Gigabyte Aero 15 - New thin and light 15" king?

[Briso]

So Gigabyte just released their new thin and light flagship 15" laptop and its got some beefy specs...

 

Specs:

• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 GDDR5 6GB Graphics
• Intel Core i7 7th Gen 7700HQ (2.80 GHz)
• X-Rite™ Pantone® Certified Display
• Ultra-slim 5mm bezel
• RAM 16 GB DDR4 Memory 512 GB M.2 SATA SSD
• 15.6" Full HD 1920x1080 WVA High-Res Display
• 14.00" x 9.80" x Slim 0.78" with weighting in at only 4.62 lbs.
• 1 x Thunderbolt 3, 1 x Mini DisplayPort1.3, 1 x HDMI2.0 (Up to 4 external display simultaneously)
• 8K experience with mini-DisplayPort 1.3
• Slim 150W adapter with USB charging
• 94Whr Battery with Long Battery Life up to 10 hours
• 16.8 million color Island-Style per-key RGB backlight keyboard (macro programmable)
• Aluminium build
• $1.9k

This laptop is basically taking aim at the XPS 15 and the Razer Blade, and outmatches both in most specs...

 

https://unlocked.newegg.com/article/review-gigabyte-aero-15-laptop

https://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2017/05/02/gigabytes-new-aero-15-laptop-takes-aim-at-the-razer-blade/

 

Perhaps LTT could do a review?...

 

Thoughts?

[Misanthrope]

Oh yes Dave Lee did a review on this specific unit:

 

 

[lawrencep93]

I have a 2.5 year old Gigabyte 15" and I have to say it is the best laptop I have owned Model: P25XV2-880-4702S

So I highly recommend Gigabyte and this new 15" looks really nice, I would upgrade but right now there is no need to as my laptop is still perfect and runs/boots super fast.

 

The only thing is my version compared to the one above has more video ram which makes it closer to a workstation rig, where as the Areo looks like it is a great jack of all trades

[RadiatingLight]

21 minutes ago, lawrencep93 said:

I have a 2.5 year old Gigabyte 15" and I have to say it is the best laptop I have owned Model: P25XV2-880-4702S

So I highly recommend Gigabyte and this new 15" looks really nice, I would upgrade but right now there is no need to as my laptop is still perfect and runs/boots super fast.

 

The only thing is my version compared to the one above has more video ram which makes it closer to a workstation rig, where as the Areo looks like it is a great jack of all trades

What GPU does yours have?

AFAIK no mobile GPU had more than 6GB VRAM.

 

[JAKEBAB]

Looks pretty solid, too bad it's made out of plastic

[Briso]

25 minutes ago, JAKEBAB said:

Looks pretty solid, too bad it's made out of plastic

Its a mix of aluminium and plastic (primarily aluminium), body/chassis is made of aluminium and keyboard area is plastic... 

 

Sources:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/gigabyte-aero-15-review

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigabyte-Aero-15-7700HQ-GTX-1060-FHD-Laptop-Review.215364.0.html

[lawrencep93]

2 hours ago, RadiatingLight said:

What GPU does yours have?

AFAIK no mobile GPU had more than 6GB VRAM.

 

OS	Windows 8.1
CPU	Intel® Core™ i7-4710MQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
Display	15.6 Full HD 1920x1080 Wide Viewing-angle LCD
System Memory	16GB DDR3L 1600/1866, 2 slots (Max 16GB)
Chipset	Mobile Intel  HM87 Express Chipset
Video Graphics	NVIDIA  GeForce  GTX 880M GDDR5 8GB
Storage	2x 128GB Solid State Disk + 1000GB Hard Drive Disk
Keyboard Type	Full-sized Backlit Keyboard
Optical Disk Drive	Blu-Ray Combo
I/O Port	USB(3.0)*2, eSATA/USB(2.0) Combo, HDMI, D-sub, RJ45, Mic-in, Earphone-out(SPDIF), SD Card Reader, DC-in Jack
Audio	Watt Speaker*4, Woofer speaker*1, Microphone, Dolby  Home Theater  v4
Communications	LAN: 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet  Wireless LAN: 802.11ac/b/g/n  Bluetooth: Bluetooth V4.0
Webcam	HD Camera
Security	Kensington Lock
Battery	Li-ion 8-cell, 5700mAh, 86.18Wh
Dimensions	392(W) x 263(D) x 32.1~38.3(H) mm
Weight	~2.8kg (w/ODD and 8-cell battery)

[RadiatingLight]

14 minutes ago, lawrencep93 said:

OS	Windows 8.1
CPU	Intel® Core™ i7-4710MQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
Display	15.6 Full HD 1920x1080 Wide Viewing-angle LCD
System Memory	16GB DDR3L 1600/1866, 2 slots (Max 16GB)
Chipset	Mobile Intel  HM87 Express Chipset
Video Graphics	NVIDIA  GeForce  GTX 880M GDDR5 8GB
Storage	2x 128GB Solid State Disk + 1000GB Hard Drive Disk
Keyboard Type	Full-sized Backlit Keyboard
Optical Disk Drive	Blu-Ray Combo
I/O Port	USB(3.0)*2, eSATA/USB(2.0) Combo, HDMI, D-sub, RJ45, Mic-in, Earphone-out(SPDIF), SD Card Reader, DC-in Jack
Audio	Watt Speaker*4, Woofer speaker*1, Microphone, Dolby  Home Theater  v4
Communications	LAN: 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet  Wireless LAN: 802.11ac/b/g/n  Bluetooth: Bluetooth V4.0
Webcam	HD Camera
Security	Kensington Lock
Battery	Li-ion 8-cell, 5700mAh, 86.18Wh
Dimensions	392(W) x 263(D) x 32.1~38.3(H) mm
Weight	~2.8kg (w/ODD and 8-cell battery)

Damn!

