Dell - G7 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 - 256GB Solid State Drive - Licorice Black

The Dell G7 is the successor to the Inspiron 15 7000 series and does an excellent job at improving upon the previous design aesthetic while also delivering outstanding performance for the price. BUILD: In terms of the build and construction, the G7’s housing is primarily plastic, but has a rigidity that prevents it from feeling cheap. In terms of the aesthetic, Dell is going for a simpler, more elegant design that is unlike their Alienware series laptops. There’s very little about this laptop that screams “gamer”, and I certainly like that about it, as I’m not only just a gamer, but a software engineer. Laptops that one can use in professional situations as well as for gaming are becoming more popular nowadays, and Dell’s G7 is a solid response to that demand. But like any other laptop, I wouldn’t dare let this suffer a drop, as the build materials likely won’t prove to be resilient to abuse. DISPLAY: The 15” 1080p IPS display is quite good on the G7. My unit has the AUO63ED panel which people online have overclocked to 100Hz and beyond (albeit at risk of warranty). Other units have had an LG display which did not achieve such overclocks. The display is matte, so you won’t suffer from tons of reflectivity, and it gets decently bright for most situations. For gamers and typical users, you will enjoy using this display. KEYBOARD: The keyboard is one of the things about this laptop that is taking some getting used to. I’m personally accustomed to mechanical keyboards as well as chiclet keyboards. However, both other high-end laptops that I own have better key travel in my opinion, and that’s largely due to the wider spacing between the keys on the G7 as well as the minimal height on the keys. It’s not as though the G7’s keyboard is bad, but my fingers are certainly more accustomed to keys with closer travel and a slightly larger key height. The ones on the G7 are just a bit more recessed compared to what I’m used to. I do want to emphasize that these are observations and my opinions; your experience my differ from mine. Additionally, the keyboard is backlit (blue); I do wish it was white instead, as blue can be fatiguing over time, but I’m not sure if this minimal amount will result in any noticeable impact. When the backlight is on, it has two brightness modes, but there isn’t too much difference between them. The WASD keys also have blue squares around them when the keyboard is backlit, but it’s not something I noticed until just now. If they wanted it to stand out more, they should have opted for a different color like white. Another interesting note is that the keyboard backlight turns off after a minute, but will turn back on once a key is pressed. As far as I’ve seen, I don’t think there’s a way to configure this. If there was, I’d expect it to be in the UEFI/BIOS (F2 upon boot). TOUCHPAD: The G7 has a Precision Touchpad which is decently large and has good palm rejection, as well. From my usage, it’s quite responsive to gestures as well as general usage, otherwise. One thing that I don’t like as much is that there are no separate mouse left-click/right-click buttons. It’s not a big deal, but I came from another gaming laptop that had them. The G7, in contrast, has very clicky touchpad mouse buttons which some may enjoy, and others may not. If you have to work in a quiet environment, you will tapping to click instead of pressing in the integrated buttons. Other than these nitpicks, I do enjoy using the trackpad and the gestures within Windows 10. I/O: The G7 is equipped with some pretty standard I/O compared to most laptops in this price bracket and demographic. It has 3x USB-A 3.1, 1x USB-C 3.1 (with Thunderbolt), HDMI 2.0, a 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone combo jack, a full-size SD card slot, and an RJ45 gigabit ethernet port. I do wish some of these ports were located on the back, just below the hinge, but that kind of design hasn’t hit the mainstream yet. STORAGE: The model I have came equipped with a Toshiba KSG60ZM 256GB NVMe SSD which claims to support 1500 MB/s read