During the time since I used a ‘gaming laptop’ last, the complexion of the market — the devices and their users alike — has changed quite drastically. My 2011 Dell XPS 15-L502X was less of a gaming laptop in the modern sense than simply a laptop that could play games fairly well.
Today’s gaming laptops feature souped-up specs, bold design language, sharp model names (Katana, Razer and whatnot), and a surfeit of RGB lighting. In contrast, my humble XPS 15 from the days far back looked, for all intents and purposes, like a regular work laptop with a subtle branding.
Today, I sit before the Dell G16-7630. A quick glance at the spec sheet shows a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13650HX processor, 16 GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, a 16-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600) screen with a 240Hz refresh rate, and 512 GB on the SSD. I was willing to overlook the latter details because it is a review unit after all.
If you were purchasing it and considering the gargantuan file size of most games, you’d most likely get at least a 1 TB internal SSD and use some external drives if required. The price of the G16 starts at Rs 1,70,789.99.
First impressions
The G16 instantly gives off the aura that it means business. From the very first time you lay eyes on its stark design — sharp corners, straight lines and nary curves in sight — to the satisfying heft of the screen when lifting and shutting it, it’s very clear that this laptop isn’t messing around.
The G series, it could be argued, is a budget (relatively speaking) take on the more advanced (and naturally, more expensive) Alienware m and Alienware x counterparts, and so one of the first thoughts that came to mind was what omissions does the lower price bring? At first glance, it’s the hard plastic chassis of the G16 that looks like an area where a cutback has been made. For reference, the m16 has an anodised aluminium chassis.
Further, the G16 is also without the backlit LED logo on the lid and the light ring that surrounds the m16’s rear vents. In their stead is a simple Dell logo on the lid and subtle G branding on the rear vent. And, in case the lights are a dealbreaker for you, lifting the lid — a reassuringly single-finger exercise — reveals the keyboard with its customisable RGB backlights. The best way I can describe this laptop’s dual identity is a case of business up front, party on the inside.
One thing you’ll definitely notice upon popping the lid open is the massive air intake vents north of the keyboard, and the oddly tiny trackpad to the south of it. Perhaps it’s a case of being spoilt by large and luxurious MacBook trackpads, but the one on the G16 definitely looked tiny. Moving on, the boot time (at least at this early stage) was pretty swift. My issue with Windows PCs and laptops has always been the steadily increasing boot times, but it’s far too early to make a comment on that vis-à-vis this device.
Take a look around the G16 and you’ll find sprinkled across the sides and rear a 3.5-mm headset port, an ethernet port, three USB 3.2 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with DisplayPort. Having the power cable plugged into the rear of the laptop is a great way to keep messy cables and chunky bricks out of the way. The review unit I received was bundled with a monster 330W charging brick and a 180W one. Weighing just over 1.2 kg and just under 500 grams respectively, the choice of which brick to carry with me was always going to be an easy one.
Once booted and ready, you are greeted by a cursor that moves as smoothly as anything you’ve ever seen on a computer screen — a wonderfully large screen, at that. Scrolling through websites is a similar experience, and it’s taken me great reserves of restraint to keep from describing proceedings as “buttery smooth”. But you get the idea.
A day in the life of the G16
Over the course of my fortnight testing this laptop, I spent a vast majority of my time playing three games: Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077 and quirky indie Nour: Play With Your Food. And for that duration, I also used the G16 as my daily driver. Here then was my experience with the laptop on a typical day.
7 am: The first change to my daily routine would come in the form of having to amend my usual practice of walking around with my laptop and checking my overnight mail. With a weight of slightly below 3 kg and a rather bulky exterior, the G16 isn’t the most practical device to use while walking around. No matter, I was able to conduct business just as efficiently sitting down. Further, the added real estate provided by the shift from a 13-inch to 16-inch screen is not to be scoffed at. I found myself able to multitask efficiently.
9 am: On Zoom calls, PowerPoint presentations and Word documents, the laptop performs as you’d expect. Quickly transitioning from one app to another, past other windows including Steam and an Edge browser is par for the course. Quite honestly, I would’ve been shocked if a gaming laptop couldn’t handle these basic functions. In the interest of time, I’ll draw a line under this aspect and state unequivocally that the G16 handles mundane daily tasks rather exemplarily.
