In this article, I give you my quick review of the Gigabyte Aero 15 X9 Laptop with specs included. I did some research on my own to see if this laptop is for me or to see who this laptop is for. It seems that it does everything well above average while it’s not the absolute best. It was not designed to be the thinnest and lightest but it’s OK in that regard.
Anyway, let’s meet the improved Gigabyte Aero 15 X9. (Links down below to the device on the market).
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Gigabyte improvements
Gigabyte has been working very hard to update and refresh their laptops to include the Intel i9 CPU, dual-channel RAM, Ultra HD panels, and things like that to meet the needs of the various demographic across the globe.
This generation Gigabyte is using, what they’re calling, all Intel Inside, which means the NVME drives, the network interface cards, Thunderbolt, etc… With all of that stuff, they’re making a stand and this is gonna be a very nice standard for consistency.
Specs
All Aero laptops support Windows 10 Pro. The unit I am referencing here has the i7 8750H processor and the Nvidia RTX 2070 MAX-Q GPU. Of course, this has the Nvidia Optimus switchable graphics technology.
The RAM inside they are using Samsung at 2666 MHz. It is running on the dual-channel configuration.
It also has a huge storage upgrade to 1 terabyte NVME from the Intel 760 P. Test of Read-Writes that came out after nine runs averaging 2800 1500 respectively. Also, it has an additional empty slot that will feature NVME or SATA.
The network interface card is the best you can currently get (at the time of writing this). Using the Intel 9560 and should you desire it, you can use the killer 1550 software suite.
The battery inside is using that legendary 94 watt-hour battery. It is what really gravitated people to this chassis previously. Unplugged five to seven hours, no problem there.
The power supply has been upgraded, previously using a 180-watt brick, we are now using a 230-watt brick.
This chassis is not starving for power and during any sort of load, it will never discharge itself.
Additionally, the heat sink has been improved in these two places here and there’s also a slight heatsink over the PCH.
The weight of the chassis comes in around 4,4 pounds and of course, the build is all aluminum.
Moving over to the i/o on the left-hand side, we have the local area network port, a single USB 3.1, and HDMI, the combo USB C 3.1 and DisplayPort 1.4, and of course, the combo headphone microphone jack.
On the rear, there are no ports, very clean aesthetic here, some may like this some may not.
On the right-hand side though, we have the card reader, the UHS 2, a very fast SD card reader (the fastest you can get).
Next, we have a four-lane Thunderbolt with three ports, two USB 3.1, and of course your power and lock.
The bottom of the chassis is all aluminum. You could see the ventilation there.
I have seen online that people reported hot temperatures when placing this laptop on their lap. And with an aluminum bottom panel, this is a very likely scenario. They could just as easily use a plastic or some sort of polycarbonate material but the question is would that sort of compromise the overall build quality of the unit to the consumer.
The laptop opens up with one hand effortlessly and inside here it is a Windows percision trackpad thank you very much here gigabyte. Zero complaints with this trackpad, it’s smooth as glass, it feels great, has good click symmetry on the left, and right-hand size gestures perfectly. This is all I want out of a trackpad, don’t change a thing here.
The keyboard feels just like it did last year, I particularly love the layout here maxing out the fans is the function key and escape key and it works exactly as it should.
However, users keep in mind putting this machine to sleep with the function key and f1 key may interfere with you maxing out the fans.
The keyboard deck itself is very sturdy. It doesn’t flex when being moved or grabbed by the corner of the chassis.
When gaming in your left hand near the WASD Keys temperatures of the keyboard hit around 31 degrees Celsius. I find this to be beyond acceptable and it’s only when you start to get temperatures up in your 40 degrees Celsius does it typically become a bothersome for the general user.
Over towards the middle and right hand side of the keyboard can get quite a bit warmer when gaming. However, that’s typically not a placement for your hand during games.
There’s no windows hello on the Aero and why it’s not something I typically use is I have my machine Auto login for me. With it being such a fine balance between gaming and a professional type unit having windows hello could be very beneficial to many users out there. So, perhaps having a fingerprint reader integrated into the power button or even an IR camera would do wonders perhaps in the future generations of this particular chassis.
Now between the webcam microphone area and the power button where that hinge is, that whole area is an exhaust. So, that means using your arrow as a docking station with the lid closed powering another monitor might not be the best solution for you.