First off, this is not my device. I don’t even have it anymore. A friend of mine was in market for a gaming laptop for some time now, and finally he pulled the trigger. He purchased Aero 15 OLED with 1660Ti, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, i7 CPu.
He went on vacation, and asked me to install additional 8GB of ram, and a 512GB of nvme SSD, and then reinstall windows on that 512GB SSD. So I had 9 days to use this laptop as my daily driver. And if you’re not to interested in reading a somewhat long review, this laptop is ok, has some great things about it, and some not so great. I for one am glad to be back on my X1E. Way better device for me personally.
Design and Build Quality
Aero 15 has a OK design, it doesn’t scream ‘GAMER!!!’, but anyone can tell it’s a gamers notebook. Too flashy for my taste. Display bezels are really small, so that part is attractive. For build materials, it’s mostly aluminium, with some plastic parts. It feels sturdy and ok I guess.
But the display hinges… OMG! Ugly, and those will probably break. The right hinge is hooked up to laptop body on just one side, there is nothing on the other side of the hinge. I simply can’t explain how did anyone approve this design?
And the problem with hinges doesn’t stop there. Display moves and wobbles easily, it’s quite easy to shake the device into closing the lid. For such a expensive device, this flaw is not acceptable at all!
Ports
This is the part where this device truly shines. It has 2 USB-C ports, one of those is TB3 capable. It has additional 3 USB-a ports, and HDMI port, SD card and even a ethernet port!
Only problem is placement of those ports. They are way up in front, sometimes they will get in the way of my mouse.
Performance
I don’t run benchmarks, so I didn’t do it this time as well. I have tried almost 10 games, from simple ones like Dota 2 and CS GO, all the way up to Witcher 3. Even with 1660Ti, this laptop had no issues with running games at high/ultra settings.
Running multiple VM’s and using this laptop for my daily work wasn’t a problem either. Never felt it slowed even a bit.
Fans are audible even when using this laptop for just plain surfing the web and youtube. But in Gigabyte Control Center you can control the fan curve easily, so it’s really easy to turn them almost completely off.
When gaming fans ramp up of course, but they aren’t annoying at all. No high pitch noises, and I saw no evidence of coil whine at all. CPU and GPU temps where in normal limits, I believe highest I saw CPU temp was at 82c.
Display
Well, this is what I was mostly curious about. OLED display on a laptop. Finally. And how is it? Well, my next laptop will have to have OLED display. Not purchasing one without OLED in the future. Brightness is great, and colors really pop up, and since it’s OLED, there is NO backlight bleeding at all. It’s a joy to watch a movie on this display, a complete joy. Way better display then on any other laptop I’ve used, MBP included.
Now, it is Pantone certified, and I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t even google up on what that means. Is it ok for photographers or video editors? I have no idea. I don’t need accurate colors, or 100% of Adobe RGB. I’m a developer, and for my usage, this screen is absolutely the champion of all screens on any other laptop I’ve used. I love it!
Battery Life & Keyboard
Well, for battery life it’s really easy to write: it’s ok-ish?
Under Windows (1903), I get around 4-5h of battery life. Nothing great, but not really bad either.
Keyboard on the other hand… I have three issues with it. First one is wobbly keys. Second one is distance between keys. It’s really short when compared to other keyboards out there. It really took me a few days to finally get used to the small distance.
But the third one is really subjective reason. This laptop comes with number pad as well. So the keyboard isn’t centerd, and so the trackpad is also pushed to the left. This really annoyed me, and I simply couldn’t adjust.
For those multiple reasons, I was typing really slow when compared to my normal typing speed. I really hated this keyboard, and I believe there was zero chance I would ever like it.
Final thoughts
Would I trade this laptop for my X1E? Nope. That hasn’t crossed my mind, not even for a second. This laptop has better screen, and ethernet port. Those are the only two things I would like to see in my X1E. X1E 2nd gen is bringing OLED to the lineup as well, but no ethernet jack. I can live without that one.
Aero 15 is a decent laptop, but I find hinges to be a problem, and the keyboard is simply terrible for me personally. Someone else will have different opinion, but I highly doubt there will be a lot of people claiming that this keyboard is even close to thinkpad keyboards.
My biggest issue of all is Linux support. If anyone is planning on using this laptop with Linux, don’t even bother. Lots of simple things don’t work (like brightness control), and fans will drive you crazy. I wasn’t able to tune them in, and they were really audible almost all of the time. Even when just idling.
