A round-up of news in brief from around the region, including Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele is set to face a no-confidence vote in parliament. Read...

Though it was a bit rough around the edges in terms of backwards compatibility, my first look at 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 storage reveals a very nice uptick in performance — about twice the 40Gbps of Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 in certain benchmarks. Logical. By way of comparison, that’s roughly as fast as an NVMe SSD on the PCIe 4.0 bus. And a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD is exactly what’s inside the OWC Envoy Ultra portable drive I used to test Thunderbolt 5 storage. Note that you’ll see 120Gbps listed in the Thunderbolt 5 specs, but that’s uni-directional output for driving multiple high-resolution displays. Bi-directional transfers such as those used by storage devices are “limited” to 80Gbps, or roughly 6- to 7GBps after overhead. How well does Thunderbolt 5 work? Mark Hachman / IDG My debut look at Thunderbolt 5 came courtesy of the aforementioned Envoy Ultra attached to a Thunderbolt 5, 32GB Maingear ML-17 (Mk. II) laptop. Obviously, I wasn’t able to use the 59GB RAM disk in my standard test PC for 48GB transfers, but the T-Force NVMe SSD in the laptop provided a decently fast substitute. Alas, the Envoy Ultra completely failed to appear on our official Asus ROG Strix Z790-I (Thunderbolt 4) test bed. It didn’t appear in the BIOS, disk manager, or the Thunderbolt utility. The issue is being cooperatively investigated by OWC, Intel, and Asus as the drive failed to enumerate on an Asus Maximus Z890 Hero board as well. In case you weren’t aware, Thunderbolt 5 is supposed to be full backward compatible with versions 3 and 4. Further, only the newer Sonoma and Sequoia versions of macOS would recognize the Envoy Ultra for use on my Apple Silicon Mac Studio, though it was enumerated on the Thunderbolt bus in System Info as far back as Ventura. Sequoia is required for Intel-based Macs. Finally, I was unable to test on older Thunderbolt 2 systems as the Envoy Ultra sports a captive Type-C cable which prevented me from employing Apple’s Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter. This is an extremely small sample size of equipment, so I’m not sure just how pervasive the issues are, but there have been rumblings around the industry about the current state of compatibility. It’s definitely toe-in-water-time for Thunderbolt 5 — even for early adopters. Note that after a Z790-I BIOS update (9901) provided by Asus on November 25th, 2024, the Envoy Ultra was recognized and performed as expected. Further reading from another PCWorld expert: My first Thunderbolt 5 experience has been a massive bust What Thunderbolt 5 gear is available? Another Thunderbolt 5 laptop currently shipping is the Razer Blade 18. Both Asus and Gigabyte have announced a slew of motherboards that either feature Thunderbolt 5 or sport headers so they can be upgraded to it via add-on cards. Can you upgrade older computers with add-on cards? According to my inquiries, no. There are some clever engineers and hackers out there, but there are timing issues and other factors that make porting backwards highly unlikely. Yup, you’ll need new stuff to get Thunderbolt 5 speeds. And note that neither Thunderbolt 4 or 5 are compatible with older Thunderbolt 2. How fast is Thunderbolt 5 storage? How about 6GBps sequential reading, and nearly 4GBps sequential writing with multiple queues? Then there’s nearly 4GBps sequential reading and writing single-queued. That’s a very nice bump up from the previous highs of around 3GBps multi-queued and 2.5GBps single-queued delivered by 40Gbps USB 4. It’s about what we’d expect from doubling bandwidth from 40Gbps to 80Gbps. You can see the evidence below from CrystalDiskMark 8. The Thunderbolt 5 OWC Envoy Ultra absolutely rocked CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential throughput tests. However, when it comes to random performance under CrystalDiskMark 8, the test picture painted no particular improvement. This stands to reason as increased throughput isn’t going to help any drive find/seek data faster. Random performance, according to CrystalDiskMark 8, is little improved over 40Gbps technologies. To reiterate, this was a pre-production drive on a brand-new laptop rather than our official test bed. As I had to transfer my 48GB files from SSD to SSD I omitted those results. However, in total with this arrangement the Envoy Ultra still finished a mere second slower than the first place OWC 1M2 — easily within the margin of error for these tests. The ATTO benchmark thought highly of the Envoy Ultra, if not as highly as CrystalDiskMark 8. We also omitted the results for our usual 450GB write as it’s more a test of the SSD inside and the amount of secondary cache it offers, rather than the speed of the bus. The Envoy Ultra was on pace for a stellar result if it hadn’t slowed to 1.2GBps when secondary cache was exhausted. Again, official Envoy Ultra numbers will have to wait until we upgrade our test bed to Thunderbolt 5. The test results above are simply to illustrate the rough