The hunt for a gunman who shot healthcare boss Brian Thompson on a New York street expands to the southern state. Read...

Travel bans have also been imposed on several senior officials involved in the botched martial law move. Read...

Travel impacts also continue after the storm caused significant disruption over the weekend. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Long battery life Lots of RAM and storage Vivid OLED screen Cons Low multithreaded CPU performance Glossy reflective screen No touch screen Our Verdict The Asus Vivobook S 14 combines Intel’s latest Lunar Lake CPU with lots of RAM and storage at a very reasonable price. It’s a nice machine, but Lunar Lake’s multithreaded performance will be a problem for some workloads — and this laptop’s design won’t draw any eyes. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today The Asus Vivobook S 14 is a 14-inch laptop with an Intel Lunar Lake CPU. It delivers serious all-day battery life — over 20 hours in our standard benchmark — with good day-to-day computing performance. At $1,199 with a generous 1 TB of storage and 32 GB of RAM and a beautiful OLED display, it’s a solid value if you’re looking for a long-lasting Intel-powered laptop. Further reading: Best laptops 2024: Premium, budget, gaming, 2-in-1s, and more Asus Vivobook S 14: Specs The Asus Vivobook S 14 (S5406) includes an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) “Lunar Lake” processor. This CPU is more focused on long battery life, and it sacrifices some multithreaded CPU performance to get there. A machine like this one delivers good performance in day-to-day computing tasks, but if you’re looking for high top-end CPU performance for particularly CPU-hungry workloads and battery life isn’t a priority, it isn’t the right fit. This laptop combines that sparkling new Intel hardware with a generous 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of solid-state storage. Thanks to Lunar Lake, this machine has a speedy NPU and surprisingly capable Intel Arc integrated graphics, too. Because it has Lunar Lake and a speedy NPU, this is a Copilot+ PC that will get all those new AI features Microsoft is delivering. (Unfortunately, those features aren’t present at launch and Microsoft will need to add them in a Windows Update. That update is supposedly coming very soon.) Model number: S5406SA-DH76 CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 258V Memory: 32 GB LPDDR5X RAM Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc 140V NPU: Intel AI Boost (47 TOPS) Display: 1920×1200 OLED display Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD Webcam: 1080p webcam with physical shutter Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C), 2x USB Type-A (USB 3.2 Gen 1), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x combo audio jack, 1x microSD card reader Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: IR camera for Windows Hello facial recognition Battery capacity: 75 Watt-hours Dimensions: 12.22 x 8.74 x 0.63 inches Weight: 2.87 pounds MSRP: $1,199 as tested If you’re looking for a 14-inch laptop with lots of battery life and good software compatibility — no potential issues, as with an ARM-powered Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered laptop — the Asus Vivobook S 14 is a solid choice. Asus Vivobook S 14: Design and build quality IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus Vivobook S 14 is a 14-inch laptop that feels solid, with no weird flexing. The base of the laptop around the keyboard feels pleasantly metallic. The lid is nice and lightweight — it’s easy to open and adjust with one hand. The lid material does seem to quickly pick up finger smudges, though. At 2.87 pounds and 0.63 inches thick, it’s very much a modern “ultraportable” style laptop. Coming in the aptly named “neutral black” color scheme, this machine has a lot of black metal and plastic with some smooth curves. There’s nothing about the design that truly stands out, though: When Matthew S. Smith reviewed the Asus Vivobook S 15 earlier this year, he called that laptop’s similar design “bland.” People certainly won’t seek out this design, but it works perfectly well. While there’s not a lot of color in the design — just a lot of black — the laptop makes up for this a bit by providing a color backlight for the keyboard. You can change the color from Settings > Personalization > Dynamic Lighting. Asus Vivobook S 14: Keyboard and trackpad IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus Vivobook S 14 includes a full-size “chiclet-style” keyboard with 1.7mm of key travel. That’s a decent amount: This keyboard doesn’t feel shallow, and it doesn’t feel mushy. I could quickly get up to speed typing on it. It’s not as snappy as the keyboard on some higher-end business