21.8.2018

Finally bought this laptop after several weeks/months of deliberating and weighing it up against the Razer Blade 15 and the ASUS Zephyrus M. I decided to go for the Aero 15X due to the excellent battery life, slim bezels, numpad which I need for work, and per-key RGB.My overall impression of the Aero 15X is overwhelmingly positive. The keyboard feels great and is an order of magnitude better than any other laptop keyboard I've used, one thing to note - as another reviewer pointed out - is that the keyboard is just slightly narrower than a regular keyboard which I got used to pretty quickly. It's a price worth paying for having a numpad on such a small chassis. The per-key RGB is also really nice to look at,although the software for changing it seems a little clunky.The screen is also great and a huge step up from my old laptop. I do notice some backlight bleed along the bottom, particularly towards the left corner, but only in low light conditions and it doesn't really bother me. The lack of bezels also makes it look slick and modern. The build quality is excellent, coming from a laptop with a plastic chassis to this really feels like a step up in quality. It manages to feel fairly sturdy despite how lightweight it is. The machine edges can feel a little sharp on my wrists but I expect I'll get used to this in time. My only gripe about the chassis is that it is a real fingerprint magnet and polishing them off is a bit of a chore.The battery life is excellent, making it through an hour or so of Prime Video last night, a morning of work, a two hour IT training course and half an hour of gaming at lunch with 1h25m (25%) still left when it was put away. Truly incredible for a machine with components like this. The trackpad feels great and is nice and responsive and easy to use, although a driver update is required before it will function properly.The upgradeability is also excellent, I have added a 500GB SSD to the m.2 slot without any issues in respect of the hardware (see below) and the spare RAM slot is also easily accessible should I wish to add another stick.I've made the switch from console gaming to this laptop and it has been able to handle everything I've thrown at it so far with ease. I haven't tested any AAA titles out yet (need to wait until payday to afford one after a purchase like this and I own most of the ones I want on ps4 and am unwilling to buy another copy for PC) but I expect excellent performance when I do. I downloaded Subnautica, a game I have been pining after for months, and it looks absolutely incredible on the screen and runs smooth as silk. I have the fans cranked up to max when playing and the laptop chassis barely heats up (I forgot to look at internal temps before writing this review). The fans are tremendously loud when maxed out but they seem to do a great job. I would expect it to get hotter when playing a more demanding game.The only complaint I really have with this laptop is the lacklustre software. It would be great to see other manufacturers adopting Razer's "no bloatware" approach but removing bloatware didn't take too long. I was able to open it up and add another SSD to the m.2 slot with minimal difficulty, but have been unable to set it as my boot drive as yet because the option to press F12 to open the BIOS menu when booting the machine has disappeared after a Windows update. The Gigabyte Smart Manager is downright awful. It looks terrible and doesn't seem to work properly. This laptop will spend the majority of the time plugged in and I have no wish to burn out the battery so I have tried multiple times to change the battery mode in Smart Manager to Quality or Custom so the battery will stop charging at 60%. However, every time I quit my game and check, it has reverted to Standard mode and the battery is at 100% being overcharged. I can see no way to make this setting permenant. This laptop is a significant headache to set up out of the box and seemed to be running very slow and with a lot of software issues, but a massive windows update seems to have solved all problems other than those associated with Smart Manager. Be prepared for it to be as slow as a week in the jail until all updates have been installed.If Gigabyte fix the issues with Smart Manager (making it better to look at wouldn't hurt either) I will update my review to 5 stars. This laptop is at a premium pricepoint and has premium hardware and it really should have the premium software to match.