and 760 MB/s write. If you’re used to hard drives, this will be a lovely change, but if you’re used to absolute top-tier NVMe SSD’s like I am, you may consider swapping it out. It does support both an m.2 SSD (SATA or PCIe NVMe), as well as a standard SATA 2.5” HDD/SSD. By default, this the G7 has RAID enabled in the BIOS to use the Intel Rapid Storage Technology NVMe controller drivers. If you decide to swap out this drive and use manufacturer drivers over AHCI mode, do a google search on "SOLUTION: Switch Windows 10 from RAID/IDE to AHCI operation". This will let you switch to AHCI without reinstalling windows. RAM: My unit came with 8GB of RAM in total (2x4GB DIMM). This is a bit underwhelming, especially given the horsepower this machine has, otherwise. I would have liked to see 16GB. But if this product is focused on gamers, then the 2x4GB dual-channel memory configuration may have a sizeable enough impact on framerate to justify this decision. Even so, I do think 16GB is a much better choice for individuals like myself who would like to use this computer as a mobile workstation for professional purposes. In the end, I may have to shell out the additional high cost and max this machine out with 2x16GB for a total of 32GB. CPU: The i7-8750H is overkill for most people, but I’m not most people. As a software engineer, I’ve been dying to have more cores in a laptop at this price and configuration. With a total of 12 logical threads, this laptop can do heavy multitasking like running a full suite of docker containers for an enterprise environment (assuming you have the RAM to match). If you’re a game streamer using OBS or similar software that relies on CPU, you may appreciate the extra cores; however, most games won’t benefit a whole lot from the additional cores. That may change in the future, but the majority of today’s titles won’t see improvement from the increase in core count. In general, expect solid multitasking performance. That being said, this CPU runs hot, and undervolting -0.125V using ThrottleStop or Intel XTU can achieve lower thermals—especially considering that the CPU and GPU expel hot air through the same heat pipe. Just keep in mind that undervolting is done at your own risk and is not supported by the manufacturer. GAMING: The G7 is equipped with an Nvidia GTX 1060 Max Q. This puts it between the performance of the GTX 1050 Ti and the GTX 1060. As someone who has a custom-built desktop that is much faster than the Dell G7 (but cost way more money to do so), The G7 is really an excellent value and delivers a gaming experience that I am very satisfied with. The Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark was able to pull 60+ fps while set to the Very High preset under DX12 with exclusive fullscreen, FXAA and Vsync off at 1080p. That being said, a more stable framerate with fewer skips can be easily obtained under the “High” preset or by making your own fine-tuned adjustments. Competitive eSports games will also hit well over the 60fps mark. When pushing the graphical limits, this laptop can get loud and can take some time to cooldown after a gaming session. Proper airflow/ventilation will be important in obtaining reasonable temperatures, and undervolting the CPU can also help improve this. SOUND: As far as the speakers are concerned, they’re decent. Definitely wish they had a subwoofer bass port to improve frequencies in that range, but that’s a sacrifice Dell chose to make in this design. That being said, I have used cheaper gaming laptops from 2017 which did have better bass response and got louder than the G7 while also maintaining clarity. I don’t think the G7 is disappointing on this front, but I'm also not wowed by their solution. Regardless, I'm happy enough with the solution. CONCLUSION: The G7 is an excellent deal with few compromises compared to other laptops in a similar price bracket. I’ve mostly nitpicked in this review, but despite its few minor flaws, it’s an excellent laptop; one that I’m glad to be using and wouldn’t have issues recommending for the price. In fact, I have just ordered an even faster NVMe SSD and 32GB to make the G7 my primary mobile workstation.

