Dell G5 Series 15 5587 15.6" Full HD IPS Gaming Notebook Computer, Intel Core i7-8750H 2.2GHz, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, Windows 10 Home

2019-10-28T20:00:00

For the price, this is a great laptop. It's sturdy, and generally speaking runs fine. I expect it to last quite a while. Design-wise, the bezels are super thick, but that's probably not a surprise when you're buying this laptop given that you have pictures everywhere. Previous to buying this laptop, I thoroughly looked through several dozens of other (mostly gaming and performance) laptops before deciding on this one. My main focus was on power, good lighting, matte finish, overall build quality, with a secondary priority on battery life, and speaker quality. When I was buying this laptop, I had narrowed my choice down to another laptop (let's call it laptop #2), and this Dell G5 (Mine is GTX 1060 MaxQ, 1TB HDD, 256GB SSD, 8th Gen Intel i7, as it came when I bought it almost a year ago, some of these specs are older gen compared to what you would buy now), I ended up going with the G5, based on minor nit-picky details (I think mainly for thermal reasons), though they're both pretty equal in status. Somehow, through the +50 laptops I looked through and researched, I saw (let's call it:) laptop #3 that slipped under the radar, and looking back that is definitely the laptop I would've gotten instead, due to that company's higher reliability (as you'll see in the rest of this review). Overall, I'm fairly happy with this laptop. Gaming Performance: I run GTA V on medium high settings with about 40-45 fps when I'm in Los Santos city (turning down grass detail settings improves FPS btw, it has basically zero visual effect, but a massive effect on FPS), and on many other games such as Just Cause 3 I get consistent 60 fps, which I set as a cap in Nvidia settings to improve thermals, since the computer has a 60 Hz display anyways. I remember before turning off this cap, I got over 200 fps with Modern Warfare 2. Old game, but gives you an idea of its power. Also, on high settings, in major cities I get 15 fps on Microsoft Flight Simulator X, which if you are unaware is very impressive (this is probably the world's least optimized game). There are several issues I have with my experience with the laptop however. I genuinely recommend reading through all of this if you are planning on buying this laptop. Starting with the more mild complaints: This computer pretty much checked all the boxes I mentioned above, with an asterisk. While being decent quality, the speakers are fairly quiet (unless you're in a quiet room). I sometimes find myself F12-ing and using the commands to put higher volume on YouTube videos when I don't have my earphones plugged in and the video is a bit quieter, and I'm not in a really quiet setting. Another problem was that, while the battery life is okay, the GPU is essentially useless when not charging; games run pretty much as if the graphics card isn't there, and by default, active cooling (i.e. fan) is disabled when running on battery. The computer seems to not like it when I change the setting in Windows (talking about Control Panel\System and Security\Power Options\Change Advanced Power Settings), or other performance settings, such as CPU limits, etc. I don't remember the details, since it was a while ago when I was playing with that stuff, but I've resorted to just using default windows/Dell performance settings because that gets rid of any errors and problems that tend to arise for no apparent reason. A couple other minor issues that I should quickly mention are: (1) pointy corners (which can be annoying sometimes, not always) (2) the mouse pad being off to the left side (which can be EXTREMELY annoying depending on how raised your laptop is to your arms. It can be very easy to press on stuff and move the mouse unintentionally when typing, and sometimes can get really annoying, and even leading to cut-out/moved words while typing essays, which you can easily miss). Major complaints: This computer also has a few serious flaws that are extremely annoying, both related directly to performance. Updates: Every...single..time there is an update of any kind, the computer will completely lock up. And I mean, like the mouse pointer dragging along at 4 fps against the screen. And when I mean update, I mean anything as simple as the 3-times-a-week that Windows has a security update. If its not that, then it's some an Dell update, or occasionally even Intel update; or if the problem is only with games, generally it's an Nvidia update, though the Nvidia ones aren't so common and I imagine that might apply to any computer running Nvidia cards. The updating issue not only causes lag, but often the computer become very hot. If something says it's up to date, "check for update" anyways, because it start to lag and stutter the second there's an update even if the computer hasn't checked for one in an hour. Every time you get an update the fans forget how to work and behave inconsistently, which I think is part of the reason it heats up when you need to update. HDMI: Another problem that the computer has is that the HDMI is borderline unusable. If you plug in HDMI, the computer will run at 5 fps until you unplug it. I've been told by someone who is particularly fluent in circuitry that this is a motherboard issue and that a whole supply chain for this laptop is likely to have this same issue. Thermals: a few months back Dell finally updated the BIOS to support thermals customization (luckily, this was only a couple months after I bought the laptop, some people were stuck with this issue for years). unfortunately, this does not help much. Why? Because instead of allowing you to really modify the thermals, at all, it really gives you 4 different settings under Dell Power Manager, all of which are honestly pretty similar (too similar). The reason this matters is that this computer tends to run a bit hot (generally idling around 45-60 C when not running anything, 40 C at the lowest), so I want to keep the laptop thermal settings to cool. This is one of the settings under the Dell Power Manager, but honestly the "Cool" setting should really be the more moderate or aggressive setting. The fan curve is really bad, and a simple fan curve improvement would massively reduce the running temperature of the laptop, cause sometimes they won't be on at all when they really should be, even on "Cool" setting. --------------------------------------------- Conclusion: So-called "Laptop #3" does not have many of these problems that the Dell G5 has, to my knowledge, but is very similar otherwise, in terms of specs and price. Overall, the Dell G5 is good as long as you constantly manually update everything. Coming from both my own a experience, and the experience of many other people, from what I've seen and been told, Dell isn't the absolute best option, but this is definitely in my top 2/3 (tied) options. I cannot list the name of the laptop that I think is better, but overall I would recommend this, as long as you can bear with this computer's flaws.

