to offer small-sized arrow keys and NumPad keys – since more space is available.

Below the keyboard is the adequately sized touchpad, it is accurate and responsive to touch. The integrated mouse keys are shallow in travel with relatively weak feedback when pressed.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the G7 17 is its weight. At a weight of 3,140g and a dimension of 404 x 295.8 x 25 mm I must say that this is a very heavy laptop.

Comparatively, the Dell G7 17 is heavier than the Lenovo Legion Y740. The Lenovo Legion Y740 weighs 2900g and measures 412 x 305 x 25 mm.

Additionally, the laptop is also heavier than the ASUS ROG GL704. The Asus ROG GL704 measures 399 x 274 x 26.4 mm and weighs 2900g. 

Due to its heavy weight, Dell G7 17 doesn’t make for a perfect travelling partner. Therefore, if portability is important to you, Dell G7 17 is probably not your best bet.

Moving on to ports, the laptop has almost all the ports you can possibly need. Most of the ports are located at the back therefore, you can have most of the cables behind the laptop.

With the cables behind the laptop, there will be minimal cable clutters on your desk. Consequently, the placement of the ports behind the laptop helps to keep the desk well organized.

Specifically, on the left side of the laptop, you will find a Thunderbolt 3 port, USB Type-A port as well as an audio jack. Furthermore, on the right, you will find an SD card reader and another USB Type-A port.

Additionally, on the rear, you will find a Noble Lock slot, an AC adapter, an HDMI port and a third USB Type-A port. The rear of the laptop also houses a mini-DisplayPort and a gigabit Ethernet cable.

Finally, in my opinion I think the general design of the Dell G7 17 is too plain for a gaming laptop. The only fun thing about its design is the keyboard backlight.

Overall, I am not impressed by the Dell G7 17 in this aspect. Therefore, I will rate it a six for design.

Dell G7 17: Processor (CPU) Performance 

Dell offers the G7 17 with two processor configurations. The more budget-friendly variant is the 4-core Intel Core i5-8300HQ processor – with a speed of 2.30 GHz and an 8 MB cache memory. 

The high-budget processor variant is the 6-core Intel Core i7-8750HQ processor. The Core i7 processor has a speed of 2.20 GHz as well as a 9 MB cache memory.

The model I reviewed shipped with the Intel Core i7 processor. To determine the performance of the Dell G7 17 with this processor, I performed a Cinebench R15 test.

Based on the test result, the Dell G7 17 scored 164 points. Comparatively, this result lags behind that of Razer Blade Stealth.

The Razer Blade Stealth has a Core i7-8565U processor. In the same test, this laptop scored 174 points.

Unfortunately, the processor performance of the Dell G7 17 is also below the category average of 172 points. Therefore, I will rate it a seven in this respect.

Dell G7 17: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Dell G7 17 supports RAM capacities from 8 GB up to 32 GB. The laptop has two DDR4 slots – therefore if there’s a need for a memory upgrade, users can add more RAM capacities up to 32 GB.

The Dell G7 17 unit I reviewed has 16GB of RAM – 8 GB on each slot. The 16GB RAM is more than enough for high demanding tasks.

Moreover, I was able to multitask – I was surfing the net with several browser tabs open – at the same time, I was playing music, gaming, and even editing videos. However, the laptop performed all these activities without lagging.

To further determine the RAM performance of the laptop, I performed a PCMark 10 test. Based on the test result, the Dell G7 17 scored 5289 points.

Comparatively, the performance of the Dell G7 17 falls short of Lenovo Legion Y740 which scored 6053 points. Moreover, the Dell G7 17 performance was below the category average of 5533 points.

Finally, due to the below-average performance of the Dell G7 17 from my tests, I will be rating it a seven in this respect.

Dell G7 17: Storage Options & Performance

The Dell G7 17 supports dual drives. It has both an M.2 NVMe slot for SSDs as well as a regular SATA connector for HDDs.

Therefore, you can buy some Dell G7 17 models with only an SSD storage option. The SSD can take a capacity starting from 128 GB up to 2TB.

