If you have been on the lookout for perhaps the best gaming laptop in terms of performance, then perhaps you should buy the Gigabyte Aero 15X V8 without any hesitation. This may be courtesy the fact that the laptop has the latest eighth generation of Intel Core i7 processor which has improved performance by up to 20 percent.
Not only does it suit performance hungry apps, but also packs a heavy dedicated graphics card; All of this squeezed under a slim chassis. The laptop is also lighter thus portable, although it lacks the keyboard customization available. Though it shouldn’t matter to you if you were looking for a laptop offering excellent performance, yet still being portable.
Design
The casing is pretty much the same as the year-old model’s. The 15- inch Gigabyte Aero 15X looks pretty thin at a thickness (or rather ‘thin-ness’) of 20mm. Even being big, the laptop doesn’t weigh much but just 2 kg. Although it is true, 15-inch laptops aren’t meant to be carried out often, but if they are quite lightweight as compared to other laptops in the category, then it shouldn’t be difficult to do so.
Compared with a normal MacBook Pro, its weight exceeds by just 200 grams and its thickness by 5 mm. Therefore, it is the perfect fit for those wanting a gaming power-horse. If you compare it with the much popular Alienware 15, which weighs 3.5 kg and is 25mm thick, you would feel that it is relatively quite portable. Although if you are a person who mainly uses the laptop at his/her home, then perhaps this laptop shouldn’t be the only one on your mind. Though, if you plan to use it on the move, then perhaps this is the right pick.
Sadly, its design doesn’t offer much for gamers, since it is rather subdued. This is because there aren’t colorful slashes on the lid. Nor are there any LED across its sides. Gaming laptop usually have aggressive looking heat outlets; This one doesn’t have aggressive-looking ones either. But then, who cares? If it performs the best, then perhaps a rather minimalistic design won’t hurt much.
To make up for it, the laptop does have some severe angles. Though instead of being rounded, the edge of the keyboard is sharp, and the sides also form a straight line. This may be partially because to offer better strength or to make the laptop appear to rather an industrial one.
Overall, aluminum is used as the build material, especially for the lid, area surrounding the keyboard and the lower panel. This makes for a great build quality and also offers a “premium” look. This is because usually other gaming laptops, usually use plastic for everything set aside the lid, but to make it appear more elegant, this one uses aluminum.
Ports
It is true that now many laptops especially the high-end ones which are pretty thin and portable are now coming with only Type-C connectors. Though it is true that USB Type-C is the future, there are still many of us out there who still rely on the older yet still much commonly used USB 3.0, and some even have the USB 2.0 flash drives too. Therefore, to cater to that customer category, the laptop offers three USB ports along with another USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3.
In this way, you are also future proof and yet you can still enjoy the availability of the previous versions of the USB.
In case you want to connect your laptop to another display, you can do so either through the display port or the Full-size HDMI. Apart from that, for wired connections, there is an Ethernet RJ-45 slot too.
For those, who routinely connect SD cards, there is an SD card reader too.
Audio
The sound from the speakers is one of the few areas, where the laptop disappointed us. The maximum level of sound from the speakers is just below par, and you wouldn’t be enjoying bass and treble from the speakers. Therefore, if you want to enjoy a truly immersive experience of gaming, then perhaps you should buy external speakers.
Keyboard and TrackPad
The TrackPad is really smooth to use, like that on the XPS line by Dell. On the surface, Gigabyte used texture glass, which leads to smooth experience. Since the buttons seem to be rather merged, it can be difficult to differentiate between the two. Our advice would be to rather opt for a proper gaming mouse if you plan on gaming on it frequently. Another reason why you might have to ultimately do this is that because of a lack of a proper driver as of now. This causes the trackpad to freeze momentarily at its own.
As for the keyboard, it is really good with a long travel and also includes a separate num pad. Although the keyboard is backlit, perhaps the Gigabyte’s customization software isn’t as good as its competitors. Though, you still can set the color to any color you want.
Screen
Screens also matter to gamers like everything else. Its screen is pretty decent being 15.6” and employing LCD as its display. The sRGB color gamut is 99.8 percent, which is quite satisfactory. The laptop makes up by offering a color depth which isn’t found on major laptops. You won’t get the color accuracy on most of the other premium laptops, as you would do on this one.
Furthermore, since the laptop screen is in matte, you shouldn’t be worried about using it outsides. Also, to prevent reflection, the screen’s surface does the job.
Battery
The battery life has reduced drastically from the last model to just 3 hours and 55 minutes. On the contrary, considering that it is a gaming laptop, it shouldn’t really matter much if you going to put it in on some desk space and play all day.
Price
The laptop cannot be called inexpensive since it has a price tag of $1,999 to it, which has the latest eighth generation of Intel Core-i7. If you want the ultra-premium version you would have to spend $500 extra in which you would be getting a 4K/UHD screen and GeForce GTX 1070 Maxi-Q graphics card for a total of $2,500. In case you want to just upgrade the screen to a 1080p display, then you can get that model too for $2,299.
The laptop was released just last week i.e. 16th April. However, considering the specs which the laptop offers, it might be right to spend this much cash on a piece of hardware.