NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

Wondering about PWM Flickering presence on 4K version? Could someone confirm that 4K LCD screen not used PWM method for controlling brightness. Very important for human eyes

Is there any chance NotebookCheck will review the 4k model? I have been waiting on this refresh for months with the sole intention of purchasing the 4k display option, however, I can really only justify the purchase if I am absolutely certain that the screen on the 4k model has >85% AdobeRGB color gamut coverage. Additionally, I'm curious as to the severity of the graininess of the sub-pixel matrix.

On a completely different topic, how exactly is this laptop reaching over 150°F while the fans are working way harder (and louder) than the previous model? Is the hexa-core i7-8750H really that much hotter than the quad-core i7-7700HQ? Seems a pretty pointless trade-off considering the gaming performance increase is negligible at best (and thats in a CPU intensive game like The Witcher 3 to boot). I shudder to think how this will impact temps of thermally-challenged laptops like the Razer Blade/ Pro lineup...

Yes, we are planning to have a look at the 4k-version too in a few weeks.

Hello! Thanks for the awesome review.
I am wondering about this laptop - I heard several reviews online and all have different stories regarding heat and noise.

Some have similar, but some have lower temps and lower noise and these seem to be the major drawbacks of this laptop in this review.
Other than that, it seems almost like a perfect mobile laptop.

I also wonder how the MSI GS65 Stealth will compare.

What about the webcam?

Hi,

I was wondering when will you guys review the new Alienware 15 ?

USB-PD charging?

Thorough review as always. When you get the GS65, can you please consider a head to head between them?

I second the question about USB Power Delivery ... aka Charging via Thunderbolt port.

I think this should be a standard check box on the list of features when Notebookcheck reviews a laptop with a Thunderbolt or USB 3.1C.  IMO, charging options are more significant to more users than the number of PCIe lanes.

And before someone gets on a high horse about 'these laptops are too powerful', the answer is 'no'.  A small 12V car or 120V wall adapter with USB Power Delivery @ 20v can give 60W, which in many scenarios is enough to handle the load.  At the very least, the USB PD charger could charge the battery when the laptop is off. 

With all the focus on tiny bezels and slimness, it's crazy that charger + cable are more bulky than the laptop itself.

What's the OpenGL Cinebench 15 score for the 1070 Max-Q? One small request, can you consistently include the OpenGL score when running Cinebench? I've seen that included in some reviews and left out of others. For those of us wanting to get a rough real-life sense of the 3d performance of laptops, consistently including the OpenGL score in reviews is helpful in determining buying decisions.

Unless it has changed recently, I believe Gigabyte still does not support waking the computer from sleep through a USB device. This is a basic feature and a deal breaker for me with how i use my laptop. Would be nice if you could mention when systems don't include basic features like this but understand that you can't hit everything.

I concur with Isaac B.  OpenGL Cinebench result is a good source of information for various 3D workloads.

When you get to reviewing the 4k version, could you please check how harsh is the matte graininess? This seems to be an otherwise perfect laptop for me, but having to suffer flat (especially brighter) backgrounds being super colorfully grainy again would be a deal-breaker to me (owner of an anti-glare 4k Clevo machine).

I wish they released a glossy version so much, but alas, it's understandable that for a laptop branded as a gaming one a matte screen is generally preferable.

Any chance we could get the model/part info for the new 144hz screen? I want to see if it's possible to fit it inside a last gen Aero 15X.

I would love to see the cpu performance with undervolting to check if it is more consistent and how long the battery extends  ;)

I'm a bit disappointed, why in 2018 where 4K is becoming a standard, this beautiful laptop should offer only FHD resolution?
Btw, I love all the other improvements.

love it, unfortunately, I made a mistake with the previous comment, my bad, I thought they released only an FHD display option, luckily it's also available a 4k option.

Quote from: JJ on April 10, 2018, 16:42:35
Any chance we could get the model/part info for the new 144hz screen? I want to see if it's possible to fit it inside a last gen Aero 15X.

It's in the review stupid. LGD05C0
Even if you had one the aero 15 is not able to be disassembled. Nobody has ever tried taking the display apart and there is no such guide online.

Hi,
There is a Keyboard "splash proof" in this Aero 15, like Dell XPS / Thinkpad / ... ?
Thk

Any plans to cover performance, temperature and noise levels for the GTX 1060 version of this machine?  Any plans to test the same with undervolting either for this 1070 or the 1060 version?