Additionally, you can get some models of the Dell G7 17 with only an HDD storage option. The standard HDD capacities are 1TB and 2TB.

However, it is more common to get the Dell G7 17 with a configuration of both SSD and HDD. For instance, the model I reviewed shipped with a 256GB SSD and a 1TB HDD.

With these several storage configurations available, users can choose a configuration that meets their storage needs. Moreover, if there’s a need for more storage you can upgrade the SSD or HDD drives – up to a maximum of 2TB.

Additionally, the Dell G7 17 also has an SD card reader. The transfer speed of the SD card is a bit slower than that of its competitors, this is evident in the copy test I performed.

In the test, I copied 1 GB of pictures from the desktop to the SD card. On the Dell G7 17, the file was copied at a speed of 28.2MBps with a completion time of 36 seconds.

Comparatively, on the Dell XPS 15 9570, the same file copied at a faster speed of 176.6 MBps with a completion time of 8 seconds.

Furthermore, to determine the transfer speed of the SSD and HDD, I performed a CrystalDiskMark test. Based on the test result, the HDD recorded a sequential read speed of 135.9 MBps and a sequential write speed of 132.7 MBps.

Additionally, the SSD recorded a sequential read speed of 924.7 MBps as well as a sequential write speed of 230.4 MBps.

Comparatively, the sequential transfer rates from the laptop’s SSD are slower than the faster NVMe drives in more expensive gaming laptops from Razer or MSI.

In conclusion, I will rate the storage performance of the Dell G7 17 a seven due to its underperformance among competitors.

Dell G7 17: Graphics Card Performance

Just like the processor, memory, and storage options, the Dell G7 17 also supports multiple graphics configurations. At the base configuration, you can get the laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU which has 4 GB GDDR5 memory.

Additionally, you can get the laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU which has 6 GB GDDR6 memory. Moreover, you can also get the laptop with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPUs – they both have an 8 GB GDDR6 memory.

The model I reviewed shipped with the Nvidia RTX 2070 GPU. To determine the GPU’s performance, I carried out a 3DMark 11 test.

Based on the test result, the laptop scored 17466 points which are slightly below the category average of 17489 points.

Furthermore, I performed some gaming tests on the laptop. In this test, I played The Witcher 3 at different settings and resolutions of 1080p.

Based on the test result, at ultra settings, the game played at 64.7 fps. Besides, at high settings, the game played at 113.5 fps.

Additionally, at medium settings, the game played at 165.1 fps. Finally, at low settings, the game played at 203 fps.

In conclusion, although the Dell G7 17 does not top the chart in the gaming test, it was still able to run all the games I tested on it. Therefore, I will rate it an 8 for gaming performance.

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Dell G7 17: Battery Life & Performance

The laptop is equipped with a 60Whr Lithium polymer battery. The 60Whr battery is expected to deliver up to 7 hours of battery life at standard usage.

To determine the battery performance of the laptop, I performed a battery rundown test. The test involved setting the laptop to 120 nits of screen brightness and all other programs turned off – except the browser surfing through over 70 websites.

Based on the test result, the Dell G7 17 lasted 7 hours and 50 minutes.

Comparatively, the Dell G7 17 outperformed the ASUS ROG Strix GL704. The ASUS ROG Strix GL704 has a 66Whr battery which lasted 5 hours 45 minutes during the same test.

The battery performance of the Dell G7 17 is impressive, especially for a 17-inch laptop. Therefore, I will rate the battery performance an eight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Overall, the Dell G7 17 is a sufficiently performing gaming laptop, although it doesn’t top the performance charts, it will let you play almost any game on high settings. Besides, it has an impressive battery life even for a 17-inch gaming laptop.

On the other hand, the build quality is not impressive mainly because its chassis is made of plastic. Above all, the biggest drawback of the Dell G7 17 is its weight – the laptop is slightly heavy.

Therefore, the laptop is recommended for home gamers rather than gamers who are constantly on the move.

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