laptops like ThinkPads, but it’s a solid keyboard without any questionable design decisions. Naturally, this Lunar Lake-powered system has a keyboard with a Copilot key for launching Microsoft’s AI chatbot. Expect to see that key on nearly every Windows laptop going forward. The keyboard also has backlighting – and, unlike many PCs of this type, it offers a choice of color for the backlight. You aren’t just limited to plain white backlighting: The default is a blue backlight. (It’s only one zone, though, so you’re choosing one color of lighting for the entire keyboard.) The trackpad is a good size – not too big and not too small. And it’s in a good position, too, centered right below the keyboard. It works well, accurately tracking both finger movements and multi-finger gestures. The surface is a little bit rubbery, though, and doesn’t feel quite as premium as the glass trackpads on other laptops I’ve used. While the click action feels good, this isn’t a haptic trackpad like the trackpad found in Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7. A haptic trackpad feels much nicer, but they’re still not found on most laptops. Asus Vivobook S 14: Display and speakers IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus Vivobook S 14 has a 14-inch 1920×1200 OLED display with a 60Hz refresh rate and 600 nits of peak brightness. It’s a good-looking display, and it’s nice to have an OLED for the vivid colors. It’s plenty bright, too. Still, it’s not the best display you’re going to find out there. You can find displays with higher resolutions and higher refresh rates. The main thing that bothered me was just how glossy the display was, like so many OLED displays are. There are a lot of reflections here when sunlight hits the screen. This is also not a touchscreen laptop. If you want a touch screen on your laptop, you’ll need to look elsewhere. Overall, though, it’s still a nice display. If you’re coming from an older laptop without an OLED display, you’ll likely be pleased – unless your priority is using it outdoors or in other sunny areas, in which case you may want to look for a laptop with a matte display — or at least a glossy display with better antireflective properties. The speakers are solid for a laptop of this size. They’re not the loudest speakers I’ve heard in a laptop of this size, but they can get up to a good volume. The audio is clear. They’re plenty capable, and better than what I’d expect on a laptop in this price range. The biggest problem is the usual one: There’s just never enough bass in a laptop speaker setup, is there? Asus Vivobook S 14: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Asus Vivobook S 14 includes a front-facing camera with a 1080p resolution and a physical shutter right above the display. I always like seeing a physical shutter switch. The webcam itself is okay but not great. It’s a serviceable webcam and you’ll certainly be able to attend online meetings with it. But it doesn’t deliver as clear an image as many of the webcams I’ve used on more business-focused laptops lately. That’s no surprise as this is being marketed a bit more as a budget laptop. Since this is a Copilot+ PC, you also get access to the AI-powered Windows Studio Effects with tools like background blur and fake eye contact. The microphone is also okay but not great. It did a great job of picking up my voice and filtering out background noise from the room, even when I was near some medium-volume fans. But the audio quality wasn’t quite as crisp as I’ve heard from some more professional-focused laptops. This isn’t really that bad. Many people will be thrilled Asus has chosen to deliver 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage even if it means delivering a middle-of-the-road webcam and microphone. This laptop includes an IR camera for facial recognition with Windows Hello. As with other modern laptops, it did a good job of signing me into Windows in a variety of lighting conditions. Asus Vivobook S 14: Connectivity IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus Vivobook S 14 delivers a decent selection of ports. On the left side, it’s got an HDMI 2.1 out port, two Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports, a microSD card reader, and a combo audio jack for a headset. On the right side, you’ll see two USB Type-A (USB 3.2 Gen 1) ports. It’s a reasonable setup, but bear in mind that this laptop charges via USB-C, so one of those USB Type-C ports will be used while charging. Also, there’s one slightly odd design choice: The charging cable plugs in on the left side, while the charging status light is on the right side of the laptop. Still, that’s no big deal. The port selection likely won’t be a problem for your needs. And, if you need more ports than this, you can always