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Where power and portability meet – The Gigabyte Aero 15!
Freshly released this month, we have the Gigabyte Aero 15. Starting at $1900 USD, many would say you can find better specs in a laptop at a better price, and this is absolutely true. However, what you’re paying for in this instance is not merely the internals themselves, but the process of fitting said internals into a 19 mm thick aluminum chassis, while keeping the entire package under 3 pounds. With that being said, let’s talk about the specs.
Screen
Arguably the most impressive feature on this sleek system is its color-graded display. It boasts a 15.6 inch, 1080p, non-touch, matte-finished display with a satisfying 5 mm bezel and spectacular color accuracy. This color accuracy can be credited to their partnership with a company called “X-Rite”. X-Rite being a manufacturer of color measurement and management solutions, produced a display that content-creators, content-consumers and gaming professionals alike can appreciate. You can expect to see a 4k panel edition released later this year. The only downside to such a display comes from the thin bezels, because in order to accommodate them, the webcam had to be moved to the bottom of the display, giving a less-loved angle for your Skype calls.
Specs
The Aero 15 is packing a 2.8ghz Kaby Lake i7-7700U HQ, backed by 8gb of DDR4 RAM (2 slots, up-gradable to 32gb). The included storage uses a SATA-interface 512gb SSD, but, the machine does support NVMe drives. Furthermore, the Aero 15 utilizes a 6gb GTX 1060, which means it is VR-ready. The port selection features: 1xEthernet, 1xHDMI 2.0, 1xDisplayport 1.3,3xUSB 3.0 and 1x 4-lane, PCI-e, Type-C, Thunderbolt 3.0 port. If all display ports are utilized simultaneously, you can achieve a maximum of 4 external displays at one time.
Aesthetics & Battery
Gigabyte claims you can achieve 10 hours of basic use however, many tests are reporting closer to around 7 hours. However, under intense load, you may get much less than even the 7 hours. This machine comes in a variety of colors, as do the individually-lit, programmable, RGB, macro keys. The keys can be set to behave differently in different programs, which is a huge plus for the content creator and the gaming community alike.
Overall, with the Gigabyte Aero 15, you’re getting a sleek and slim workhorse of a machine that seems to have been made with content-creators in mind. The qualities to remember are its matte-finished, X-Rite, color-graded screen and, the individually-lit keyboard below. The webcam is in what some would call, an awkward position (beneath the screen) due to the 5.1 mm thin bezels, and that this whole package comes in starting at $1900 USD.