10.30 am: Hitting the road with this laptop is a decidedly different experience, with the G16 and smaller charger brick adding nearly 3.5 kg to my backpack. Over time, this begins to take quite a toll on the shoulders, so I had to make sure to put it down from time to time. The need to keep the charger plugged in was another new logistical development I had to take into consideration, and so positioning myself too far from a plug point was out of the question. For non-gaming or video/photo editing purposes, the G16 is perfectly usable on battery, but it will run out a lot sooner than you’d hope. I managed an average of two-and-a-half hours of battery life, which is disappointing.
11.15 am: Plugged back in and quite expectedly things take a turn for the better, especially with gaming back on the table. And it lends further credence to the idea that this laptop is best understood as a portable desktop computer. I fired up Starfield, where a spot of corporate espionage awaited me. As noted in my review of the game, the variety of graphic options on offer allowed me to find one that best suited my need: The medium setting, which gave me a frame rate of 40 fps and reasonably decent visuals.
I’d alluded earlier to the fact that the G series is a budget equivalent of Alienware’s m and x lines of laptops, and that I would be keen to see where cutbacks had been made. I’m pleased to report that one area where cutbacks seem most unlikely to have been made is in the cooling department. The G16 has vents at the rear and the side, and an effective enough fan and heat-sink assembly to keep the machine from heating up.
My only quibble at this point was the repeated instances of rubber-banding I experienced over the course of my time playing Starfield. For the uninitiated, rubber-banding refers to a phenomenon wherein the game freezes very briefly and then zooms forward to catch you up to where you should be. It seemed quite strange considering how well the CPU and GPU seemed to be handling the game otherwise.
3 pm: Post-lunch and bringing the laptop back to life from sleep mode is a cinch, and it barely takes a few seconds. With some writing to do, I had a chance to give the colourful keyboard a bit of a workout. Fortunately, there’s more to the keyboard than multi-coloured backlighting. Typing feels satisfying, because while the keys aren’t clicky by any means, they aren’t silent either. Coupled with the perfect travel distance for your fingers when clicking a key, this is a very good keyboard. The less said about the tiny trackpad the better though, and I quickly switched to a Bluetooth mouse.
5.40 pm: Realisation has dawned that Cyberpunk 2077’s long-awaited 2.0 update is available and downloaded. A brief session of throwing beautifully-rendered food around, setting it aflame and then freezing it, and starting over in Nour: Play With Your Food comes to an abrupt end. The acid test awaits, after all. And for the most part, the i7 chip in tandem with the 4060 GPU does a competent job handling CD Projekt Red’s second attempt at Cyberpunk.
Naturally, I steered clear of the Ultra settings, preferring instead to use the medium setting on regular mode and the low setting on ray tracing mode. Not only was I able to extract a healthy framerate in the 40s, I was also able to appreciate the beauty of my surroundings with graphical quality largely uncompromised. To my eye, anyway. Instances of rubber-banding were extremely rare on Cyberpunk, but I did experience a few frame rate drops. And I don’t mean a couple of frames here and there; I’m talking about an off-the-cliff drop to the 10 or 12 fps before stabilising and returning to normal. Through it all though, the fans silently went about their work and the laptop only got very mildly warm.
9.10 pm: With the day behind me, it was time to unwind with some passive entertainment. And to no one’s surprise, streaming services were handled very well by the G16. Aside from seamlessly playing the videos, the colours were vibrant, the picture was crisp and there wasn’t an artifact or bit of noise in sight. However, while at night, the screen was adequately bright, its 300 nits did fall a bit short during the day, particularly in rooms exposed to direct sunlight. A word too for the speakers: While loud enough and boasting serviceable sound, I found them to be on the slightly tinnier side, and this is exacerbated if you turn the volume high.
Verdict
At the end of the day, while not as flashy as the 4080 or 4090, the 4060 remains a capable GPU. That NVIDIA’s XX60 cards tend to be the biggest sellers worldwide is testament to their overall ability. They aren’t going to blow minds, but they get the job done. The G16 is much like that. It does a lot of important things well — like the cooling, the build quality and the chipset, even if it can do better on a handful of smaller things — battery life, speakers and screen brightness.
If you’re in the market for a mid-range gaming laptop, you might find cheaper ones or those with a more powerful chipset. However, if you want a largely solid machine that ticks most boxes, the G16 may well be the laptop for you.
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