pick up a dongle. This laptop also offers great wireless connectivity thanks to Lunar Lake. This hardware is capable of both Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. Asus Vivobook S 14: Performance The Asus Vivobook S 14 performed well in day-to-day use, delivering plenty of battery life as well as speedy performance in web browsers and desktop productivity applications. Well, it mostly performed well: In one case, the Asus Vivobook S 14 slowed to a crawl, with application launches taking long amounts of time, network requests dragging on, and web pages freezing. The Task Manager revealed the culprit: The preinstalled McAfee antivirus package was suspiciously using 12 percent and 15 percent CPU during this time and not dropping below that. After a reboot, the problem went away. (PCWorld also found some performance issues with this program in our review of McAfee). Anyway, this could be a one-off glitch and you can avoid it by simply uninstalling McAfee and using another antivirus program. As always, though we ran the Asus Vivobook S 14 through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs. IDG / Chris Hoffman First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. The Asus Vivo Book S 14 delivered an overall PCMark 10 score of 7197, right up there with the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 — which is powered by the same Intel Core Ultra 7 258V “Lunar Lake” CPU. IDG / Chris Hoffman After that, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage. These Lunar Lake CPUs only have eight cores — four performance cores and four efficiency cores. While their strength is battery life, their weakness is multithreaded CPU performance. With Cinebench R20 multi-thread score of 4115, this laptop is right in line with other Lunar Lake CPUs — but much slower than AMD Ryzen AI 300 and Intel Meteor Lake chips in this workload. (Of course, this machine’s battery life is much longer than machines with those CPUs!) IDG / Chris Hoffman We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load. The Asus Vivobook S 14 completed the encode process in 1332 seconds — that’s just over 22 minutes. This is a multithreaded CPU benchmark, so Lunar Lake is behind those other machines once again. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3Dmark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance. With a 3DMark Time Spy score of 4,209, Lunar Lake’s Intel Arc integrated graphics deliver surprisingly good gaming performance — for integrated graphics. You’d have to look for discrete graphics hardware — like the Nvidia RTX 4060-powered laptop in the comparison here — to get something better at 3D performance. Overall, the Asus Vivobook S 14 delivers solid day-to-day performance with surprisingly good GPU speed, too. It falls behind in heavily multithreaded CPU performance, but that’s not representative of most real-world use cases. And it makes up for that in battery life. Asus Vivobook S 14: Battery life The Asus Vivobook S 14 packs a 75 Watt-hour battery. Lunar Lake is focused on long battery life — like you’ll find in a Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered laptop like the Surface Laptop or even better — so we’d expect to see much longer battery life. As on other Lunar Lake-powered laptops we’ve tested recently, Lunar Lake delivered long-lasting all-day battery life. IDG / Chris Hoffman To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this. It’s also worth noting that the Asus Vivobook S 14’s OLED display has a bit of an advantage, as OLED screens use less power to display the black bars around the video. The Asus Vivobook S 14 ran for an average of 1,287 minutes before suspending itself. That’s nearly 21 and a half hours. Real-world battery life is shorter than this, but the machine delivered all-day battery life, letting me work from it for as long as I wanted without worrying about finding a power outlet. The 16-inch Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 did outlast the Asus Vivobook S 14 by a few hours in our benchmarks. While their batteries are about the same size, it’s possible the AMOLED screen in that more expensive Samsung laptop has lower power usage, resulting in longer battery life. Asus Vivobook S 14: Conclusion The Asus Vivobook S 14 is a nice 14-inch Lunar Lake laptop at a good price. It has solid build quality, an OLED screen, 32 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of storage for a $1,199 retail price. That’s hard to argue with, especially if you catch it for a few hundred dollars off on sale. If you’re looking for a 14-inch laptop with lots of battery life and good software compatibility — no potential issues, as with an ARM-powered Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered laptop — it’s a solid choice. Read...

