Special Edition, Special Lid
For a budget gaming laptop, the Dell G5 15 SE (for Special Edition) has a lot going on with its design. Fortunately, the various elements come together in a tasteful way—witness our test unit's metallic white lid and shiny blue Dell logo.
Sturdy and Hefty
While thin and light gaming laptops are no longer rarities, the G5 isn't one, coming in at 0.95 by 14.3 by 10.8 inches and 6 pounds. The display offers a straightforward 60Hz refresh rate and 1080p resolution.
A Comfy Keyboard
Budget laptops' keyboards often feel mushy or shallow, but the Dell delivers a good bit of travel and satisfying feedback. The touchpad, by contrast, is merely serviceable.
Keyboard Lighting
The keyboard is also backlit, with customizable lighting across four zones—a good compromise between the per-key RGB backlighting of more costly laptops and all-or-nothing colors of inexpensive models. Here, it's uniformly set to blue.
Surprise Bottom Window
Peek-a-boo: Dell's designers put a clear plastic window on the laptop's underside. It's pretty cool, even if it doesn't show much and will obviously be hidden against your desk most of the time.
Left Ports
The exterior is rounded out with a solid selection of ports. The left side holds a USB-C port, which on our test unit supports DisplayPort but on higher configurations adds Thunderbolt 3. There's also a headset jack and the first of three USB 3.1 Type-A ports.
Right Ports
The right flank is fairly sparse, with an additional USB-A 3.1 port and an SD card slot.
Rear Ports
The rest of the ports are around back, including one more USB 3.1 Type-A port, HDMI and mini DisplayPort video outputs, an Ethernet jack, and the connector for the AC adapter.