difference between Thunderbolt 3/4, USB 4, 10Gbps USB, and Thunderbolt 5 performance. In summation, there was a marked increase in sequential transfers — with multiple queues and with only one. On suitably fast systems, it should save you time. Once again, random ops are minimally improved so don’t expect an uptick in lots-of-small-files scenarios. Note that these tests were run on a pre-production version of the Envoy Ultra, though OWC did eventually get a shipping version to us. What does Thunderbolt 5 mean for you? Thunderbolt 5 is here and you probably want it (we do), even if it saves you only modest amounts of time in the real world. Time is money, of course, but to see a profit, you’ll have to overcome some hefty initial investments — the 2TB OWC Envoy Ultra I tested is $400 and the 4TB is $600. Gulp. Thunderbolt 5 motherboards and Windows laptops are priced for the top-shelf as well, and the high cost-to-performance ratio carries over to the Mac. Only high-end newbies such as the Mac Mini (M4 Pro) offer Thunderbolt 5. Long story short… For the nonce, Thunderbolt 5 is for adventurous early adopters, enthusiasts, and prosumers who actually need the speed, and have the software and hardware to take advantage of it. This is par for the course with any new technology, though we don’t remember these kind of compatibility issues with Thunderbolt 4. Most folks will be just fine with less expensive and — at the moment — more trustworthy 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4, including our top-rated external drive, the Adata SE920. Read...

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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Very bright Outstanding color representation Scads of themes available in the app Cons Buggy. The app never quite completed setup Third-party connections didn’t work Monstrous power brick Our Verdict LIFX’s permanent smart lights look great, but setup was a nightmare that we never fully resolved. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Putting holiday lights up on the roof is fun when you’re in that festive, pre-holiday mood. Taking them down in January? Well, that’s nobody’s idea of a good time. Permanent lights like these LIFX Outdoor Permanent Lights offer a good solution to this dilemma: Put them up once and you’re done forever. Well, maybe at least for a few years before something breaks. This LIFX offering is a close companion to its string lights in that it plugs into standard wall power and works like any other light within the LIFX app. (LIFX’s path lights and spotlights are low-voltage products that require a different electrical configuration.) According to TechHive’s IP code guide, an IP66 weatherization rating means this lighting solution is impervious to dust and that it can can withstand a blast from a pressure washer from a reasonable distance. It draws 40 watts out of the box, but this will scale up or down with added or subtracted strands of lighting. A 50-foot strand of LIFX’s Permanent Outdoor Lights produces 2700 lumens at maximum brightness–that’s a very strong 90 lumens per bulb. Installation and setup Like many string lights and permanent lights (including Govee’s, Enbrighten’s, and Home Depot’s Hampton Bay product), LIFX permanent lights come in pieces that you must assemble, which gives you a bit of flexibility when it comes to configuration. The power supply (a massive box that’s inline near the electrical plug) and a small controller comprise a “starter” unit that takes up about 7 feet of cable at the beginning of the run. You’ll need to plan to hide this hardware somewhere during your setup, though don’t worry about needing access to the controller—it doesn’t do much on its own except for a button that lets you reset the number of lights on the string. Two strings of lights are included in the box, each 25 feet long, with each section containing 15 lights. (That’s about 20 inches between each bulb.) Two extra cables, each 10 feet long, can be used anywhere in this run to allow for house features you need to work around (like a chimney or windows), or simply to give you some extra length between the controller and the start of the lights. LIFX’s Permanent Outdoor Lights are powered by this oversized brick.Christopher Null/Foundry Up to six additional sections of lighting can be added, taking the total length up to a maximum of 200 feet and 120 lights. LIFX, however, does not yet sell these lighting sections separately. You’ll need to buy additional starter kits if you want to keep adding strands. You can also make custom lengths, but this entails cutting cables, stripping the wires, and splicing on couplers (similar to Home Depot’s product). Like Govee, LIFX gives you some flexibility when it comes to mounting your lights. Each light—a small puck that looks like a fat poker chip—comes with an adhesive backing that allows for quick attachment to the wall or roof. A single screw hole that’s part of each light’s plastic base is available to secure the light more permanently, and all needed hardware is included. While Govee gives you two screws per light, the LIFX lights felt solidly attached to the wall with just the single screw, especially in