Easy to explain Full HD instead of 4K Display option. It is not comfortable enough to use 4K on so small screen (everything is micro sized). It's much better to connect an external 32" or larger 4K display to work with graphics and UHD videos.

are there any visible ghosting when playing games such as overwatch? thanks

Actually it's a pretty interesting computer with this 1070 max-Q and this big battery.
In terms of design, a little in the style of the Asus Zephyrus, the max-Q can release laptops gaming rather fine and especially, which give up the classic gamer look, too flashy for my taste. After we feel that there is still no refinement as XPS or MBP, with all these notches and reliefs in all directions, but it remains sober.
  I am curious to see what this gives to the test, and in the hands of players, especially on the endurance of the battery in the medium term and heating.

Does anyone has any issues connecting a external monitor to a docking station and then the docking station via TB3 port to this laptop, it seems through that setup, can't get access to Nvidia PhysiX software for the eternal monitor, but as spoken with the manufacturer, it is how the base of laptop is designed. That PhysyX take the CPU graphics instead of Nvidia because TB3 is based from CPU.

Overall great laptop, best purchase this year!

Guys, 2 months ago you said that you will test the 4k model.

Well, is there any news about this specific 4k model? I would really love to read a review about it.

Very disappointing to see that retail units are sold not with the LG LGD05C0 IPS display as tested in your review but an AU Optronics AUO82ED display  >:(

Same for the RAM.  V-Color brand (=generic Taiwanese one) instead of G-Skill !  >:(

HDMI 2.0 or 2.0a with HDR support?

Quote from: Truc on June 18, 2018, 15:04:03
Very disappointing to see that retail units are sold not with the LG LGD05C0 IPS display as tested in your review but an AU Optronics AUO82ED display  >:(

Same for the RAM.  V-Color brand (=generic Taiwanese one) instead of G-Skill !  >:(

Can Florian Glaser or Notebookcheck get some explanations from Gigabyte about this abnormal situation?
All test reviews are referring like you to some references that do not correspond to the market  :-\
Thanks in advance for your reply  :)

Quote from: Micron on April 08, 2018, 05:11:14
Wondering about PWM Flickering presence on 4K version? Could someone confirm that 4K LCD screen not used PWM method for controlling brightness. Very important for human eyes

While I don't think my 4k model had PWM, i was only able to confirm upto 1000Hz. (i used my camera to compare it to an XPS 15 9570 which has 1000Hz PWM, both at min brightness) i did not see any waves of brightness on the screen as i cycled through the shutter speed.

Quote from: adasdasd on June 09, 2018, 23:34:22
Guys, 2 months ago you said that you will test the 4k model.

Well, is there any news about this specific 4k model? I would really love to read a review about it.

While i might not be able to provide you with the exact same results as notebookcheck's testing methods, i was able to test my 4k aero 15x with DisplayCAL and an Xrite i1 Display pro. Brightness distribution was good, (once i go home i will upload the pic) it scored 99.3% AdobeRGB and nearly 1600:1 contrast. for PWM see what i wrote above. Now, a good surprise, the screen was bright at 400 nits! It was subjectively as bright as my Dell XPS 15 9570's 4k panel. I forgot to jot down the display's model, but it was an AU panel. I do apologize for lack of evidence (except for brightness and distribution) I wasn't expecting on returning the unit.

imgur.com/ueRN4F6

here is the brightness distribution for the aero 15x 4k panel. Panel is model is AUO_B156ZAN03_1. This was taken with Xrite's i1 profiler software. Bottom left corner (lowest brightness at 377 nits) was also the only place where there was noticeable back light bleed.

Some things i would like to add. Ghosting is similar to Dell XPS 15 9570's 4k sharp panel, which leads me to believe the response time of the AUO panels is 60-ish ms. The matte layer on the panel makes the gigabyte's 4k panel seem brighter than that dell's 4k panel, in bright condition, even though the xps 15 i have has an anti glare coating that reduces the intensity of light reflected, and the dell panel has a brightness of 450nits. the trade off is though, the matte coating makes pictures seem grainy and text not as sharp, although the difference isn't that prominent.

another thing to note, gigabyte's 4k display had a slight hew shift along the edges (VERY slight, you won't notice unless you really focus on it). the dell's 4k display doesn't have that.

Forgot to add battery life. Both dell and gigabyte with 4k panels get same battery life. Which means, fully updated as of September 20 with drivers, bios, and Windows 10, ~5 hours of 1080 60p or 4.5 for 4k 60p youtube on firefox, and ~8 hours of excel/word + playing some music. i know its not much of a comparison to notebookcheck's standardized tests, but its the best i can do since i no longer have the machine. Also, i feel like some recent updates have reduced battery life for both machines.