I had no idea that the 880M would have 8GB VRAM, but the 980 Desktop would have less.

[Doobeedoo]

It's good and all. Personally I only look at 17" laptops, somewhere around such hardware. Other seems small heh. 

[TigerHawk]

3 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

It's good and all. Personally I only look at 17" laptops, somewhere around such hardware. Other seems small heh. 

If the idea is portability, say for school, 17 is horrible. Way too big to fit most school bags, etc. If you are just going to leave it sit on your desk 80% of the time then don't bother getting a laptop at all. Its a thin and light, not a desktop replacement.

[CtrlAltELITE]

I have the old version of the Aero (the P35 series) as my primary system, they run toasty, real toasty. They have tuned the cooling system so the CPU and GPU sit JUST on the edge of their thermal envelope (~82C for the GPU, ~90C for the CPU) at full load. I worry for the longevity of the system, mine is 2 years old now and experiences very occasional stability issues at high load.

[Doobeedoo]

1 hour ago, TigerHawk said:

If the idea is portability, say for school, 17 is horrible. Way too big to fit most school bags, etc. If you are just going to leave it sit on your desk 80% of the time then don't bother getting a laptop at all. Its a thin and light, not a desktop replacement.

What, it's not really that larger, few centimeters only, I've put them side by side and on top of each other, both of those you need to put it in backpack or so. Depends on thickness and heaviness, if it's close not some high end it's ok. 

Portability wise, really you should be looking something like around 13" anyway. Can carry it in hand easy with it's cover.

[dizmo]

It's...kind of interesting. Not really a super awesome deal compared to the XPS 15 though. It is significantly more expensive, especially if you factor in the frequent Dell sales. Not sure why they keep trying to pack such performance into tighter and tighter packages. Thin and lights should be kept to work, and gaming machines should have the extra girth for better performance IMO.

1 hour ago, Doobeedoo said:

What, it's not really that larger, few centimeters only, I've put them side by side and on top of each other, both of those you need to put it in backpack or so. Depends on thickness and heaviness, if it's close not some high end it's ok. 

Portability wise, really you should be looking something like around 13" anyway. Can carry it in hand easy with it's cover.

It's a lot more than CM between a 17" and this...more like inches. Several of them.

I agree with the 13" for portability, especially if you're using it for school or something.

 

[TigerHawk]

1 hour ago, Doobeedoo said:

What, it's not really that larger, few centimeters only, I've put them side by side and on top of each other, both of those you need to put it in backpack or so. Depends on thickness and heaviness, if it's close not some high end it's ok. 

Portability wise, really you should be looking something like around 13" anyway. Can carry it in hand easy with it's cover.

I mean portability with proper hardware. 8 threads, a GPU, that sort of thing. I don't think I've seen a 13" with the serious kind of hardware your program might need. I'm a CST for example and I run multiple VMs at the same time, 4+, so I need 8+ PROPER threads(no AMD APUs gonna cut it) and a decent amount of vram and gpu power to run all those desktops at the same time without being slow AF. I would love a 15" Thin and light with that sort of power but instead I have an HP elitebook mobile workstation that weighs a billion tons and the power brick is 1:1 with an actual red brick.

[Doobeedoo]

1 minute ago, TigerHawk said:

I mean portability with proper hardware. 8 threads, a GPU, that sort of thing. I don't think I've seen a 13" with the serious kind of hardware your program might need. I'm a CST for example and I run multiple VMs at the same time, 4+, so I need 8+ PROPER threads(no AMD APUs gonna cut it) and a decent amount of vram and gpu power to run all those desktops at the same time without being slow AF. I would love a 15" Thin and light with that sort of power but instead I have an HP elitebook mobile workstation that weighs a billion tons and the power brick is 1:1 with an actual red brick.

Yeah I get that. I also want solid hardware, though would like it in a 17" slim body along. Like Razer Blade Pro 17" just for example from top of my head.

[TigerHawk]

1 minute ago, Doobeedoo said:

Yeah I get that. I also want solid hardware, though would like it in a 17" slim body along. Like Razer Blade Pro 17" just for example from top of my head.

Personally I'm looking forward to what mobile Ryzen brings to the table. If I can get a decent 8, 12, or even 16 thread laptop with a modest gpu in it I might finally get rid of my elite book. It's like....4? 5? years old. Old ivy bridge i7.

[Bouzoo]

12 hours ago, RadiatingLight said:

Damn!

I had no idea that the 880M would have 8GB VRAM, but the 980 Desktop would have less.

VRAM means nothing, 880M will never be able to come even close to using 8GB. See my profile gif? That's a 6GB GTX 760. Good joke. 

 

One day I will understand what's the point of this throttling laptop segment that they keep focusing on. Goes for almost every manufacturer. 

[RadiatingLight]

18 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

VRAM means nothing, 880M will never be able to come even close to using 8GB. See my profile gif? That's a 6GB GTX 760. Good joke. 

 

One day I will understand what's the point of this throttling laptop segment that they keep focusing on. Goes for almost every manufacturer. 

Obviously it won't use 8GB VRAM, but it seems silly that they would even think of putting 8GB on such a card, especially when they didn't put 8GB on the much more powerful 980, which could have actually used a bit more VRAM