conjunction with the adhesive backing. Enbrighten’s solution—a single screw in the center of a mount that becomes hidden when you pop in the lighting puck—remains the best approach we’ve seen on this score to date. LIFX also provides several adhesive clips that can be used to keep wiring in place where you need it. While it’s a handy addition, these clips feel a bit flimsy, so I probably wouldn’t trust them to hold up over years in the elements. Simple nail-in cable staples or clips would likely be more effective in the long-term. As is common with permanent holiday lights, each puck on the LIFX cable features an adhesive backing to hold the light in place until you can use a screw to secure it to your eave.Christopher Null/Foundry The full strand of lights produces 2700 lumens at maximum brightness, or 90 lumens per bulb, considerably brighter than Govee’s 40 lumens per bulb. A full range of colors is supported, of course, as is white light from a very warm 1500K to an icy 9000K. Setting up the LIFX app At the risk of stating the obvious, I highly advise configuring the lights with the LIFX app before you do the physical installation, not only to ensure the lights look the way you want them to, but because the setup process was particularly rocky for me. I had a lot of trouble getting these LIFX lights onto my Wi-Fi network. The app was easy to use apart from that. Christopher Null/Foundry The LIFX app is designed to detect new LIFX products when they’re powered up nearby and quickly onboard them to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, but I was promptly greeted with a “No devices found” error when attempting to connect to the permanent lights. Many vendors offer a workaround by letting you scan a QR code or manually select a product type you’re connecting, but even LIFX’s included Matter code didn’t work for me. LIFX does offer one workaround, and that’s to turn the lights on, wait 15 minutes, and proceed to “Set up device manually,” which involves connecting to a temporary Wi-Fi network that eventually shows up, then using the LIFX app to bridge to your home Wi-Fi network. I’ve had this issue with other LIFX products in the past, but the permanent lights were particularly tenacious at preventing me from connecting to my home network. It took three attempts at resetting the lights and waiting 15 minutes for the timeout to arrive before I was finally greeted with a temporary Wi-Fi network to connect with. After more than an hour of fiddling with them, I finally got the lights onboarded to the LIFX app—at least most of the way. Despite running through the entire setup process, the lights remained (and still remain) stuck in a section called “Finish Setup.” I’ve tried to finish the setup on a dozen occasions, but at the end, the app just spits me back out to the same home screen, with the lights stuck in this Finish Setup limbo. LIFX’s Outdoor Permanent Lights are very bright, delivering 90 lumens each (when producing white light, that is). Christopher Null/Foundry The good news is that the lights are still functional in this state. The only restrictions are that I can’t give the lights a unique name or assign them to a room. I have not been able to connect the lights to third-party ecosystems via Matter or any other means, either. Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit are all explicitly supported—but none were working for me during this review. Once installed, LIFX’s standard color controls are available, and you won’t find any surprises in the LIFX app on this front. A color wheel lets you choose from millions of colors while adjusting brightness with a slider, and LIFX’s “Triadic” color combination system is on tap if you want to let the app automatically select two complementary colors to go along with your primary color selection. The LIFX app offers a wide array of lighting effects options. Christopher Null/Foundry Should you buy LIFX Outdoor Permanent Lights? True to claims, these trios generally look good, but note that the three colors alternate along the string of lights, rather than all three emitting from every bulb, which is the way LIFX’s string lights work. If you really want to drill down, you can paint each bulb’s color individually, but this is a surprisingly complex process to get right. LIFX’s app remains obtuse and in dire need of a redesign. Better probably to let LIFX do the work: More than 100 preconfigured themes are on tap, built around holidays, music genres, famous artists, sports teams, and more—and each of these can be further enhanced with motion modes from sparkles to flame-like effects. A strobe light and two music visualizers are also available. Like most LIFX products, the lights look great no matter what colors you choose and are especially striking at night. The downside is that the $199 asking price means the product is far from cheap, which is par for the course for LIFX. At press time, Govee’s 100-foot version (twice the length of LIFX) of its Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 are priced at a near-identical $200. It’s a tough comparison because LIFX’s bulbs are considerably brighter; on the other hand, Govee’s app didn’t give me nearly as many fits. Read...