Dell has been in the PC market for years. And they tend to make good quality desktop and laptop PCs without needing to be overly flashy. I guess that makes them more suitable to people who prefer the utilitarian style. But because Dell has been in the PC market for so long, it’s difficult to figure out what exact type and model you’re getting. The model being reviewed here is a G7 Series 15 7588. It features an Intel Core i7 8750H processor that has 6 cores capable of 12 threads of execution. In layman terms, it means it can do more without bogging down your system. It has 8GB of RAM which should allow you to run several softwares at once. However, when it comes to gaming, more is usually better. 8GB is enough for most games today. Going forward, that may change. The 8GB of RAM is rated at DDR4 2666 or PC4 21300 and is preinstalled in 2x4GB. Upgrading the memory will mean purchasing a new set (in a pair) rather than a single. For storage, a 256GB SSD is installed using a M.2 interface. Dell’s support documentation list procedures for both M.2 and SATA drives but confusingly labels the 2.5” drive as hard drive and the M.2 as “Solid State Drive.” (Note: SSD can come in either 2.5” drive form factor using SATA interface or M.2 form factor.) The laptop features a 15.6 inch display with a 1920x1080 resolution on a IPS panel. That display is powered by both Intel’s integrated graphics and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060 “Max-Q” GPU. There is a dedicated 6GB of video memory which will allow the GPU to perform better without relying on system memory and its limited bandwidth. The performance review of the 1060 GPU will come shortly. On the audio side, it is powered by RealTek and has stereo speakers on the front side of the laptop. However, the laptop design itself is angled so the speakers are aimed downwards. Unfortunately, the speakers aren’t all that good and doesn’t have good range on them. They’re more on the high side and the bass/lows are very lacking. (Tested using a few Beatles songs and Luv(sic) Part 2 by Nujabes) The only way to potentially get a better audio experience will be to use your own headphones, either through Bluetooth or the 3.5mm headphone jack. Moving on, the keyboard is backlit and dims after a period of inactivity. The A, S, D, W keys have additional backlit design to let users easily find these movement keys. There is a number pad to the right. But given that this is supposed to be a gaming laptop, I wonder if this is a good design decision to include it. I suppose some MOBA players can use these for shortcuts. On the top of the keyboards are your usual function keys as well as special keys. By default, the special keys are enabled by default. To use the F1 through F12, one has to press and hold down the “Fn” key first. I’m fairly certain this behavior can be changed within the laptop’s BIOS/firmware. On the connectivity front, there is a Gigabit Ethernet port, 3 USB 3.x ports, a USB3 Type-C port with Thunderbolt, a HDMI port, and a SD Card reader. Unfortunately, I do not have any Thunderbolt devices to plug into the Type-C port to test its capability. But it is comforting to know that one can plug one to the laptop for a variety of things. The Gigabit Ethernet port worked as expected and I was able to transfer about 36GB of data from my desktop over to the laptop. The bandwidth was saturated close to its maximum speed and made transferring the entire Guild Wars 2 data file very fast. The laptop’s wireless capability is powered by Intel Wireless AC-9560, which can handle 802.11ac standards. According to the product documents on Intel’s website, it also can handle Bluetooth 5.0. For wireless networking, observed speeds topped off at around 100mbit/s. The laptop comes preinstalled with Windows 10 Home edition. This is the lowest full edition Windows 10 one can get. But at the same time, it’s a bit disappointing. While the feature differences between Home and Pro is fairly small, one feature that could be a plus for gamers is being able to defer and delay Windows Update through Group Policy. Group Policy editing is not included in WIndows 10 Home which could have helped in managing some of the other minor annoyances in Windows 10. As expected of any laptops and pre-made desktops, it comes with some additional software preinstalled. McAfee Security is also preinstalled but I have personally opted to not set it up or removed it entirely. The very thought of needing to pay after the free subscription expires bothers me. On the gaming department, I ran around in Guild Wars 2 on battery power. With that alone powering the GPU, it barely handles 30fps in crowded areas. Unfortunately, Guild Wars 2 is one of those games where you won’t get better framerate with a faster video card. Instead, it’s heavily reliant on how fast your processor is. Other games tested within the limited time I’ve spent with the laptop are “Ikaruga,” “Mark of the Ninja,” and “Dust: An Elysian Tail.” All of them performed great as expected due to the abundance of processing power of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060. In terms of battery life, the laptop can get by on normal operations for 4-5 hours. In gaming, and depending on the game itself, that will knock it down even further. On the other hand, if you’re going to be gaming, your best bet is to simply plug the laptop to the AC. On battery, I was able to run Guild Wars 2 for about 30-45 minutes, plus around 30 minutes of Dust: An Elysian Tail, and a little of Mark of the Ninja and Ikaruga. This is all before the battery level got down to around 21-22%. There are negative aspects to this gaming laptop. The built-in speakers leaves a lot to be desired. Because of this, you may end up using headphones for better audio listening. The use of Windows 10 Home instead of Windows 10 Pro restricts the user’s ability to fine tune how Windows operates, especially in the update department. And then there’s the fan. With a powerhouse graphics processor like the 1060, heat is going to be a constant issue. And to cool this GPU down, fans are necessary. There are times when it can get audibly loud. This comes as no surprise for a laptop geared for gaming. Overall, this is a pretty decent gaming laptop. Granted, I do not have the latest games to push the limit of the laptop. But I am certain it can run most games at decent level. On the other hand, if top performance is what you need, then a laptop should not be the option to take. This is a mid-range gaming laptop. Also consider that this is more of a portable gaming PC than a laptop. At over 5lbs, this is probably better suited at LAN parties instead of sitting at a Starbucks.