WheatleyOS

Originally posted at

2019-10-12T20:00:00

Well the Dell Tech was to fix my problem of Fan Noise decided to just turn the fan down..and the overheating want affect your performance too much....YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING......after he ran all the diagnostics and repairs Now my sign in Pin is changed....Cant connect to internet...... shows unknown error..... HOW DISAPPOINTING in a Laptop and Tech Support Here is the first review ????? ?????1 out of 5 stars. · 19 days ago Very Disappointing I bought this because it was a "Dell" but I should have read the other reviews. Fan Noise so load you can hear the speakers, or do your work. Has SSD but still slow, How could this leave the factory. Updated Bios but no change, still terrible... So Disappointing looks like its back to Toshiba. Duration of product use 1-2 months What is your level of experience? Expert ? No, I do not recommend this product.

Tracy H.

Originally posted at

2019-09-23T20:00:00

I bought this because it was a "Dell" but I should have read the other reviews. Fan Noise so load you can hear the speakers, or do your work. Has SSD but still slow, How could this leave the factory. Updated Bios but no change, still terrible... So Disappointing looks like its back to Toshiba.

Hudson

Originally posted at

2019-08-28T20:00:00

Every thing went smooth. I had a smooth experience setting up the computer. the only problem I faced when trying to make recovery drive on a 16 GB flash drive. Using 32 GB flash drive, the process went well. I have a message telling me that windows fire wall is off but it is truly on when checking the security settings

Joe

Originally posted at

2019-08-22T20:00:00

when my PC freezes not even Ctrl Alt Delete helps. Only closing the lid helps to unfreeze it. This is happening at least once a day and sometimes even more often. This is very disappointing

Antagonist

Originally posted at

2019-08-21T20:00:00

Second system in a week, same problem. Works ok and then system needs to reformat and reinstall. Unreliable!

andyh

Originally posted at

2019-08-19T20:00:00

the laptops nice for gaming and has awesome graphics! But literally from the moment I opened it up its been having technical issues. Screen freezes and the mouse lags horribly. Sometimes when the pc starts up it won't let me sign in. And when I have the windows menu open and a tab in the back open some pixels across the screen go black. I thought about returning it but college already started and I really need it now.

rojo

Originally posted at

2019-08-15T20:00:00

the performance is very good and price for value . the external material has great touch but it suffer from fingerprinting . I wish the battery could be removable.

hamada

Originally posted at

2019-08-15T20:00:00

brand new pc I have done nothing but the standard updates the drivers for sound stop working so I delete them and reinstall it works I get another update or something and it breaks again google tells me this is not an isolated issue with this model.

mjz

Originally posted at

2019-08-13T20:00:00

Well, I'm from latam but I can say that buying this laptop was the best decision I could do.

Arpal

Originally posted at

2019-08-12T20:00:00

I purchased this laptop to replace an old Windows 7 laptop that had seen better days. The old laptop didn't have what it takes to run Windows 10. My new Dell boots much faster and is more stable. I can't speak to it's gaming abilities as I'm just a casual gamer (solitaire, puzzle games, etc.) but so far, I'm very happy with it.

Beth

Originally posted at

2019-08-11T20:00:00

This laptop is great and all but once it reaches 3 - 4 months this laptop will start overclocking so the fps will start reducing

Snyj

Originally posted at

2019-08-10T20:00:00

Everything is working quite well. My x-plane simulator is working great and I'm now experimenting with moving items to the D data drive. May consider expanding ram and SSD. Already had the back off, but didn't touch anything.

ionish

Originally posted at

2019-08-09T20:00:00

I like my new Laptop , I do not use it a lot in gaming but mostly for design . it is very powerful and run perfectly

fernando

Originally posted at

2019-08-09T20:00:00

I love this laptop. The only thing I wish I would have known is that the video card isn't as up to par to play newer online games.