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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Strong multicore CPU performance Excellent game performance for the price Attractive motion performance with 360Hz panel Lots of USB-A connectivity Cons Thick and heavy Short battery life Mediocre keyboard and small touchpad One USB-C port, no Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 Our Verdict The “retro-inspired” Dell G15 Gaming Laptop packs a punch in games, but comes with plenty of trade-offs. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Dell G15 New Refurbished Retailer Price Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Dell G15 5530 15-inch – Core i7-13650HX – 16GB 1000GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 QWERTY – English $1342.15 View Deal Price comparison from Backmarket Dell’s G-Series of gaming peripherals have evolved into a legitimate budget option over the past few years, and the Dell G2724D is currently our favorite budget gaming monitor. The laptops also have a strong focus on value, and the Dell G15 takes that to an extreme. Thick, ponderous, and undeniably quick, the G15 will appeal to gamers who want to wring every possible FPS from their budget.  Further reading: Best gaming laptops 2024: What to look for and highest-rated models Dell G15: Specs and features The Dell G15 I tested had an older Intel Core i7-13650HX processor. It’s a powerful chip for multithreaded workloads, however, with 14 cores and 20 threads. It’s a similar story with the GPU; the Nvidia RTX 4060 isn’t a heartstopper, but the version found in the Dell G15 has a hearty maximum graphics power of 140 watts. Model number: 5530 CPU: Intel Core i7-13650HX Memory: 16GB DDR5 Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 4060 mobile NPU: None Display: 15.6-inch 16:9 360Hz 1080p IPS  Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 solid state storage Webcam: 720p webcam, single array microphone Connectivity: 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 with DisplayPort Alternate Mode, 3x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45), 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 Biometrics: None  Battery capacity: 86 watt-hours Dimensions: 14.07 x 10.80 x 1.06 inches Weight: 6.19 pounds MSRP: $1,199.99 MSRP  Dell also shipped the G15 Gaming Laptop I reviewed with a 360Hz panel, which is an unusually high refresh rate for a budget laptop. This option is only available by customizing the laptop configuration and is currently out of stock. The model I tested rang up at about $1,200, but entry-level versions start at $700 (with an Intel Core i5 chip and RTX 4050). Shoppers looking for the best value should consider a pre-configured model. Going that route can land you an Intel Core i9-13900HX, RTX 4060, 165Hz 1080p display, and 32GB of RAM for $1,000. The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop is a laptop built for gaming and it performs that mission admirably. Dell G15: Design and build quality IDG / Matthew Smith Dell’s marketing department took a clever approach with the G15 gaming laptop. They describe it as retro, which is certainly an interesting way to frame it. What Dell means by “retro” is that the laptop looks like it could’ve been sold any time in the last 10 or even 20 years.  There are benefits to this approach. While the laptop is primarily constructed from matte black plastic, the thick, angular design feels classic. It also provides a good amount of space for internal cooling which, as I’ll highlight in a moment, helps the laptop achieve solid performance results.   However, the retro design contributes to the laptop’s bulk. At over an inch thick, and weighing just over six pounds, the G15 is on the heavier side. In practical terms, that makes the G15 more of a desktop replacement than a laptop you’d want to carry around daily—though I suppose you could make it work with a large, well-padded backpack.  While the Dell G15 looks retro, its build quality is modern. There’s minimal flex in the chassis, even when lifting the laptop from a corner or edge, and the display lid allows only slight flex when opening or closing. Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a MacBook Pro. But it’s sturdy for a budget gaming laptop. Dell G15: Keyboard, trackpad IDG / Matthew Smith The Dell G15 gaming laptop’s size accommodates a keyboard with a numpad, but it doesn’t fully utilize the available space. While the numpad keys are nearly as large as the main alphanumeric keys, other keys feel undersized. The left-side Tab, Caps Lock, and Shift keys get the worst of it. Key travel is decent, but the typing feel is vague and springy. It’s usable but doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Keyboard backlighting is included but available in just one color: orange. I like the shade of orange, as it reinforces the laptop’s retro vibe. However, some competitors beat the Dell G15 by providing single-zone or multiple-zone color customization: the Gigabyte G6X and Acer Nitro 14 are two examples.   