For the money, this laptop is really tough to beat. You get high end specs at a very reasonable price. I won't go into too much detail regarding the specs as they can easily be found online, but just to highlight the careful consideration that Dell took to pick the correct specs for this laptop, I love how they decided to choose the 8th generation six core i7 8750H versus the 8th generation quad core i7 8550U CPU. Most "high end" or budget oriented "gaming" laptops in the market right now included the little brother of the 8750H which is the 8550U. Dell didn't comprise and is giving you one of the best mobile processors in the market. The rest of the specs, like the GTX 1060 with 6GBs of VRAM and speaks for itself. Couple that with a fast 256GB SSD, and you also have a laptop that boots into windows within a few seconds and also makes for some incredibly fast load times in gaming. Ok, enough about the specs, what is the actual gaming and productivity experience like? Well, let's just say it was able to handle all the games I threw at it at moderate frame rates. Impressive for a laptop at this price point. I put the laptop through the ringer and ran CS:GO, League, Overwatch, Dark Souls, Witcher 3, Quake Champions, and Bioshock Infinite. It was able to run all games in medium to high settings with an average of about 45 to 60 fps (and in some cases higher than 60 fps). This is perfect considering the display is only 60hz so any more than 60fps and it's not yielding any benefits to you anyway (unless of course you're connecting an external monitor). Speaking of the display, I was very pleased that Dell included a beautiful Full HD 1920 x 1080 IPS display. So glad that Dell gave us an IPS display and not TN. Being IPS, the colors look rich and vivid with deep blacks. It would have been nice to see a 120hz G-Sync panel but for the price I am willing to easily look past that. One thing I'd like to note is that during long gaming sessions or during graphically intense scenes, the fans can spin up pretty loud. However, this is expected from any gaming laptop due to the limited airflow. Dell did a good job though including performance grade fans with rear exhaust vents. This is the added bulk that you'll have to live with, but if you're a gamer, then you know that no gaming laptop is without compromise (with the exception of an ethernet port of course; I mean c'mon who wants to play an online twitch shooter over a Wi-Fi connection). In terms of build quality and aesthetics, I think Dell did a great job keeping the design clean and going with a matte black. I love that the matte black finish doesn't attract any finger print smudges. The keyboard is a dream to type on. Dell did a FANTASTIC job on this keyboard. Each key is individually backlit with a blue LED. However, I would have LOVED for Dell to have made this RGB. If not RGB, I would have preferred a white LED backlit keyboard since it's more neutral, blends in with your current decor a lot better, looks cleaner and more professional, and in my opinion, is just much easier on the eyes. In any case, the blue LEDs still do a fine job of providing stylish illumination at night. Some final features I'd like to touch on was the sound. The speakers actually surprised me a bit. They are probably some of the crispest and clearest sounding speakers I've heard on a laptop. They don't get very loud, but hit just the right volume for me. In terms of productivity, well, if the laptop can eat up any game I threw at it, you can rest assured that it will devour any heavy multi threaded applications you throw at it and is also a multi tasking beast. After all, the 8750H does have twelve threads!! The last thing I'd like to mention....THANK YOU DELL for including a 1Gb Ethernet port!!! It is a major gripe of mine when "gaming" laptops don't include an Ethernet port. A great example is the gaming laptop that one of Dell's competitors just released for fifteen hundred dollars. It appears to be a gorgeous laptop, but the only gaming you'll be doing on it is over a wireless connection. Can you imagine playing Overwatch, CS:GO, or League over a Wi-Fi connection?!?! I certainly can't. The first thing I actually look for when a vendor markets a "gaming" laptop is a dedicated ethernet port. If i see it, I know the type of thought process that went into it. And while yes, you could use a USB to LAN adapter, this setup would require incoming packets on the wire to be converted from copper (RJ-45) to the USB medium on the LAN adapter. While for most people the real world results are likely negligible, this is certainly not the case when playing fast twitch e-sport games like CS:GO. Don't get me wrong, aesthetics, thin profiles, etc. are great, but when it comes to gaming, performance always comes first. Overall, I am very impressed with what Dell has to offer at this price point. I can take this laptop on weekend trips and fire up quick gaming session at hotels. I don't have to worry about my internet connection for competitive e-sport games like CS:GO since most hotels provide a wired LAN connection.I also know that whatever task I throw at this laptop, it will easily handle it and then some!