27.12.2018

I use this computer in many ways, from office work, chrome and movies for hours, to heavy gaming, video editing, and machine learning training.This is probably the only computer which can give performance suitable for those operations at this price.Its battery is outstanding, I managed 7 hours of light use. But when needed (and plugged in) it becomes a real workstation, to rival a desktop computer of a couple of years ago.Cons (with solutions and personal opinions):-"chin effect" of the camera, not as bad as expected, but for serious calls, I'll probably use an external camera-if you're using it in shorts on your lap, having the fan opening at the bottom,your leg hair will get stuck in the openings haha not really a problem for you, but I'm not sure if it can be a problem for the vents.-consider a clean install of Windows as soon as you get the computer, it can become incredibly slow in some basic operations like opening the task manager or at boot (18 seconds more than my previous laptop from 2012)Moreover at the beginning (now it's a bit better) because of the 144Hz refresh rate, the screen froze every time I opened a layer on the desktop page. You will get the disk with all the gigabyte software, so a clean install it's not a big deal-the charger is heavier than expected, but still not a problem, since most of the time you won't need it-the upper part of the case is really easy to scratch, I put my new and old computer in the same backpack and the old one got his revenge scratching the corners of the Aero :( if you need to put it with other things in the same pocket use the covering tissue provided, or not put anything hard in it..-other problems because of Windows Home and not Pro, as it's not possible to edit the security or group policies or solving some problems with the clock, but they are problems of Windows Home, which could have been avoided providing Windows Pro, not of the Aero-it totally lacks the audio bass, like absolute zero. When watching some videos it totally lacks the background music. It can be solved through some tutorial online on the equalizer, but it will reduce the overall output power of the audio, who is not already that great... But the jack is working perfectly fine, so if you need power and you plug an external speaker you will not have any problem.-500 GB of internal ssd are really too few, depending on your usage, consider buying a second ssdPros:just anything else,the screen,the battery,the design,the case,the keyboard (I really like it even if I still have to get used to),the touchpad (you have to edit some registers to use 3 and 4 fingers gestures, but once enabled, they are amazing),the adaptive brightness of the screen,the size,the weight,the battery (another time, but it's really a miracle for a computer of this power),it stays cool enough to keep it on my lap when playing (wearing long trousers),it has a great CPU, GPU and RAM, the SSD is not that great but I had no big problems in a real-world usageand anything else.Hope to have helped somebody i the decision processCheers

7.4.2019

So, I bought this with the express intention of upgrading it out of the box. Installed 2 * 32GB 2666MHz RAM, 2 * 2TB NVMe M.2, upgraded the thermal pads and re-pasted the CPU, then undervolted by 100mV on each core, etc.Every upgrade was easy to do, Win 10 Pro installed easily and I had no problems at all. The RAM is operating at optimal frequency, I get no thermal throttling on ultra settings on a range of games, e.g. ROTR, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, etc. and that it 2560*1440 on a 4k monitor (downscaled).I also use it for music production, video editing, etc. Easy to work with.After a decade of using a mac at home (upgrading to max spec MacBook Pro every 2 years. I had been getting incredibly frustrated with Apple,

17.3.2019

As a student, at first, I was very hesitant to buy this laptop, greatly due to the high price point. However, after consolidation with my friends we all collectively decided that it was simply a great investment. I picked the GTX 1070 model with 512gb SSD and 8th gen i7 for around £1800. At first it might seem like way above and beyond most people's price range. But you shouldn't think of it as a simple one time payment. I can guarantee that this laptop will last you at least 3-5 solid years, depending on your usability. Dividing that would roughly get you £400-500 a year.As far as the specs go, this is simply the best of the best for this price point. I play games such as R6 Siege,

4.10.2018

Il start of by saying that I bought this laptop to replace my much loved MacBook 12. The reason for the switch was I had enough of Apple after they refused to fix my iPhone 7 Plus, so that meant a complete move away from all things Apple.I wanted something small, light, powerfull enough to pay games as well as day to day things like watching netflix, browsing and ms office. As well as the size and weight my other must was a decent battery life. The Aero 15 X delivers on all fronts here. The size and weight is incredible for such a powerful laptop, the thin bezels make this 15.6" look more like a 14" laptop. The battery life is also incredible,

21.11.2018

I did a lot of research when looking for a new laptop that could handle playing games but was light and portable enough to actually be practical as a laptop.I am very happy with this product but buyers should read the well publicised reviews as there are some compromises associated with any laptop like this:- Laptop is very thin and practical, works well as a portable laptop- Perhaps not quite as good looking as some of the other high end gaming laptops or ultrabooks- I love how understated it is compared to some of the other gaming laptops which you can clearly identify as such with big decals on the back- They have managed to squeeze a full number pad into the keyboard which is great,

17.5.2018

I bought this laptop for university, as I needed a laptop that was powerful, light, and could play games. This filled all my requirements.I'm genuinely surprised how light is it: I previously had a Lenovo Y50 (2014), which by comparison felt heavier than my Gigabyte Aero 15. Opening and closing it is extremely easy because of how light the entire laptop is, and I can't really feel a noticeable difference when it's in my backpack when I already have some books in it.The keyboard is RGB, which is always nice, and it feels pretty good compared to other laptops' keyboard that are "mushy" or not very responsive, but these keys feel more like Cherry MX Blues mixed with membrane keys,

26.11.2018

I brought this machine on the Black Friday sale after doing a lot of research and watching several reviewsThe laptop feels very solid with no flex however I did encounter all the negatives wich other reviewers we're talking aboutThe first thing I did out of the box was checking the panel for light bleed (Wich it seems is unavoidable with ips panels) and mine has it on bottom but is not noticeble other then boot up black screen with the Gigabyte logo in a completely dark room ,no problem during normal useThe second hardware related "issue" I did notice is the track pad ,the right bottom part of the surface where the right click point is sitting slightly lower then the palm rest however is not