So this is just my few thoughts about this device. And they are really subjective, I gave opinions based on my needs. I’m not a pro reviewer, and I wrote this post in 5-6mins. So please, keep that in mind. If you are considering this device, watch and read some real reviews first
He went on vacation, and asked me to install additional 8GB of ram, and a 512GB of nvme SSD, and then reinstall windows on that 512GB SSD. So I had 9 days to use this laptop as my daily driver. And if you’re not to interested in reading a somewhat long review, this laptop is ok, has some great things about it, and some not so great. I for one am glad to be back on my X1E. Way better device for me personally.
Design and Build Quality
Aero 15 has a OK design, it doesn’t scream ‘GAMER!!!’, but anyone can tell it’s a gamers notebook. Too flashy for my taste. Display bezels are really small, so that part is attractive. For build materials, it’s mostly aluminium, with some plastic parts. It feels sturdy and ok I guess.
But the display hinges… OMG! Ugly, and those will probably break. The right hinge is hooked up to laptop body on just one side, there is nothing on the other side of the hinge. I simply can’t explain how did anyone approve this design?
And the problem with hinges doesn’t stop there. Display moves and wobbles easily, it’s quite easy to shake the device into closing the lid. For such a expensive device, this flaw is not acceptable at all!
Ports
This is the part where this device truly shines. It has 2 USB-C ports, one of those is TB3 capable. It has additional 3 USB-a ports, and HDMI port, SD card and even a ethernet port!
Only problem is placement of those ports. They are way up in front, sometimes they will get in the way of my mouse.
Performance
I don’t run benchmarks, so I didn’t do it this time as well. I have tried almost 10 games, from simple ones like Dota 2 and CS GO, all the way up to Witcher 3. Even with 1660Ti, this laptop had no issues with running games at high/ultra settings.
Running multiple VM’s and using this laptop for my daily work wasn’t a problem either. Never felt it slowed even a bit.
Fans are audible even when using this laptop for just plain surfing the web and youtube. But in Gigabyte Control Center you can control the fan curve easily, so it’s really easy to turn them almost completely off.
When gaming fans ramp up of course, but they aren’t annoying at all. No high pitch noises, and I saw no evidence of coil whine at all. CPU and GPU temps where in normal limits, I believe highest I saw CPU temp was at 82c.
Display
Well, this is what I was mostly curious about. OLED display on a laptop. Finally. And how is it? Well, my next laptop will have to have OLED display. Not purchasing one without OLED in the future. Brightness is great, and colors really pop up, and since it’s OLED, there is NO backlight bleeding at all. It’s a joy to watch a movie on this display, a complete joy. Way better display then on any other laptop I’ve used, MBP included.
Now, it is Pantone certified, and I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t even google up on what that means. Is it ok for photographers or video editors? I have no idea. I don’t need accurate colors, or 100% of Adobe RGB. I’m a developer, and for my usage, this screen is absolutely the champion of all screens on any other laptop I’ve used. I love it!
Battery Life & Keyboard
Well, for battery life it’s really easy to write: it’s ok-ish?
Under Windows (1903), I get around 4-5h of battery life. Nothing great, but not really bad either.
Keyboard on the other hand… I have three issues with it. First one is wobbly keys. Second one is distance between keys. It’s really short when compared to other keyboards out there. It really took me a few days to finally get used to the small distance.
But the third one is really subjective reason. This laptop comes with number pad as well. So the keyboard isn’t centerd, and so the trackpad is also pushed to the left. This really annoyed me, and I simply couldn’t adjust.
For those multiple reasons, I was typing really slow when compared to my normal typing speed. I really hated this keyboard, and I believe there was zero chance I would ever like it.
Final thoughts
Would I trade this laptop for my X1E? Nope. That hasn’t crossed my mind, not even for a second. This laptop has better screen, and ethernet port. Those are the only two things I would like to see in my X1E. X1E 2nd gen is bringing OLED to the lineup as well, but no ethernet jack. I can live without that one.
Aero 15 is a decent laptop, but I find hinges to be a problem, and the keyboard is simply terrible for me personally. Someone else will have different opinion, but I highly doubt there will be a lot of people claiming that this keyboard is even close to thinkpad keyboards.
My biggest issue of all is Linux support. If anyone is planning on using this laptop with Linux, don’t even bother. Lots of simple things don’t work (like brightness control), and fans will drive you crazy. I wasn’t able to tune them in, and they were really audible almost all of the time. Even when just idling.
So this is just my few thoughts about this device. And they are really subjective, I gave opinions based on my needs. I’m not a pro reviewer, and I wrote this post in 5-6mins. So please, keep that in mind. If you are considering this device, watch and read some real reviews first
