Lenovo Legion 5i 16 Gen 9 vs Dell G 16 (7630): Which budget gaming laptop wins?

The Dell G16 (7630) quickly became one of our favorite mid-range gaming laptops, as it offers impressive power, a phenomenal keyboard, and a gorgeous display, all while still being kind to your wallet. This earned it a spot as the budget pick in our guide to the best gaming laptops.

However, I recently reviewed the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9, another solid contender in the mid-range gaming laptop arena, offering solid performance, a vivid display, and a satisfyingly clicky keyboard.

So, of course, when thinking of a possible face-off for the Legion, the Dell G16 came to mind. I pitted the two against one another in six key categories to find out which of these middleweight gaming titans is the best.

Lenovo Legion 5i 16 Gen 9 vs Dell G 16 (7630): Pricing and configurations

Pricing on the Dell G16 starts at $999. The base configuration gets you an Intel Core i7-1365HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and a 16-inch 240Hz (2560x1600) display.

Our review unit featured the upgraded RTX 4060 GPU for a total cost of $1,299. Other upgrades for the G16 include an Intel Core i9-13900HX processor, RTX 4070 GPU, and up to 32GB of RAM. The fully specced model costs $1,949.

As for the Legion 5i Gen 9, Lenovo lists the starting configuration at $1,524. That base model comes with an Intel Core i7-14650HX processor, Nvidia RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, a 16-inch 165Hz (2,560 x 1,600) IPS anti-glare display, and Windows 11 Home.

You can upgrade to an Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU and 1TB of SSD storage for $1,789.99 list price. Upgrading to an RTX 4070 with 32GB of RAM costs $2,199.99 list.

Our Legion 5i review unit featured an upgraded Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU, Nvidia RTX 4060, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD, which cost $2,044 according to its list price.

The Dell G16 (7630) is the better bargain, even at full price. Sure, it has an older 13th-generation Intel processor, but it still has Nvidia RTX 4050 to 4070 graphics, 16-32GB of RAM, and a 16-inch display with a higher 240Hz refresh rate.

Both models are regularly on sale; some of the current deals for each can be seen below, so while I do give the list prices some weight, I'm mostly basing this on the often discounted pricing.

So unless you're stuck between the Legion 5i on a deep discount and a full-price G16, the Dell is the better balance for pricing and configuration options.

Winner: Dell G16 (7630)

Lenovo Legion 5i 16 Gen 9 vs Dell G 16 (7630): Design

Design is often less of a consideration with more budget-friendly gaming laptops. After all, to get a quality gaming laptop at a price that won't break the bank, you usually have to make some compromises.

Often, design is one of those compromises. However, the Legion 5i has the same chassis design as the Legion 7i and Legion Pro laptops, with shiny Lenovo and Legion logos on the top cover and keyboard deck. The only area where the Legion 5i differs from its more pricey siblings is color. The Legion Pro and Legion 7i Gen 9 laptops come in Arctic White or Eclipse Black colorways, while the Legion 5i just comes in the same Arctic Grey that I find boring and flat on the Lenovo ThinkBook and IdeaPad lines.

As for weight and dimensions, the Legion 5i is on the thicker and heavier side. It measures 10.33 x 14.16 x 0.78~0.99 inches and weighs 5.33 pounds.

The Dell G16 (7630) has a slick white chassis with black details on the hinge, making for a stunning contrast. Our Reviews Editor, Rami Tabari, writes in his review of the G16, "The Dell G16 (7630) is a bit of a chunky monkey, but it does look pretty suited in its milky white aluminum lid. The famous Dell logo is stamped in the center, while the bottom flaunts more than you’d expect with its large, matte black hinge."

The Dell G16 (7360) is similarly thick and heavy, measuring 14.05 x 11.37 x 1.01 inches and weighing 6 pounds.

While the G16 may be heavier and thicker than the Legion 5i, the difference between the two is negligible, just 0.67 pounds and, at most 0.23 inches. So, the aesthetic differences are my determining factor, and the G16 looks so much more slick with that high-contrast white and black chassis.

Winner: Dell G16 (7630)

Lenovo Legion 5i 16 Gen 9 vs Dell G 16 (7630): Battery life

Gaming laptops, in general, don't have great battery life. And budget and mid-range gaming laptops are no different.

Now, the Legion 5i Gen 9 was always going to struggle at this point. Legion laptops have not done well on our battery test historically, and this year's laptops were no different. The Legion Pro 5i Gen 9 lasted just 3:43, while the Legion 7i only made it 3:01. Even the top-of-the-line Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 made it to a mere 4:29. So unsurprisingly, the Legion 5i Gen 9 lasted just 3 hours and 36 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. We have seen worse battery life in a gaming laptop, to be sure, but it's not great. The mid-range gaming laptops category average is 5:03.

The Dell G16 (7630) isn't winning any battery life awards either. Still, its 5 hours and 3 minutes of battery life matches perfectly with the category average, and it lasts nearly an hour and a half longer than the Legion.