I don’t remember Quick Start being so easy. You plug in, turn on then get your hand held all the way through set up, especially great for the tech shy. And, if you do Microsoft Office, your platform populates all devices including your smartphone; so, home is wherever you are. Cloud above means less data migration headaches below. Among other favorites, my young nephew gets it on with FORTNITE. So, the house upgrade to the DELL G7 was a smart move, especially since his equipment overheats with lots of fan noise way before ready to shut down an extended play. Though the machine has a somewhat heavy, rugged exterior that exudes durability; so far, the weight may not be in its capacity to withstand abuse but in its processing power and sharp design features. A few small details: • the hinge allows the top to open without lifting the bottom off the table. • the surface deck around the keyboard doesn’t flex under pressure. • the panel display has a matte finish with good off angle viewing without glare, good for my business meetings and power point • Situated at the front edge of the unit, MAXXaudio, affords quite decent clarity for my needs and his Very pleased with the cpu’s ability to construct and deconstruct docs without resistance while moving large amounts of data with multiple open windows and apps running simultaneously. For gaming en route, the nephew offers no complaints about the display’s resolution for gaming; and, when, stationary, the interface with an external monitor for a larger view shed is an easy connect. Says thumbs up for the benefits of Shadow Play pre-installed via GeForce to: • analyze the system to judge game compatibility with available space + tolerances, capture game audio + video recordings for uploads to YouTube and the like • adjust graphics and other settings for best performance. • adjust frame rate and audio related parameters as well i.e. in BROADCASTING, fine tune how your game appears. . Happy that the back lit keyboard has a responsive feel and doesn’t misinterpret my key strokes. The back light is a nice upgrade that assists work in low light. DISPLAY SETTINGS offer a few adjustments. But, for a next generation upgrade, R+D might consider a broader range of back light color options to satisfy individual preferences, especially since light frequencies have a real impact on emotion and circadian cycles. Odd that even though the CAPSLOCK has an indicator light indicating engagement; but, the NUMLOCK doesn’t. Thankfully, G7 letters, numbers and symbols are imbedded so they won’t dissolve over time as happened with my i5. When exhausted, keys without letters are a pain. With a memory glitch, I’d have to look at the keys to summon up QWERTY. My old Dell keyboard was an easy snap’n lock to replace but not certain if this new version has a similar set up for a la cart replacement. But, under-side access to the interior is a one screw feature for those who want to enhance. Said to my nephew: “no warranty voiding manipulations allowed!”, especially since he’s already talking overclocking, thermal paste and other techie expansions to keep up with future apps after warranty expiration. He’ll have his own before that time. For now, no complaints of ghosting and throttling, especially for the fps he’s getting even while simultaneously engaged. A little disappointed with the battery life at 4-5 hrs at medium demand. Really thought battery tech is improving at leaps and bounds enough to afford longer run time at this price point. Thankfully, there’s a card reader but installation is not flush. And, no DVD/RW; so, get an external or keep the old machine for those occasions. Ports are 3 USBs, an HDMI, gaming headset, locking port. No fingerprint ID at start up, no pen or touch pad, no back flipping tablet tricks but the fundamentals are solid and a great ROI for the price point. Interesting that I don’t feel short changed moving from a 17” display and keyboard to a 15.6”. So, overall, a solid ROI. With the G7, I am an editorial speed demon for research, doc management and speaking dates when I can boot the nephew out of the gaming zone.

