Dell G16 (7620) Review | PCMag

Starting at $1,339.99, and with our test configuration coming in at $1,499.99, the Dell G16 is in a middle ground between budget gaming laptops and mainstream gaming rigs. It shows a few cost-cutting traits, such as an aluminum lid but a plastic palm rest and bottom, one-at-a-time keyboard backlight colors instead of multiple zones or per-key RGB lighting, and Wi-Fi 6 instead of 6E. But though it doesn't join our short list of favorite gaming notebooks, the Dell G16 puts up ample performance for the price and deserves consideration from value-conscious shoppers.

Joining the Growing Ranks of 16-Inch Gamers 

Dell's $1,339.99 base model of the G16 (model number 7620) combines an Intel Core i7-12700H processor (six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 20 threads), 16GB of memory, a 512GB NVMe solid-state drive, and a 16-inch, 2,560-by-1,600-pixel display with 165Hz refresh rate backed by Nvidia's 4GB GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

For $160 more, our test unit is identical except for 6GB GeForce RTX 3060 graphics and a USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 port not found on RTX 3050 Ti models. Heat seekers can opt for a Core i9-12900H CPU and Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti, as well as hiking RAM capacity and SSD space to 32GB and 1TB, respectively. Dell's website promises a low-profile Cherry MX keyboard as a future option.

Clad in what Dell calls Obsidian Black, the G16 is thicker and slightly heavier than other 16-inch gaming notebooks—1.06 by 14.1 by 10.7 inches and 5.6 pounds, not counting its hefty AC adapter. The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Gen 7 is 0.78 by 14.2 by 10.3 inches and 5.49 pounds; meanwhile, the HP Victus 16 is 0.93 by 14.6 by 10.2 inches and 5.44 pounds.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Dell's screen bezels are medium-thin, and the screen flexes a lot if you grasp its corners. Like many gaming laptops, the G16 has neither a fingerprint reader nor a face recognition webcam, so there's no way to avoid typing passwords with Windows Hello. Top-row keys, like Escape and Delete, are puny; they include five macro keys and a Game Shift key (F9) that activates an ultra-loud cooling-fan mode that may gain you a couple of extra frames per second. (We used it for our benchmark tests excepting the battery-life rundown.)

On the laptop's left side, you'll find Ethernet and audio jacks. Two USB 3.2 Type-A ports are on the right.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Around back are a third USB-A 3.2 port, the Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI video output, and the power connector.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Reasonable, But Unexceptional, Features 

Dell's bottom-mounted speakers pump out fairly loud and enjoyable audio. The sound isn't tinny or harsh at high volumes, though it's two-dimensional—I can't make out overlapping tracks audible on other laptops—and hardly any bass is audible. The 720p webcam is a letdown; images aren't too dark but are blurry and blotchy with considerable noise and static.

This laptop's one-zone backlit keyboard has a somewhat hollow and heavy (but not uncomfortable) typing feel. Dedicated Home and End keys are thankfully included here, but Page Up and Page Down require teaming the Fn key with the up and down cursor arrows. Oddly, most top-row keys, such as the screen brightness controls, work fine while the Game Shift and keyboard backlight toggles occasionally go on strike, ignoring presses until I reboot and try again.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Dell's buttonless touchpad is rather small and has a stiff, heavy click. You can change backlight colors or rotations, as well as program macros, with the provided Alienware Command Center software. The utility shows CPU and GPU temperature and lets you assign thermal and performance modes to various titles in your game library, but I find it unintuitive and awkward to use.

As has grown popular, the display features a slightly taller 16:10 rather than 16:9 aspect ratio. It's not particularly bright, and its colors aren't vivid, though they're reasonably rich, and contrast is decently deep. Viewing angles are broad, and fine details are reasonably sharp, though the edges of letters look pixelated if you zoom in on text.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Testing the Dell G16: Not an RTX 3070 Ti…But Not Bad 

For our benchmark charts, we compared the Dell G16 with three other mid-priced 16-inch gamers—the HP Victus 16 (starts at $649.99; $1,249.99 as tested), the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Gen 7 (starts at $1,439.99; $1,599.99 as tested), and the latter's Intel- rather than AMD-powered sibling the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 (starts at $1,779.99; about $1,999 as tested). The last slot went to a comparably equipped 15.6-inch laptop, the Acer Predator Helios 300 (starts at $1,199.99; $1,299.99 as tested). You can see their basic specs in the table below.

Productivity Tests 

Our main benchmark for PC testing, UL's PCMark 10, simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage. 

Three more benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). 

Our final productivity test is Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

Dell's G16 jockeys for position with the Legion 5i Pro in most of our performance benchmarks, breezing past the 4,000 points that indicate excellent everyday productivity in PCMark 10 (though it keeps flipping between Nvidia GPU and Optimus video modes during that test) as well as posting competitive CPU and Adobe Photoshop numbers. The Acer and HP bring up the rear. All signs here indicate reliable work performance, which is to be expected of a CPU and GPU of even this midrange category.

Graphics and Gaming Tests 

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

Cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering, helps us further measure systems' gaming prowess. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better. 

Our next three tests involve real games—specifically, the built-in 1080p benchmarks from a leading-edge title (Assassin's Creed Valhalla), a fast-paced esports shooter (Rainbow Six Siege), and a sports racing sim (F1 2021). We run each benchmark twice, using different image-quality presets for Valhalla and Rainbow and trying F1 with and without Nvidia's DLSS anti-aliasing technology.

The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPUs inside the two Lenovo laptops predictably outpace the RTX 3060 silicon of the others, though the G16 manages to lead the way in that second-place group. The Dell makes the most of its 165Hz display refresh rate in Rainbow Six Siege, and it easily exceeds the 60 frames per second (fps) with high image-quality settings that modern gamers desire. These tests suss out that the Dell G16 will excel at 1080p PC gaming for all but the most demanding games.

Battery and Display Tests 

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel(Opens in a new window)) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. 

Next, in order to test color accuracy, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show. We also use this toll to record its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

Disappointingly, the Dell places last in this lot in both battery life and peak screen brightness, though neither result is terrible for a mid-priced gaming rig. Ditto for its color reproduction, which more or less matches the other four systems as perfectly adequate, though not up to workstation or cinephile standards. All told, we generally don't look to gaming laptops for battery life, but the lacking screen brightness is a definite shortcoming.

Verdict: Playing Without Paying (Much) 

The Dell G16 isn't the fastest or most sophisticated gaming laptop we've seen, but it's a decent performer for the price. A better webcam and brighter screen would bump up our review rating, without doubt, while opting for the RTX 3070 Ti GPU would move it to the top rank of affordable gaming speedsters. That would perhaps even earn it an Editors' Choice award, but alas that's not the case here. Even as is, the Dell G16 is a fine example of today's 16-inch alternatives to traditional 15.6-inch gaming machines.