Add an impressive battery life to the mix, and you’ve got a no-thrills gaming laptop that gets the job done to a satisfying standard. If you’re not fussed about RGB lights and skinny bezels, and just want a laptop that can play your entire Steam library in Full HD, then you’ll struggle to find a better value gaming laptop than the Dell G5. Verdict

On the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark, the Dell G5 15 SE got 56 fps, which didn't make it past the 62-fps category average (it once again flew by the 45-fps budget gaming average). The Omen 15 (60 fps) and Legion Y545 (62 fps) did slightly better, while the Zephyrus G14 (115 fps) excelled. Meanwhile, read and write speeds are a little sluggish, coming in at 549MB/sec and 260MB/sec respectively. This means that the Dell G5 might be slow reading data compared to other gaming laptops – but for the price, you can’t feel too hard done by. The 128GB SSD and 1TB SATA storage at least mean you’ll be able to install a generous number of games before having to go on a Steam cull. The Dell laptop does what it's supposed to do: It runs all the games that are found in our database smoothly. The combination of the Core i7-8750Hprocessor and the GeForce RTX 2060 graphics unit will make sure of this for the next years coming. Should the GPU no longer be able to meet the requirements, the possibility of using an external GPU through the Thunderbolt 3 port is available. On the plus side, the Dell G5 15 SE's battery life is fantastic for a gaming laptop. While other gaming laptops are dying out before they even finish a movie on Netflix, this one will keep on keeping on for several hours of video or everyday, general use. You can even get a few hours of moderate gaming out of it if you keep your settings tuned for battery life or balance rather than going all-in on performance.These flaws are forgivable, though, especially when you consider how cheap the Dell G5 is compared to rival machines that offer similar performance. I failed to find a AAA game that would bring this machine to its knees when played in Full HD with optimum graphics settings. That's not to say its all junk, though. The pre-installed Alienware Command Center software gives you the ability to customize the keyboard lighting, fine tune the system's performance for specific games, and look over various system statistics, which is genuinely useful. In terms of colour accuracy, the G5 was once again far from the required standard with a sRGB colour gamut of 54.8%. This isn’t a huge issue for gaming, but it does mean that the G5 is a poor option if you’re intending to use it for design work. Graphics wise, we’re talking Nvidia RTX 2060, which is the entry-level GPU in Nvidia’s latest ray-tracing capable Turing generation of graphics chips, but very powerful in outright terms. It’s paired with a 15.6-inch 1080p display based on IPS panel technology. Dell optionally offers 144Hz refresh support, but our review rig is limited to 60Hz.

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest, 1080p), the Dell G5 15 SE averaged 45 fps, falling short of the 47-fps mainstream gaming laptop average (beating the 42-fps budget gaming average). It matched the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti in the Omen 15 (45 fps), while the RTX 2060 GPU in Zephyrus G14 nailed 49 fps and the Legion Y545’s own GTX 1660 Ti got 50 fps.When it comes to the Dell G5 15 SE's design, the silvery plastic chassis and prismatic Dell logo on the lid makes it look something like the hood of a car. The best thing that can be said of the design is that it's a gaming laptop that isn't trying to look like a modern stealth aircraft. The 3DMark: Fire Strike benchmark results show that the Dell G5 is much more competitive with its GPU performance. A 9569 score isn’t significantly behind the Asus ROG Strix GL504 Hero II’s result of 10,115. This isn’t too surprising: this Dell G5 houses Nvidia’s GTX 1060 GPU. As I stealthily approached the Militarized Temple of Megara in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, I was surrounded by lush shrubbery accompanied by bright yellow flowers that popped on the display. When crawling my way through a Leader House in the dead of night, I spotted the telltale gear of a Captain in the distance. And when cranking down the game to its lowest settings, I experienced the silky smooth 144Hz refresh rate in action as I cut down my enemies. You’ll also find a fingerprint sensor on the power button, so you can sign in via Windows Hello without having to type a passcode. The port count is another highlight. With three USB A ports, a USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 port, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort, LAN and an SD card reader, you really do have all your bases covered. It’s also worth noting that most of these ports plus the power connector are at the rear of the chassis, ensuring a minimum of cable clutter. Specs appeal