TL;DR: Study 14 languages for life with a Babbel Lifetime Subscription on sale for $129.97 (reg. $599) until December 8.  Learning a new language can open so many interesting doors professionally and personally, but it’s not easy. Some language-learning apps have you spend all your time memorizing new words, but that doesn’t work for everyone. If you want to try learning a language through conversation and practical tutorials, check out Babbel. During Cyber Week, the price of a lifetime subscription to Babbel has dropped to $129.97 (from $599).  Babbel gives you unlimited access to lessons in 14 different languages, including Spanish, French, German, and more. Lessons are tailored for beginners and advanced learners, so you can start at your skill level.  A busy day won’t stop you from studying. Babbel lessons are designed to fit into packed schedules, with each session lasting just 10-15 minutes.  It’s not just memorization. Babbel lessons focus on vocabulary for real-life scenarios like dining and travel. You can even take advantage of advanced speech recognition technology to get feedback on your pronunciation. Get a Babbel Language Learning lifetime subscription on sale for $129.97 during Cyber Week.  Sale ends December 8 at 11:59 p.m. PT.    Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages) – $129.97 See Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

Almost 70 percent of survey respondents from Australia and New Zealand reported flying with a food allergy adds `a lot` of anxiety to their experience. Read...

TL;DR: Go right to checkout to get a grade-A refurbished MacBook Air for just $229.97 (reg. $348.99) with free shipping. Cyber Monday is a time to grab the best online deals ahead of the holidays. This offer allows you to treat yourself or someone special to a fabulous tech gift. Head right to checkout to get this grade-A refurbished Apple MacBook Air 13.3? for just $229.97 (reg. $348.99)—and free shipping—while stock is still available. Whether you’re looking for a reliable travel companion, a gift for a student, or a sleek backup laptop, this MacBook Air is an affordable solution. The 2017 Air offers the classic Apple experience—smooth performance and all-day battery life—at a fraction of the cost. If that sounds like just what you need, go straight to checkout to grab it. Equipped with a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor, it delivers responsive performance for everyday tasks. Its 128GB SSD gives you quick storage, while the 8GB RAM allows for seamless multitasking. A grade-A refurbished rating means it’s in near-mint condition, with minimal to zero signs of wear. Go straight to checkout to get this 2017 MacBook Air for $229.97 (reg. $348.99) with free shipping. StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

Logitech’s MX series of mice is probably the best regarded line outside of the gaming space, and the family might be a little bigger than you think. In addition to the flagship MX Master and travel-friendly MX Anywhere, the MX Vertical is a favorite for its ergonomic design. And right now, Amazon has a rare sale on this specialized mouse, selling it for just over $76 with a 24 percent discount. The MX Vertical, like other vertical mice, is rotated so that your hand sits at a more natural and comfortable position. Logitech says its 57-degree angle “reduces the pressure on your wrist, while your thumb is positioned comfortably on the thumb rest.” This is a matter of preference, of course. Only you can decide if you like it over conventional mouse designs. The MX Vertical is packed with most of the same high-end components as the MX Master series, including 2.4GHz dongle support, multi-device Bluetooth, USB-C charging, and two programmable thumb buttons. An extra button on the top bar defaults to a quick sensitivity adjustment, but all of this can be customized in Logi Options+ software for PC and Mac. I should point out that the MX Vertical only comes in a right-handed model. If you use your mouse in southpaw style, you might prefer the Logitech Lift vertical mouse instead, a similar design that’s not quite as fancy but comes in mirrored righty and lefty shapes. Logitech’s MX mice rarely go on sale, doubly so for this more specialized MX Vertical model. If you’ve been hunting for a deal on this design, you’re unlikely to find another one before the end of the year — so hop on it and get one while you can. Save 24% on the Logitech MX Vertical wireless mouseBuy now on Amazon Read...

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...

It is his first overseas trip since his election in November to a second term in office. Read...