Some things good, others not quite up to snuff. I have Dell's previous Inspiron 15 7000 this is it's successor; got to say dell got some things right and others not quite right. Let's start with memory, this unit ships with 8gb, or RAM, but it's 2x4GB sticks, if youe going to stick with 8GB this is best, but if your going upgrade to 16, a 8GB would be preferable (what the previous 7000 series shipped with), now it's faster, but the maching could use up to 32GB, and for a machine with a 6 core processor and 6GB of video memory, it would help substancially with the multi-tesking. The keyboard, in my opinion is a huge upgade, it's much firmer, the key travel is longer and the spacing of the keys is slightly further apart. The width of is a little greater, and the back-lighting of the keys is done better; the previous version looks/felt like crumbs could get under the keys, not so with the G7. The track pad is a nice size, that is well positioned, its supports windows 10 gestures; like the previous version it's a little in the clicky side, where using the lowwer buttons requires a real click, some might like this others not, but is a common Dell feature, I've grown to like. The G7 adds backlighting around the track pad which is nice. The speakers/audio is probably a step down from the previous version which had small sub woofer, which is lacking in the G7, but overall the sound was pretty good; outputing to a set of JBL BT speakers was exceptional, as was streaming to Google devices. Which brings us to the exptional WiFi in the G7, putting the G7 next to my Inspiron 7000, was suprizing; I have 500mb service, and a great WiFi network (3 separate 5G routers); from 30' away the G7 achieved almost 400mb/s whic is the fastest I'd see on my network for a non-wired device (Inspiron 7000 clocked in at 320mb/s). The wired Killer Ethernet connected to the Router hit 450mb/s, peaking close my rated speed of 500. So the networking on the G7 is most excellent. The display has a nice matt finish IPS screen, it's of angle viewing is superb, the matt finish is a welcome change over the previous hightly reflective screen, much easier to work on, especially with bright lights or sunlight. This really makes the G7 a much better desktop replacement than it's predecesor. The bezel is a little wider, which I think improves the visibility. The G7 has all the latest IO ports It has three USB-A 3.1 ports and one USB-C 3.1 (with Thunderbolt [improved]) a HDMI 2.0 port and a 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone jack with a full-size SD card slot and gigabit ethernet port (RJ45). All ports are located on the sides as cooling fans blow out the back. I find all of this good. The G7 came with Toshiba KSG60ZM 256GB NVMe SSD, which I was underwelmed by. There are much faster m.2 drives available, I found this to be a big disapointment. It does support both an m.2 SSD (SATA or PCIe NVMe), and a standard SATA 2.5” drive which can be easily added. A single screw holds on the entire back of the case, removing it and peeling off the back allows easy access to the HD bay and memory. This great feature of the G7, ease of access. Well I had a new 1TB SSD I was dying to try, I dropped it in, and, even thought it used the SATA interface, it was more then twice as fast as the installed Toshiba drive. One other great function include din the G7 is the ability to RAID the m.2 drive and the SATA drive via the Intel Rapid Storage Technology controller, this is a great feature, you should investigate further (not room here). The i7-8750H CPU is the real bright spot in the G7, I'm a software devloper and do a lot of parallel tasking development, the more cores the less sluggish a PC will seem. Windows (and othe modern OS's) have been changed over the years to be much more modular (so have many modern applications) this modularity excels with more cores/threads; at this price and configuration having a total of 12 threads, this laptop can do real multitasking very smoothly (if you have sufficent memory). This combined with Nvidia GTX 1060 MaxQ w/6GB memory allows modern games to reall run nicely on a notebook. I tried several eSports games all were very smooth, no jitter hitting over 60fps. But the cooling fans of the notebook kicked in blowing more hot air out of the back of the notebook, this is not suprising, and noise from the fans is noticable, but failrly well behaved. Make sure you don't block the rear vents. I also did some photo editing and video processing which very fast and efficient (additional memory would have helped a lot here). As I said in the begining, there is a lot to like, but a few, primarly fixable (at additional cost) issues. If you look at G7 as it needs to be upgraded to reach it's full potential, then I might recommend it. It's a top notch notebook, great screen, great graphics, nice keyboard/trackpad, that needs more memory to achieve its full potential. It's a cinch to add a top of the line SATA SSD with 1 to 4 TB storage. My biggest issue is the Toshiba m.2; the G7 deserves better and for a nominal cost Dell could have/should have provided it. Upgrading the m.2 drive requires a lot of effort to keep the installed OS, still the i7-8750H is a great advance and ultimate advantage.