The Dell G15’s touchpad is a major drawback. At just 4 inches wide and slightly over 2 inches deep, it’s extremely small for a laptop sold in 2024. Blame the large speaker grille above the keyboard, which pushes the keyboard down and limits touchpad space. Dell seems to intend the laptop to be used with an external mouse—and perhaps keyboard—which reinforces its role as a desktop replacement laptop. Dell G15: Display, audio IDG / Matthew Smith Entry-level configurations of the Dell G15 Gaming Laptop have basic 120Hz 1080p IPS display, but the unit I reviewed had an upgraded 360Hz 1080p IPS panel with NVIDIA G-Sync support.  A 360Hz refresh rate is overkill for a laptop in this price range (most games won’t achieve frame rates high enough to fully utilize it), though it can deliver smooth motion in older e-sports titles like League of Legends. For most gamers, however, I recommend Dell’s middle option: a 1080p 165Hz G-Sync display that offers a better balance of performance and value. Refresh rate aside, the display is otherwise average. 1920×1080 resolution looks sharp on the 15.6-inch screen but doesn’t stand out compared to higher-resolution panels. It’s an IPS display, too, which lacks the contrast and vibrance of OLED. Still, it performs well in bright, colorful games like Overwatch, League of Legends, and Valorant—and OLED isn’t typically an option at this price point.  The massive speaker grill above the keyboard hints at great audio performance, but the audio system doesn’t live up to that promise. Volume is high at maximum, but the speakers lack bass and begin to sound harsh and muddy as the action heats up. They’re ok for games that lean less on audio presentation, like Cities: Skylines II, but you’ll want headphones for more immersive titles.  Dell G15: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop cuts corners with its webcam and microphone. It has a simple 720p webcam and a single-array microphone. Video quality is rather soft, and the microphone picks up spoken audio with a hollow, compressed sound. It’s passable for video calls on Zoom, I guess, but most modern laptops offer better video and audio recording.  Biometrics aren’t included, either. You’ll be logging in to the Dell G15 with a password or PIN.  Dell G15: Connectivity IDG / Matthew Smith The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop’s connectivity mirrors its retro design. It features three USB-A 3.1 ports, one USB-C port that supports DisplayPort Alternate Mode (but lacks power delivery), HDMI 2.1, Gigabit Ethernet, and a 3.5mm audio jack.  If you rely on USB-A peripherals or prefer wired Ethernet, this configuration is solid. However, if you favor USB-C, the laptop is less appealing, especially since the USB-C port only supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, falling short of newer USB 4.0 and Thunderbolt standards for data rates. Wireless connectivity also lags. The laptop supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, which are serviceable but outdated, with Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 now available. While Wi-Fi 6 is still sufficient for most users and may match your current router’s capabilities, its limitations could become more noticeable over time as faster standards become more widely adopted.  Dell G15: Performance The Dell Inspiron G15 Gaming Laptop sticks with Intel’s older 13th-Gen Core processors. Entry-level configurations have the Core i5-13450HX, while top-tier variants have the Core i9-13900HX. However, the model I reviewed landed in the middle with Intel’s Core i7-13650HX (which has 14 cores and 20 threads). It was supported by 16GB of memory and a 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 solid state drive.  IDG / Matthew Smith First up is PCMark 10, a general system benchmark that requires a decent CPU and acceptable GPU to reach its best results. The Dell G15 has both, so it achieved a respectable score of 7,337. That’s in line with the competition; not much better and not much worse.  That said, 7,337 is quite a good score for a laptop overall and it indicates the Dell G15 delivers a lot of performance for the price.  IDG / Matthew Smith Next up is Cinebench R23, a heavily multithreaded benchmark with a modest duration. Here the Dell G15 posted another respectable score of 16,913. That’s weaker than the Gigabyte G6X, which had the same processor and is sold at a similar price.  