9.5.2019

I've been using this for a few months now - it's generally pretty fantastic.Superb screen, performance, great keyboard, decent trackpad, great battery life, all the future & legacy ports you need, and surprisingly portable - it's design doesn't prohibit you from using it as a business laptop, which you can't say about a lot of these gaming laptops. The battery life with Office apps is easily enough to get through a full working day (though not surprisingly, gaming is going to chew battery through much more quickly).No issues with screen light bleed for me.It was easy enough to add an extra 16Gb RAM and an extra 1Tb M2 SATA SSD drive. The extra RAM adds a quite noticeable increase in gaming performance,

3.5.2018

Hi Nikolay - thanks for choosing to purchase AERO15 X and writing a review. However reading your comment ;its all about plastic - we can confirm from a laptop chassis perspective there are 4 parts/elements :- A Cover (the top face, lid, when the screen is closed) - THIS IS ALUMINIUM- B Cover - the top of the chassis, (where the keyboard is situated) - THIS IS ALUMINUM- D Cover - the underside, base of the chassis - THIS IS ALUMINIUM- B Cover - screen bezel, surrounding the panel - this is a rubbererised material, top and both sides, base of bezel (with Aluminum AERO logo), is PlasticSo 100% of the chassis construction is ALUMINIUM.Screen bezels, no matter how thick/wide or narrow will normally be plastic,

14.9.2019

product design is perfect with abundance of ports (SD card which is the main reason for my purchase)I did a lot of research before deciding on this laptop. my Lenovo from a few years ago finally died on me. Then I tried the MSI GS63VR but hated it. I sent that back and got this. Ive only had it for a day so here are my first thoughts. This is my first premium laptop and am I stunned. As I said before I did lots of research and looked at lots of reviews. Ill talk about things other reviewers said and what I think about it. A lot of people said that the keyboard was too hard to press and was on the left side. I love the keyboard. I had no issues switching from a regular keyboard to this.

9.4.2019

I bought this to do machine learning as it has a powerful Nvidia graphics card, and had been using Apple mac book pros for the last 15 years but was fed up with their lack of innovation and connectivity and poor keyboard.The Aero 15 is a good unfussy design with a nice keyboard and good matt screen and with 32G and 1TB can cope with anything. power brick is not as glamorous as the apple one.After not having used Windows since XP I was shocked as I bought this machine over others because it had the Pro version of Windows 10 so I thought this would be aimed at professional users rather than just gamers. I hated the infantilising faux bonhomie of the setting process where Microsoft repeatedly tried to sign me up for extended data rape.

7.4.2019

Finally took the plunge and purchased this laptop. Wow i must say i am so impressed. Having worked in the IT industry since leaving school (now early 40s), I would normally build my own kit. Due to child constraints I plunged for the quicker out the box and a device I could be mobile with. Thus this Aero 15x is replacing an ageing Dell laptop and my own built base gaming pc.Im now into my 3rd week with this laptop and cannot fault it. Considering the equipment level inside it, its not overly heavy. The first couple of weeks nothing heavy was thrown at the laptop. It handled un-raring large archives with ease and is noticeably faster than my old equipment.This weekend I started a number of games that the desktop would of been used for.

27.4.2018

So, I got one. It`s a good machine in terms of performance, battery life and screen, but! It`s all about plastic(on site they say it`s "Unique Aesthetics with Aluminum Robust Body"). Dell XPS feels far more superior in terms of build quality.Their attempt to provide just 1 SODIMM 16Gb RAM module to let you add another one has completely failed. Mine was equipped with SODIMM from Kingson, CBD26D4S9D8ME-16, which is impossible to find anywhere. Their support also has no idea, so I had to by a dual channel kit from Corsair which works fine now.The touch pad is neither close to Apple, nor to Dell, bumpy, jumpy 2 or 3 fingers at a time.The cooling system is also weird.

13.5.2019

I wish I could see what I was writing right now but after a week of spontaneous raving in the purest unicorn vomit that my keyboard has been partaking in, it has left me with damaged retinas and soul. Let's be clear, it's not a bad laptop, hardware build quality is excellent, however I'm not sure how impressed the boss was when he looked over during the meeting to see a rainbow with the intensity only ever seen in a skittles advert right across my keyboard. Nothing says professional like bright flashing coloured lights. The gigabyte control centre operates sometimes, if it feels like it, but only at 5 frames per second. You can turn the keyboard off of course but that would be too easy,

GigaByte Aero 15 Classic - Reviews

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