Dell G5 15 SE vs ASUS TUF A15 - Best budget gaming laptop?

LMr Bargain Hunter on 15/06/2020 - 13:32

Hi all,

I'm a bit new to computing, but I know the basics. I'm trying to decide between a:

Both:

  • 15.6" screen (15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare LED Backlight Non-Touch Narrow Border WVA Display for Dell and LED Backlight FHD Anti-glare IPS panel with 45% NTSC)
  • AMD Ryzen 5 4600H
  • 8 GB RAM, 2 sockets for expansion
  • 512 GB SSD

Pros of Dell vs ASUS:

  • Uses Radeon 5600M, compared to lower GTX1650Ti
  • 51Wh battery compared to 48 Wh

Pros of ASUS vs Dell:

  • 144 Hz Screen vs 60 Hz screen
  • Delivered in 2 days by Ebay Plus compared to 3-4 weeks for Dell based on Ozbargain comments
  • Better build and better hinge
  • Better cooling (by a small amount)

Looking at the market these do seem like the best value budget gaming laptops (against Lenovo L340, Dell G3, ASUS TUF FX505D)

I'm not going to use it for a lot of games, just the basics like GTA5, Witcher 3, LoL, Fortnite
It's my biggest investment on a laptop so far so it'd be great to get some thoughts from the experts. Not many reviews available for 4600H models

Thanks

Poll Options

  • 6
    Dell G5 15 SE
  • 9
    ASUS TUF A15
Computing

Comments

  • [Deactivated] on 15/06/2020 - 13:37
    +1

    Had a G17 years ago, better off just getting an actual PC

  • BLAIL on 15/06/2020 - 13:38
    +1

    ASUS because of the Higher refresh rate. But if you don't care about that, then the DELL

  • Drakesy on 15/06/2020 - 14:08
    +1

    Asus screen colour reproduction is a POS.
    Otherwise everything else about the ASUS is great

  • psyren89 on 15/06/2020 - 14:11
    +1

    Something else to consider: https://www.pcgamer.com/au/amds-gaming-laptops-have-a-featur…

  • Yurgon on 15/06/2020 - 14:24
    +1

    I was tossing up between similar options. Had trouble deciding between the Dell G5 SE (4800h Model) and Asus (4800h model) as I’ve had Dells for the past few years.

    I ended up choosing the Asus and haven’t looked back. These are the things I like about it (your opinion may differ):

    1. It had a much better port selection - USB-C for data and DisplayPort vs the Dell’s USB-C only working with DisplayPort (no data).
    2. The Asus has 2 year warranty vs dell’s 1 year.
    3. the screen is nice with minimal backlight bleeding
    4. the touchpad location is centred and much more practical than the dell laptop being offset to the left.
    5. The Asus can use Gsync on an external monitor as the USB-C display port is connected to the nVidia GPU (as well as the hdmi)

    I do believe the Dell would have (slightly) better battery life utilising smartshift with the amd apu/gpu combo

  • dheywood on 15/06/2020 - 14:39
    +1

    I recently went through the same when purchasing a gaming laptop, was looking at the G3 and some other options. I opted for a Metabox Alpha-X.
    Admittedly I splurged and got slightly more specced one, there was a decent same at the time. But the are a very upgradable system and worth the extra in my opinion.

    https://www.metabox.com.au/store/Alpha-X-Range/Buy

  • Hellfire on 15/06/2020 - 16:22
    +1

    Both of these get terrible reviews for their thermals. You'll be getting throttled most of the time while gaming.

  • Mr Bargain Hunter on 15/06/2020 - 21:57

    Thanks guys, I’m leaning towards the Dell as the main thing the ASUS had going for it was the screen but I saw it had bad colours

  • Mallaca51 on 15/06/2020 - 23:43
    +1

    https://youtu.be/ZRDUR-rPGsM

    I watched this during my search for a sub 2k laptop debating pretty much the same choice as you.

    I think the main contenders in this space for Aussies are Lenovo, Asus and dell. I would vouch for an Acer but currently their cheapie models are a year old when it comes to their graphics generation.

    I honestly think that when searching the key is to make sure your panel is at least 120/144 refresh rate.

    Most of these types of models are going to suffer when it comes to throttling CPU it's just a matter of those heats when thinking about longevity. If I'm losing 5-10 FPS for the sake of one year of use that's a choice I'm willing to make to save me in the long run.

    It's sad MSI arent currently offering competitive pricing in Australia as they would win in this sector hands down. (G65 is currently round 1600 in Europe where I am currently but over 2.5 in Oz)

    Good luck anyway. I'm waiting until next refresh of cheaper 2060 laptops to make my choice.

    • Hellfire on 16/06/2020 - 09:49
      +1

      Agree. My advice would be to wait until we see more budget laptops with Ryzen 4000s released. Or if you can't then the Asus TUF is probably your best budget choice (if you can live with the poor screen and terrible thermals)

  • Mr Bargain Hunter on 26/06/2020 - 00:22

    Ended up getting the Dell, heard some terrible things about the ASUS TUF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRDUR-rPGsM
    Let's see how this goes, didn't want to wait for new laptops as my current one is slow as hell (AMD A6-7310)

  • mp3police on 27/06/2020 - 22:41

    Got my Dell se yesterday the laptop is trash will shutdown within 2 minutes of playing a game. Refunding this trash.

    • Mr Bargain Hunter on 28/06/2020 - 02:32

      What game did you try? Maybe I'll give it a go too

      • mp3police on 28/06/2020 - 10:39

        Hitman 2 running on medium to low with the gkey on the game just shuts off 5 minutes into the game, benchmark runs ultra with 60fps score.
        Already contacted Dell support for a refund.

        • Mr Bargain Hunter on 04/07/2020 - 03:48

          Hey did you get a refund?
          I was doing light gaming (extremely low settings on a light game like league) but I still get the blue screen of death. Got it 9 times now.

          • F1ProjectOne on 06/07/2020 - 14:46

            @Mr Bargain Hunter: Have you tried to go to windows setting>Graphic setting, then set your game to high performance?

            • Mr Bargain Hunter on 07/07/2020 - 14:06

              @F1ProjectOne: Yep. Still doesn't work. Mine is trash too.

              • F1ProjectOne on 07/07/2020 - 16:30

                @Mr Bargain Hunter: Ive read about one guy who reinstalled the drivers and it seemed to fix the problems.

                • Mr Bargain Hunter on 07/07/2020 - 16:35

                  @F1ProjectOne: Still didn’t work. Dell support couldn’t figure it out after a 1 hour call. I’m going to leave a glowing review for this. Glowingly negative!

                  • mp3police on 08/07/2020 - 05:15

                    @Mr Bargain Hunter: I called technical support yesterday they didn't even try to fix it, I said Id prefer to keep the laptop if it works and she just says ill setup refund. I asked do you do tech support she says yes and then says but ill just refund it.
                    A new bios update was released yesterday I installed that and its fully updated the correct drivers etc. It still crashes withing 5 minutes.
                    Pretty much a youtube machine.

    • Void on 29/06/2020 - 15:00

      Just because you got unlucky doesn't mean you should make a generalisation that all of them are trash.

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