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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here, and this is the Aero 15 from Gigabyte.
00:07This is their new, all-purpose, thin and powerful laptop.
00:11Now, I get a lot of devices that come through this office,
00:13but once in a while, I get something that just really exceeds my expectations.
00:17This is one of them.
00:19It has a plastic build, it feels very similar to the Aero 14 materials.
00:23It's a little bigger, but the idea is the same.
00:25The top surface comes in various colors.
00:28If you want something a little less loud, the black looks pretty good.
00:31The Gigabyte logo lights up.
00:33I'm not the biggest fan of light-up logos, but that's just a personal preference thing.
00:37So, for a predominantly plastic laptop, the build quality is good.
00:41It starts at $1,900, which is pretty expensive for a laptop.
00:44And I know some of you are going to say that you can get a laptop with a 1060 for like $1,000 or $1,200.
00:50Thing is, they aren't going to be this thin, and they certainly aren't going to have the features that this thing has.
00:54So, when you build something this thin and this light,
00:57you're going to have to pay a premium because the manufacturer has to get custom PCB, custom thermal solutions
01:03to cool something this thin and this powerful and keep it in a package this small.
01:07Okay, the port selection is above average for a device like this.
01:10You get Ethernet, HDMI 2, DP 1.3, an audio jack, three USB 3s, a Thunderbolt 3 port, and an SD reader.
01:19I did ask about the Thunderbolt 3 port just to see if it was x2 or x4 in terms of PCIe lanes,
01:24and they said it was four lanes of PCIe, so that's a good thing.
01:27It's pretty easy to open it up, and when you're in there, you have access to the two RAM slots.
01:31You can load up to 32 gigs of DDR4.
01:33But the best part, and I really mean the best part, is that there's two M.2 storage bays in here.
01:38Somehow, over the course of time, it became the standard to have just one stick of storage for these thin and light performance machines.
01:44This has two. I really like that.
01:46Now, the included drive uses a slower SATA interface, but it does support NVMe drive,
01:51so you could just use the included drive as like a storage drive or something.
01:55The battery down here is 94 watt-hours.
01:57Battery life is pretty good with the screen at 250 nits.
02:01I'm getting around 7 hours of battery life.
02:03Playing games, I'm getting about an hour.
02:04And the charger has that bonus USB port.
02:07The keyboard has individual RGB lighting, which is always fun to play with, and it can actually be really useful.
02:13I adjust the colors to match the shortcuts and apps and stuff.
02:16The layout is good, nicely spaced out.
02:19The keys themselves are a little stiff.
02:21It's hard to describe this, but it needs more pressure than I'm used to just to activate the stroke.
02:26But once you get used to it, it's a good keyboard overall.
02:29The trackpad uses Elan drivers, and to be honest, I'm not a fan of Elan drivers,
02:34but this feels noticeably better than the one on the Aero 14.
02:37It could be from updated drivers or potentially updated hardware.
02:40I'm not sure what it is, but the tracking is improved.
02:43It's not perfect, but it's not bad.
02:45The screen is awesome.
02:47It's the headlining feature of the laptop.
02:49It has a super thin bezel, matte finish, and the panel has great color gamut and accuracy.
02:54It's 1080p, non-touch screen.
02:56It has this X-Rite Pantone certification, and out of the box, the colors are just bang on.
03:01It could be a little brighter, and I'm seeing some mild ghosting.
03:04The laptop is geared towards productivity and content creators, so brighter is always good.
03:09There's supposed to be a 4K option down the line, but this 1080p panel looks really good as it is.
03:13The webcam is down at the bottom because of the bezels, so you get that upward nose angle.
03:18And this is what it looks like.
03:19Should probably shave as well.
03:21Okay, let's talk performance.
03:22I was pretty sure this would have some kind of heat issues because it's thin and light,
03:26and you're stuffing a GTX 1060 in there, but it's cooled well and performance is strong.
03:30It has really extensive fan control through their software, and I like that.
03:34And, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I really like the fact that you can control the fans.
03:38Like, if you want to, you can run it on quiet mode, which is basically silent,
03:41and you'll throttle it if you're benchmarking, or you can let it go on automatic mode,
03:45or you can manually crank up the fans to get maximum performance.
03:48Fan noise on automatic mode is actually quieter than I thought it would be under load.
03:52Performance is still good, and the external temperatures are comfortable.
03:55There's no nasty hotspots.
03:57Gameplay is really nice on this thing.
03:59It's a Kaby Lake i7, GTX 1060, and an Ultra Portable.
04:02It's awesome.
04:03If you're playing at 1080p, you'll comfortably break 100 frames per second in Overwatch on Ultra.
04:08In Doom, it floats in the low to mid 90s on Ultra graphics as well.
04:12It's really weird seeing these kinds of frame rates on a laptop with 5mm bezels.
04:16It's like luxury gaming.
04:18Something heavier, like the Division, you'll need to drop the graphics to high
04:21in order to stay near that 60 frames per second.
04:23Their hardware is great for games.
04:25If you want to see more details and benchmarks, there's a link in the description.
04:28Now, with a color-accurate display and two drive bays,
04:31the Aero 15 is clearly made for creative professionals as well.
04:35This thing is going to do really well with Photoshop and Illustrator workflows.
04:39In regards to video editing, this is one of my favorite laptops I've used for edits.
04:43This is only the 1080p panel.
04:44I'd want the 4K panel for my content, but performance is great.
04:48With 4K footage, the 1060 isn't a huge jump up in performance from the 1050,
04:53but it pulls further ahead with 5K or higher resolution footage.
04:57The speakers are located underneath, like the Aero 14,
05:00and they sound really similar, if not the same.
05:02Good clarity, good volume, but not much bass.
05:05Alright, the Aero 15 starts at $1,900.
05:08You're getting a thin and light laptop that's housed in mostly plastic.
05:11Build quality is good for the materials.
05:13The screen has super thin bezels with excellent color accuracy and viewing angles.
05:18The keyboard is pretty good.
05:19It has a nice layout, but the keystrokes can feel a little stiff.
05:22The trackpad feels reasonably accurate, even with Elan drivers.
05:25On the inside, it's running a Kaby Lake i7 and a GTX 1060, which deliver strong performance.
05:31Cooling is done well.
05:32It's loud if you're going full tilt, but the temperatures are good.
05:35The RAM is upgradable, and so are the two drives.
05:37Did I mention there's two drives?
05:39The 94Wh battery is big, and it'll last you a comfortable 7 hours of battery life.
05:43So, there's so much I like about this laptop.
05:45The performance, the screen, the battery life, the two drive bays.
05:50It's just an all-round fantastic machine with great performance.
05:53Thin and light, ultra-portable.
05:55Is it the best in this market?
05:57It's tough, because the build quality isn't as good as its two main competitors.
06:02The XPS 15 and the Razer Blade, those have better build quality,
06:05but for the price, this has better performance all-round than the other two.
06:09So, it's kind of, you know, you got to pick your poison.
06:12I like this machine a lot.
06:13I don't know if I would recommend this as, like, the best of the three,
06:17because it really depends on what you're looking for.
06:19But if you're looking for this type of machine, this should be on your short list, because it's fantastic.
06:24Hope you guys enjoyed this video.
06:25Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
06:27See you guys next time.