Anonymous

Originally posted at

2019-08-09T20:00:00

Wow, nice laptop. Keyboard travel could be a lot better. Option to change color of backlight.

Akash

Originally posted at

2019-08-09T20:00:00

So far, it has been one week and I like the computer, although I much prefer Windows 7 to Windows 10. The only negative thing I have encountered is that videos seem to be stretched vertically and they are very dark compared to what they were previously using the same camera and lighting set-up on my old computer. I don't like this and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know what's causing it. However, this Dell computer has fast processing speed and seems to boot up and load web pages quickly. Pictures and videos are crisp and clear, although dark. This is much improved over what we were using, with the exception of the stretching and darkness of videos.

Ann

Originally posted at

2019-08-07T20:00:00

I received this for my birthday in march, and I must say that the performance of this laptop has consistently been great - have never been let down. I can play shooters at a decent framerates on high quality settings. Thanks to the M.2 SSD, bootup times are quick and the 1TB HDD is good enough to store programs and games. The i5 is great for day-to-day tasks and load-up times are great. As a student programmer, I have found compiling speeds to be good. The backlit keyboard is a bonus as well. It would be great if the keyboard travel could be reduced ever so slightly but I'm not terribly bothered. The battery life is also great, but at this rate, anything is an improvement over that of my old laptop! As for the design of the laptop itself, some argue that it isn't flashy enough and lacks personality. I have always liked the idea of owning a gaming laptop but I am not a massive fan of the excessive RGB features on other devices - so this is great for me. The red trim is subtle and accents the (forgive me bland appearance of the laptop. The display, alas, is quite lacklustre. Whilst I can live with it considering the improvement over that of my old PC, its max brightness is not very... well... bright, at 247 nits. I'm not going to complain too much. And there is too much flux in the screen and the bezel. This laptop also has a nice selection of ports and hasn't joined forces with other manufacturers who are starting to cut down on USB type A ports, replacing them with USB-C. Whilst I am a fan of USB-C, my mice aren't yet compatible. One thing to also note is the weight of the laptop - it's quite heavy, not a very practical work device if one finds oneself needing to carry it around quite a lot. It's a gaming laptop though, so I'm not complaining.

LouisP03

Originally posted at

2019-08-02T20:00:00

I got this new G5 and its REALLY REALLY GOOD. The graphics, Display, etc. I TOTALLY recommend this if you're looking for low budget laptops

Yeetus

Originally posted at

2019-08-01T20:00:00

So I can't make any huge declarations but it's been speedy and reliable so far. I purchased this for both business and for pleasure and it's been meeting expectations.

Miranda

Originally posted at

2019-08-01T20:00:00

bought this computer on sale and I have to say im wonderfully surprised with my new notebook. only con I have is theres no way to access the BIOS fort overclocking but other than that im really enjoying my new laptop

todd

Originally posted at

2019-08-01T20:00:00

some keys in the keyboard are exchanged as an example when I press (shift 2) it types " instead of @ and vise versa , either than that it's an incredible laptop , thank you

Hatem K.

Originally posted at

2019-07-31T20:00:00

Having a good time with this really fast computer. Trying to get used to Windows 10, but I'll survive. Fast, lots of storage. Just taking time to move all my files over from my Win 7 system.

Bookemd52

Originally posted at

2019-07-30T20:00:00

computer came nearly unusable out of the box. Took days with support team to fix and get it running right.

big c.

Originally posted at

2019-07-20T20:00:00

Superb build quality and style. Performance is well above expected for the price point

TheChad

Originally posted at

2019-07-13T20:00:00

I bought this for my daughter unless you are running a program that chooses or allows you to choose it will run on built in intel video card IE Graphics and shading suck!!!!! You can not force it to work. And you wont even know unless you know how to look for it!

ripped o.

Originally posted at

2019-07-07T20:00:00

My experience about this machine is very good . Its performance is top notch . But it has overheating issues . Laptop got heated while plugged in and doing normal stuff but while playing games it get very much heated.

Mian333

Originally posted at

2019-07-03T20:00:00

Hardly used this laptop as I am waiting for a new keyboard, laptop cooler, and headset to arrive. I planned to take care of this laptop, but I guess that may never even happen. Today the laptop started to experience a 5 second freeze when I'm just moving the mouse around the screen. This is like my 4th or 5th time using this laptop. I ran a diagonos

Anonymous

Originally posted at

2019-06-29T20:00:00

processor speed is ultimate.....whatever things are inputed ..those are at peaks

mithun

Originally posted at

2019-06-20T20:00:00

its very hot in games in high resolution and its temperature goes very high and need a separate fan . but if don't count this , its amazing for me . thanks

masoud

Originally posted at