Dell are holding another 72 hour flash sale in the UK today, shaving up to 14% off their range of G3, G5 and Alienware m15 R2 gaming laptops, as well as up to 40% off a wide variety of monitors, including the 240Hz and G-Sync Compatible Alienware AW2521HF. Read on for my pick of the bunch.
Running from now until August 26th, you can get 14% off their various Dell gaming laptops by applying the promo code SAVE14 at checkout, or AW14 if it’s an Alienware product. There are plenty of good deals to pick from, too, if you’re after a gaming laptop that doesn’t break the bank, and you’ll find my top picks below.
The first is an AMD-based G5 15, which comes with one of AMD’s brand-new Ryzen 5 4600H processors and their RX 5600M graphics chip – a cut down version of their excellent RX 5600 GPU. You also get a 15.6in 1920×1080 display with a 144Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, which is a pretty good set of specs for just over £800. Sure, the storage isn’t massive, but as you may well have seen from our regularly updated budget gaming laptop deals hub, it’s pretty rare to get an RX 5600M chip for less than £1000. Normally, you’re stuck with the less powerful RX 5500M at this kind of price, so at least this goes some way to help make up for the small amount of storage.
Next up is a 9th Gen Intel model with a GTX 1660 Ti graphics chip for just over £1000. Now, you’re probably looking at this and saying ‘Why on earth would I get this when there’s a 10th Gen Intel laptop with a more powerful RTX 2060 graphics chip for £1031 just below it?’ and that is, indeed, a fair point. The key difference lies in the display and the amount of storage you get.
While the RTX 2060-powered Dell G3 15 gets you a 512GB SSD and a 15.6in, 1920×1080 display with a 120Hz refresh rate, the GTX 1660 Ti model comes with a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD combo and a 15.6in, 1920×1080 display with a 144Hz refresh rate. The latter is also a bit brighter, according to Dell’s specs, topping out at a peak of 300cd/m2 versus the RTX 2060’s 250cd/m2. The latter should still be enough for everyday lighting conditions, but may fall short if it’s particularly sunny or you sit to sit in a room with bright, overhead lights. Fortunately, both come with 16GB of RAM. Personally, I’d probably opt for the RTX 2060 model, but you may value more storage and a brighter, smoother-looking display instead.
Finally, there’s an RTX 2070 Max-Q model of the G3 15 laptop for just over £1300, which is a saving of £217 with the promo code. This is arguably the best deal of the lot, as you not only get a 10th Gen Core i7 CPU and 16GB of RAM, but you also get a 1TB SSD and a 15.6in, 1920×1080 display with a 144Hz refresh rate. It’s the best of everything with hardly any kind of compromise.
If it’s an Alienware machine, you’re after, meanwhile, then you’ve got three choices. The 15.6in models both come with an Intel Core i7-9750H processor, 16GB of RAM, and 4K, 60Hz displays, Tobii eye-tracking tech, while the 17.3in model comes with a more upmarket Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU and a 1920×1080 display with a 144Hz refresh rate and Tobii eye-tracking.
Naturally, they’re quite a bit more expensive than the Dell G3 and G5 models, but it also means you’re getting bigger savings as a result. Just remember that you’ll need to use the promo code AW14 at checkout with these instead of the SAVE14 code reserved for the Dell laptops.
Finally, there’s just one Alienware monitor on sale as part of these latest deals, but at least it’s a pretty darn good one – the AW2521HF. With a 240Hz refresh rate, 1920×1080 resolution and an accurate IPS panel, the AW2521HF is a great pick for those after a monitor with a super high refresh rate, and it’s also one of Nvidia’s fully-certified G-Sync Compatible monitors, too, so its variable refresh rate tech should work fine and dandy with AMD and Nvidia graphics cards alike.
Admittedly, this particular monitor has been £350 in almost every Dell sale over the last couple of months, so you’re not really saving a huge amount compared to previous discounts. Still, it’s a good price for a 240Hz monitor of this size, and is arguably more preferable than my current best 240Hz gaming monitor pick, the AOC C27G2ZU. While the latter can be had for £300 at time of writing, its 27in display and lower pixel density means it’s less suited to everyday desktop work than the 25in Alienware. The AOC has a slightly more accurate panel than its Alienware rival, admittedly, but if you don’t want to be squinting at web pages and word documents all day long, I reckon you’ll be much better off spending the extra £50 here and getting the smaller AW2521HF.