Winner: Dell G16 (7630)

Lenovo Legion 5i 16 Gen 9 vs Dell G 16 (7630): Display

Both the Dell G16 and Legion 5i have pretty decent IPS displays with high refresh rates, but only one of them manages to have over 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage for enhanced vibrancy and color accuracy. After all, Lenovo only rates the Legion 5i display to 100% sRGB, which would mean a lower DCI-P3 rating.

The Legion 5i meets Lenovo's 100% sRGB claim with 112% coverage on the sRGB color space, but it does underperform on the more vibrant DCI-P3 color gamut with only 79.2% coverage. I was impressed by how well the Legion 5i's display handled color when streaming video and gaming. I wrote in my review that "The IPS display also impressed while gaming, presenting the stunning cotton-candy blue and pink shades of Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail’s cyberpunk end-game hub city Solution Nine with the kind of vibrance that helps the city stand out against the game’s usual Medieval fantasy aesthetic."

As for the Dell G16, the laptop boasts 169% sRGB coverage and 114% DCI-P3 coverage, making it one of the nicest gaming laptop displays we've tested recently, particularly among more affordable gaming laptops. Reviews Editor Rami Tabari writes in his G16 review, "I tore through the jungle in Far Cry 6 to find the greenery ferociously vivid. Once I popped out of the underbrush, the crystal blue ocean contrasted against the warm sandy beach."

Now, the Legion 5i does have a higher average brightness than the G16, making it more resilient against glare than the G16's dimmer matte panel. However, the G16 has more accurate, vibrant colors and that metric is far more relevant since you won't often be gaming in direct sunlight.

Winner: Dell G16 (7630)

Lenovo Legion 5i 16 Gen 9 vs Dell G 16 (7630): Graphics and gaming

The Legion 5i Gen 9 and Dell G16 (7630) feature Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPUs with 8GB of VRAM. So their performance should be similar, though the Legion has a bit of an edge with its 32GB of RAM and more powerful Intel Core i9-14900HX processor.

In our Dell G16 review, Reviews Editor Rami Tabari gushes about the laptop's gaming performance, "The Dell G16 (7630) is rocking an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU with 8GB of VRAM, which puts it on the more powerful end of affordability. It covered me when I shot my way through a warehouse in Far Cry 6, pumping out 61 frames per second on Ultra, 1600p settings."

In our Legion 5i Gen 9 review, I spun up an Act 1 Baldur's Gate III save file to test the Legion's handling of massive turn-based RPG battles. Despite walking into the Goblin encampment and immediately picking a fight, I found that "while there was the occasional hangup, the fight went as smoothly as possible for my under-leveled adventurers, even if I did experience some heavy casualties. The rendering was gorgeous at 1600p and incredibly smooth through combat, exploration, and dialogue."

Now, general memory and processing power don't often have a significant impact on gaming performance, but it can be the deciding factor between two gaming laptops with the same GPU and similarly well-vented designs. So, when it comes to most games, the Legion 5i Gen 9 review unit we tested came out ahead of the Dell G16 by up to 8fps at 1080p resolution. Cyberpunk 2077 was the main exception during our lengthy benchmarking process, as the Dell G16 cleared the 30fps mark while the Legion 5i struggled with just 27fps.

Winner: Legion 5i 16 Gen 9

Lenovo Legion 5i 16 Gen 9 vs Dell G 16 (7630): Performance

Gaming laptops often go for higher-end processors to keep up with the demands of PC gaming, making them an absolute powerhouse when put against general productivity tasks. These laptops are overpowered for just checking your email or browsing the web, but they offer some of the fastest and smoothest computing experiences you could ask for.

In our review of the Dell G16, Reviews Editor Rami Tabari writes, "To achieve its wicked-low price, the Dell G16 (7630) offers a last-gen processor via the Intel Core i7-1365HX. It’s not the most powerful thing in the world, but as you can see in the previous section, it does not bottleneck the graphics performance. And it even makes up for it with a speedy SSD."

In our review of the Legion 5i, I took the laptop for a spin for an entire workday and found that "when it comes to my day-to-day work, the Legion 5i kept up with multiple Chrome tabs, multiple videos, Spotify running in the background, and at least a couple of game downloads. Especially when plugged in, the Legion 5i couldn’t be stopped."

With an upgraded 14th-gen Intel Core i9 processor, the Legion 5i is the winner on general performance tasks.

Winner: Legion 5i 16 Gen 9

Bottom line

Neither of these mid-range gaming laptops is a bad option. Both laptops were rated 4.5 stars and received the Editor's Choice rating. Whether you go for the Dell or Lenovo, you won't regret your choice.

If you want the best power and graphics performance and have a bit more money to spend, the Legion 5i Gen 9 is the better choice. You can even upgrade from our review unit's 165Hz display to a 240Hz option.

However, if you want the best balance of power, budget, and display quality, the Dell G16 is the better option. Plus, it can last on battery power for at least a short flight, though we wouldn't recommend trying to fit either of these chunky gaming laptops on a seat-back tray table any time soon.

Winner: Dell G16 (7630)

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