To begin, this is my first "Gaming" laptop, so I have little experience in these types of products. My sole reason for buying a more expensive gaming laptop was because I'm heading back to college, and my job requires a lot of travel for long periods of time. I'm a fan of gaming but I'm not as hardcore as others may be so I figured a nice middle of the ground dedicated GPU would be enough. So far it's been excellent. The GTX 1060 Max-Q design works very well for the 1080p display built-in, I easily get 60 fps on the majority of the games I play; modded Skyrim, Overwatch, Fortnite, Farcry, Tomb Raider, etc. Most of them can be played at high settings while maintaining that >60 FPS, if you're looking for exact numbers head to notebookcheck.net or do a quick Google search for benchmarks. I was pleasantly surprised. A couple things to note though: this laptop gets very hot under load, which makes sense the CPU and GPU share heat pipes and while they run to two fans, it doesn't dissipate nearly enough heat to stop it from thermal throttling. This has been a pretty common report from many other users. I did find that under-volting the CPU actually improved performance. There are several guides online to help you do this, it's not very difficult and from what I understand, it won't void your warranty. Don't quote me on that though. Another remedy I'm using is an adjustable laptop holder with built-in fans, it elevates the laptop off my lap or bed and pulls in fresh air and blows it directly into the intake fans on the bottom of the laptop. That has helped tremendsouly with thermal throttling and keeping my legs cool while I work. The CPU is awesome when it's not setting itself on fire. It's a six-core i7 with multithreading, that boosts to 4.10 GHz. By itself, the CPU is $400 USD, so that's a pretty good bargain when paired with a 1060 Max-Q. It easily handles any task I throw at it, with one caveat; it has to be plugged in. "No duh" right? I didn't understand that when I first started using this laptop, and I didn't understand why my laptop was going nuclear trying to run an almost 10-year-old game. So yeah, keep it plugged in if you intend to do anything more than web browsing. The screen is pretty good, I came from a cheap HP TN monitor, this is a full 1080p IPS 60-Hz screen, I did have to adjust the "clear text" options within Windows. Out of the box, the text was really jagged and misaligned but it was easily fixed in about a minute. I also got a customized color profile from the same notebookcheck.net which seems to marginally improve color accuracy. Color reproduction isn't great on this display, but it's a relatively cheap laptop so I didn't expect much. If you're looking for a display with 100% SGRB or some other standard I would recommend a Razer product, but expect to pay several hundred to thousands more. Expandability is pretty good, especially for this price range. Removing the bottom panel is a single retaining, Philips-head screw. RAM is two channel, my model came with two sticks of 4GB DDR4, pretty standard nowadays. I have the single M.2 256GB SSD and there is an open 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bay with an anti-vibration caddy if you decide to go HDD, which is a nice addition. I wasn't brave enough to remove the heatsinks from the GPU / CPU, but from what I've read you may need to reapply thermal compound to those areas if you're having throttling issues. The keyboard is okay. I came from a mechanical brown-switch keyboard on my desktop, so moving to this shallow movement is a little difficult. The backlighting is good too, consistent throughout the individual keys, two brightness modes, and blue. Not much else to say there. Audio quality is surprisingly good for two speakers and no subwoofer. It's not too tin-y, and the laptop is loaded with "Max Audio Pro", which is a pretty good equalizer. I'm not an audiophile and most of the time I have my Bose headphones connected so I don't use the speakers often. And there it is. I would definitely recommend this laptopt to anyone looking for an entry / mid-level gaming laptop. It's priced pretty well for what you get, competitors with lower prices will have lesser CPUs or worse cooling solutions, or a 3GB GPU instead of the 6GB that came with this one. I highly recommend watching reviews and benchmarking vidoes on YouTube to get a better understanding of what this laptop has to offer, and to get comparisons to other laptops.