On the other hand, however, the Dell G15 easily defeated price-competitive laptops with weaker processors, like the HP Victus 15 with an Intel Core i7-12650H. IDG / Matthew Smith Handbrake is a long duration, heavily multithread benchmark that involves real-world encoding of a feature length film. The Dell G15 handles the task admirably, as it produced the best score among this competitive set. That suggests the laptop’s large power brick and thick chassis can sustain its performance over longer workloads. While the Intel Core i7-13650HX delivers good processor performance for the price, gamers will be more interested in the Nvidia RTX 4060 mobile. Though it sits low in Nvidia’s product stack, the configuration used by Dell’s G15 can tap into a maximum graphics power of up to 140 watts. Because of that, the Dell G15 can deliver performance similar to some RTX 4070 laptops.  IDG / Matthew Smith 3DMark puts the Dell G15 off to a great start with a score of 10,579. That’s the highest from this competitive set, and it even defeats the Nvidia RTX 4070-powered MSI Stealth 16 AI. The MSI is a thinner laptop, to be fair—but it goes to show how much of a difference exists between the quickest and slowest iterations of any given Nvidia RTX mobile graphics hardware. IDG / Matthew Smith It’s a similar story in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, an older 3D title that’s not too demanding on modern hardware. The Gigabyte G6X, which also had an Nvidia RTX 4060, was able to tie the Dell G15. However, Dell’s performance otherwise leads the competition. IDG / Matthew Smith Metro Exodus gives the MSI Stealth 16 AI a chance to catch up, but the Dell G15 is once again a leader in this arena. A result of 42 frames per second might seem low, but the Extreme preset is notoriously demanding in this title. This shows the Dell G15 can handle some very visually demanding titles so long as you keep your framerate target at 30 FPS or better. I finished things off with Cyberpunk 2077. The Dell G15 averaged 75 frames per second at 1080p resolution, Ultra detail, and with DLSS/FSR/XeSS turned off. That’s a highly playable result and again trades blows with the MSI Stealth 16 AI, which averaged 73 FPS.  Increasing Cyberpunk 2077’s settings to the Overdrive Ray-Traced preset, however, tanked the Dell G15’s performance to just 20 FPS. That’s quite a bit lower than the MSI Stealth 16 AI, which averaged 32 FPS. The Dell G15 does have its limits, and raytracing finds them.  Still, the Dell G15 Gaming Laptop is an impressive performer for the price. And the model I tested isn’t even the best value: if you ditch the 360Hz display for a 165Hz panel, you can upgrade the processor to an Intel Core i9-13900HX and spend $200 less. Dell G15: Battery life Dell stuff’s a sizeable 86 watt-hour battery into the G15 Gaming Laptop. It has its work cut out for it, however. The laptop has a powerful CPU and GPU, but lacks switchable graphics, which means the power-hungry GPU is always on tap. IDG / Matthew Smith The results are predictable. The Dell G15 fell short of reaching five hours in our standard battery test, which loops a 4K file of the short film Tears of Steel. That’s not unusual for a gaming laptop, but it’s not great, and it suggests the laptop will struggle to last more than a few hours on charge. My real-world use certainly reflected that reality. Spending a couple hours writing at a coffee shop caused the battery to nose-dive by 40 percent. I expect that most people will see about four to five hours even in basic productivity and web browsing tasks. Short battery life means you’ll feel the need to pack the power adapter—and it’s huge. The 330-watt adapter weighs several pounds and measures over an inch thick. Carrying both the laptop and adapter will add noticeable heft to even a large, well-padded backpack.  Dell G15: Conclusion The Dell G15 Gaming Laptop is a laptop built for gaming and it performs that mission admirably. It has enough GPU grunt to play demanding modern games, like Cyberpunk 2077, above 30 FPS at medium or high detail settings. Older titles, meanwhile, will easily exceed 60 FPS. However, the Dell G15’s laser focus on this goal makes it a bad fit for other tasks. It’s thick, heavy, and suffers short battery life. The display is crisp in motion but otherwise mediocre, the keyboard is so-so, and the touchpad is small. Wi-Fi connectivity is stuck on Wi-Fi 6 and there’s only one USB-C port. These downsides make it harder to recommend the Dell G15. Still, gamers who want a desktop replacement laptop with solid bang for the buck should consider it. What the G15 lacks in versatility, it makes up for in performance. Read...

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