To add on to my last post, the Thinkpad X1 Xtreme review that notebookcheck just came out with uses the same 4k panel as the Gigabyte Aero 15x v8 4k. So you can just check that review to get an idea for how the panel is relative to other panels that notebookcheck tests. Although my Aero 15 had a brighter panel with higher contrast apparently.

I just bought the Gigabyte Aero 15x v8 and I must say that it is by far the best laptop that I have ever owned! The perfection of a laptop as a whole. The internals are extremely rapid but power efficient as well. The large battery keeps me going for 10 hours and I got an amazing display. I've had no issues with the screen what so ever. It's amazing with the X-rite Pantone certified DIsplay! I can only recommend this piece of equipment.

Verdict:

:) :) :) :) :) /  :) :) :) :) :)

Hi guys,
I don't know what to do... I'm quite disappointed with the black level of the LG screen... is the Aero 15x AU OPTRONICS screen better? My previous unit looks darker in term of light luminosity and was equiped with the AU OPTRONICS. A lot of different components between both units, SSD, screen, ram and keyboard were differents, my new unit which is older in terme of manufacture as a much faster SSD (Toshiba instead of Transcend), LG screen, Kingston memory and good pretty correct (or better) keyboard but light intensity problem with the right SHIFT key.
What FHD screen is better on this machine, the LG or AU OPTRONICS?
I'm using since two year a Dell Precision 5510 equiped with sharp screen very good, much better regarding darl level.
Many thanks for your feedback

Hi,

I'm considering Aero 15x for music production and video editing. Test available here showed that it make have some issues regarding dcp latency. Just wondering if that was bloatware/bios/power management settings fault?!

Do you have any experience with dpc latency or would you be able to run such a test for me.

Cheers

I'm pretty impressed with how universal in-use this notebook is. Bought on November 2018 it's great choise in my opinion.
The aim of purchase was a ultimate (low-weight and powerful) mobile machine, well, this is the best one according to my market view. Compared with MSI GS65 Stealth Thin  with its hardly upgradable slot placement.

The main feature of this product is the horse-powered amount of battery life. This is truly amazing. 94.3W battery makes possible to work easily for average 6 - 8 hours with rather good perfomance. I use for my programming task (coding & other connected stuff away from home).

True potential shows when plugged in. No serious throttling, really fast (144hz) and bright screen for gaming makes it (as i said) ultimate machine for multiple tasks.

Yeah, there are some software issues like:
1) Nvidia Optima technology sudden usages of gtx 1070 while in eco mode, that almost kills battery pretty fast. With detailed workaround and long time reading forums looks like this is partly fixed with Gygabite own control center app.
2) Webcam position isn't good enough. People will look at your nostrils more often than usual during video conversation.

It is a good laptop as shown by the specs.

Abit disappointed with the following:
-Can never charge it on an airplane due to unconventional battery specs. 80% of the reason I bought it was not get bored on planes.
-4k seems to be a little too much for a 1070 Max-Q

I purchased this laptop last week. After one week of testing, I am very satisfied with the product. The screen is very bright and sharp. So far no hiccups whatsoever. I have owned a Gigabyte laptop before and never had any problems with it. Top company! Can highly recommend.

J'ai acheté le chargeur pour mon ordinateur gigabyte aero 15x v8 par le revendeur conseillé par le support Gigabyte. Apres une attente de plus de 3 semaines je reçois enfin leldit chargeur, coutant la bagatelle de 270 euros...
Et surprise, malgré une information exacte des références du chargeur original, je reçois, sans information prealable, un chargeur générique, plus gros, plus lourd, sans chargement USB.

Je suis désormais depuis presque deux semaines en procédure pour avoir un échange pour le chargeur original ou un remboursement. Ce support est indigne pour ce genre d'ordinateur haut de gamme et a cette tarification de prestation!.
J'espère que les futurs acheteurs sauront à quoi s'attendre du support Gigabyte.

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I bought the power adapter from gigabyte support reseller in France, enametech. For 270 euros... And after more than 3 weeks awaiting, that's right. I finally got my hands on a, poorly packed, not genuine, heavier, without USB power supply power adapter?

And now, I have been in the process of a standard exchange with the right power adapter or a pay back for almost two weeks.
It has now been more than a month that I m struggling with this issue and cannot use my laptop. What a lame support from gigabyte when talking about such a high-end laptop.

I hope that my problem will be solved soon and that it will bring into light for potential buyer what to expect from their support...

Buy dell or Lenovo


PS: I Have been pleased so far with the  laptop. Great battery life. Powerful for video and AE