When it comes to bang for your buck, you can't beat this computer. i was lucky enough to pick it up during the Memorial day sale so I got an even better price for it than full retail, but all things considered it's truly worth every penny. Pros: -All the ports are easily accessible, and there are plenty of them to boot - three full USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a Thunderbolt 3 port, HDMI, SD card, and Ethernet. The keyboard is more than comfortable to type on, the screen is really nice, and folds up to a size that's surprisingly comfortable for a "gaming" laptop. -As far as performance goes, there's SOME lag at points when I'm using the touchpad, but that's only when I have it set to low-performance mode when I'm trying to conserve battery. Otherwise the 6-core processor rips through all tasks with ease, and for my needs 8GB of RAM is more than enough, especially when coupled with a PCI Express SSD card. -Keyboard is very easy to type on, I thought I'd be annoyed by the narrow numberpad on the right but it's surprisingly easy to get used to after using for a few days. -Gaming is really smooth. It's odd to use a 15.6inch laptop when im coming from a 26inch monitor on my PC, but that's just me. -Considering the guts of this machine and how powerful it actually is, I'm really pleased with the portability of it. To comment on some of the negatives: -When the GPU is under heavy load, the cooling fans can definitely get pretty loud, almost to a point of annoyance. I usually find that this is the case when I have a game running and the dedicated GPU is in use (I switch back to the Intel UHD630 integrated GPU when I'm not gaming). -As far as battery life goes, yes, when you're using a "gaming" laptop, battery life is going to suffer. If you're playing a game at full settings, expect to get an hour and change. If you're browsing the internet at full brightness, using the dedicated GPU, & in performance mode, 3+ hours is realistic. I'm generally able to get 5-6 hours out of this battery by turning the brightness down to 20-30%, and turning low-performance mode on (click the battery icon in the system tray and move the slider to the left), which is more than enough for my use. -I personally haven't felt any of the odd creaks/bends/noises that the machine makes when you open/close the lid. Maybe I got a better unit than other people or maybe I'm a bit more gentle with my expensive purchases, but I'm generally happy with my hardware. My only hardware gripe is the size of the bezels around the screen, but for under $1k I can deal with it. -Yes it gets hot. It's a gaming laptop. It has a 6-core processor. It has a dedicated GPU. It's under an inch thin. What did you expect when running your AAA title at "Ultra" graphics settings for 2 hours on a laptop? Side note - and having the ability to do this is a HUGE benefit in my eyes - I'm really happy that there's space in the chassis to add a 2nd hard drive, and the fact that the bottom of the case can be removed pretty easily. I've only had the computer for a month and change, probably a few more months down the line I'll be cracking the case open and adding a 2nd SSD and at least doubling the RAM to 16gigs. All in all, totally worth it, and runs games like a champ when you need it to. Definitely would recommend!

This is a great laptop for a good price. Built quality is top notch, lots of plastic but its all very sturdy, with no flex. It uses the latest 8th gen 6 cores/12 threads intel cpu and a discrete nvidia geforce gtx 1060 Q. I can play all moderm games at 1080p at high settings (some can even at ultra settings, but with some effects dialed down). I didn't have any problems setting up windows and installing steam with some games. It comes with a minimum amount of crapware from factory, most are apps that will help you keep your laptop bios and drivers up to date. Only thing I deleted was McAfee antivirus (windows 10 solution is more than enough). ++PROS++ +Well built and sturdy. +Fast, can play most moderm games at 1080p at high settings. +Fast 256 Nvme SSD boot drive. +Ready to install an extra 2.5' Hard drive (I added a 2.5" Western digital blue hard drive with no problems). +More than enough usb 3.0 ports, hdmi port for gaming on a large TV. +Quiet fans when non gaming, not that loud when gaming. Laptop's cooling solution is very good. --CONS-- -New cpu is known to be a hot chip, may throttle sometimes *(check my tips below). -Gtx 1060 is Q design, meaning its a full blown 6gb desktop version, however with lower clockspeeds than a regular 1060 to save on battery. *(check my tips below). Some tips: * You can use the program Throttlestop to underclock the CPU so it would not throttle down that much, check youtuber bob of all trades for a guide on how to use it. * I was able to overclock the GPU to +200mhz core and mem, reaching higher than regular gtx 1060 speeds, temps were good. * Download program HWinfo64 and check what monitor panel you have. If you are lucky as me, you may get an AUO panel, which can be overclocked to 120 hz, with custom resolution utility. If you get a LG panel, your'e SOL.