Our Review: Dell G5 15 5590
The Dell G5 15 5590 is quite a handful. Its physical features are imposing; a 15.6-inch screen, 8.58 pounds of bulk, and a look that says give me your best shot. This rugged streak extends from chassis to hardware as well. There is a powerful 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor, a tough-as-nails NVIDIA GTX 1750 Ti graphics card, and plenty of memory to boot.
Primarily known as a gaming laptop, it delivers exceptional returns in its high-powered performances, brilliant displays, and the best of all, an incredible battery staying power, all at an amazing price too.
Design and Appearance
Gaming laptops seem to have a new fondness for exteriors of a plastic build, and the Dell G5 15 prides itself as one of those laptops to tow this path.
The chassis is predominantly made from plastic, except for the upper side of the lid that features a metallic fix. This laptop does not attempt to be svelte or elegant, it sports a stack of ridges on both ends of the rear edge that gives it a rugged edge. As for the interior, its black color is accentuated by a blue tinge that serves up a visually striking showcase.
A litter of vents surrounds the sides and edges of this laptop, with a few at the rear, opening slightly to give subtle hints of what lies inside the laptop. As for the hinge, it is a long strip of shiny metal that stretches across the base of the screen, it is very nearly rigid, and there is a little bit of flex observed when the display is flipped open.
Ports and Connections
The ports, with their blue-colored accent, work their way around both side edges of the laptop and still find their way to the rear edge of the laptop. This helps to free up usable space in front, as it means there are lesser wires and cords in your way to worry about. The side edges accommodate two USB 3.1 ports, a USB 2.0 port, and the Thunderbolt 3 which is capable of 40 Gbps transfer speeds, while still serving as a source of connection to external display monitors in 4K or 5K resolution.
At the rear edge, there’s an HDMI 2.0 input, a third USB 3.1 port, an RJ45 Ethernet port, and a lock slot.
For connection, the optional 2×2 Wi-Fi antennas enable steady and enhanced Wi-Fi connectivity for anyone that plugs in.
Keyboard and Input Devices
Barring the fancy backlight, the keyboard looks like your typical workplace grab, with its numeric keypads and well-spaced, island-style keys.
But this is a gaming laptop, so we get a gamey keyboard with the full complement of RGB (for higher configurations) backlight that is all the rage among most modern gaming rigs. The keys are not particularly large, the feedback is tactile, and the travel distance is decent.
The touchpad is equally impressive, it takes a spot that is closer to the left edge than to the right of the keyboard deck. Its surface is rendered with a material smoothness as of plastic. The click is firm, feedback and travel are decent while the blue backlight highlights its borders.
Display
If you’re involved in creating graphic and visual content, you’ll be fairly satisfied with the quality of the display on offer, but you probably won’t find this LCD panel to be particularly stunning. There is better color reproduction, and the viewing angles are wider, but extensive coverage of the RBG wide color gamut is lacking. However, the display is just fine for regular usage. The Full HD gives you vibrant and bright pictures with larger viewing angles, you do not have to look dead center at the screen to get a clear picture of what is in front.
And with a refresh rate of 144Hz on a 15.6″ screen, the G5 15 has banished the ghosts of the previous lower-tier models, the lagtimes and the irritable screen blurring have been drastically reduced.
And if you take your laptop outdoors, the matte-finish on the screen features an anti-glare provision that will make for enhanced visibility in places most exposed to sunlight.
Audio
The audio from the built-in dual speakers is neither here nor there. There are impressive volume levels, but it smacks of empty barrels, the bass is not deep and the midrange is stuck in the middle of nowhere. The Nahimic Sound Center steps in with its provision for user-defined customization and sound control to save the day, to little avail.
Admittedly, the music will sound much better and the in-game visual sound is richer, but it can only do so much.
It is best to stick to external sound systems and headphones to get the best listening experience.
Graphics
The Dell G5 15 is shipped in a variety of graphic configurations, the older NVIDIA GTX 1050 will be just enough for light-duty graphic work and the occasional gaming. But the options here range from the budget GTX 1050 Ti to the high-end RTX 2080 Max-Q. The review model comes with the NVIDIA GTX 1650 Ti, a slight upgrade on the 1650. It sits comfortably on the medium-end spectrum perch of graphics, but it is capable of delivering top-drawer performances with some little help.
Its powerful core streaming multiprocessor and GPU Boost overclocking feature can push it beyond its base clock speeds during some graphic-demanding tasks like gaming and video editing. While the frame rates can cross the 60fps threshold, albeit with great effort, for a considerable number of medium to high-end games at 1920×1080 pixels resolution.
Gaming
The Dell G5 15 is not a gaming monster, but it still lives up to its billing as a gaming laptop. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics card is one in a long line of GPU configurations that you can choose from to deliver an enjoyable gaming experience. But if your pockets are not deep, this review GPU comes highly recommended.
The 144Hz refresh rates make for uninterrupted and flicker-free gaming, and the Full HD display packs in vivid and acute bursts of color and pixels to make gaming more realistic.
The G5 15 comes with some little props, you can tailor the hardware to be game-specific and user-defined. This implies that you can roll at your own pace when you are making a run for the most demanding games.
The Rise of the Tomb Raider; a big hitter in its own right can be played at a steady 31 frames per second on Very High graphics settings. Games in the lower leagues can smoothly be run at the native resolution-1920×1080 pixels, and at frame rates exceeding 60fps.
Battery
The battery life on this laptop is the pick of the litter. Its staying power is nothing short of remarkable. And to think that it is a gaming laptop, the figures it posts as runtimes are particularly impressive.
Its idle time is around 14.5 hours, video playback pegs it back to about 10 hours while for 3D applications and gaming, it is further brought down by half.
Cooling
The fans in this laptop are largely well behaved, they only ever spin at fever pitch when the load from GPU activity is at the threshold. Regular system tasks like web browsing and video playback will not as much as scratch the surface, it is the heavy lifting that provokes an immediate and noisy reaction from them. Fan noise can reach 53 dB(A) at worst, but fan pulsation is hardly palpable. Dell employs an innovative dual-fan cooling system to help maintain a tolerable temperature under the hood of this laptop. The advanced thermal design serves effectively to drive away the heat.
Performance
Whether you are throwing rapid-fire on Battlefield V or playing with colors and shades on Adobe Photoshop, this laptop, with its core i7-9760H CPU has got you covered.
You can do the aforementioned tasks while switching across a load of Chrome tabs, and the CPU will not give the slightest hint of burnout.
Its six-core, 4.5GHz peak speed processor build can flat out breeze through everyday tasks like multimedia streaming, word processing, and web browsing. And it does not shy away from the occasional heavy lifting. It is ninth-generation Intel technology, and it still does not draw up huge battery power even on full steam.
Final Verdict
The Dell G5 15 is the go-to midrange laptop for gamers who do not have sky-high expectations but are comfortable with brilliant displays and an enduring battery.
It is a little on the heavy side, but it is loaded with the perfect combination of hardware and software. The CPU is a ninth-generation round-the-clock workhorse, and the GPU is a big hit at the peak of its powers, while the battery is the winner.
It is in the little details that this laptop falls short, the jagged-looking chassis, the grossly inadequate speakers, and the fan noise at high-performance operation.
Device Specifications
Processor
Intel 9th Gen Core i7-9750H (2.6 GHz)
RAM
16 GB
Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti
Storage
512 GB
Display
15.6 inches
Operating System
Windows 10 Home
Battery Life
10 hours
Weight
8.58 lbs