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00:00So last year's Aero 15x was one of the best laptops you could get for content creators.
00:09It was a very powerful system in a very small package, and it's been updated by Gigabyte this year,
00:14so it's now running RTX hardware. It's got the RTX 2070 or the 2080 Max-Q.
00:20The 2080, the one I have here, is a solid 25 to 30% better in graphical power compared to last year's 1070 Max-Q.
00:27So if you're playing games, you're gonna get incredible performance out of the 2080 Max-Q.
00:31Now, last year, I was very lucky to have access to a lot of the Thin and Light gaming laptops, including the Aero 15,
00:36and the thing I liked the most about this system was the fact that it had excellent thermals.
00:41There was something about the way that they've built the Aero 15 that allows a ton of air to go through it.
00:45The fans are loud, but I don't think that's the only thing, right?
00:48You can crank the fans up on a lot of systems. These ones do get quite loud when you max it out,
00:52but the thermal performance on this chassis is excellent,
00:55and that's actually the main reason why I use this device more than a lot of the other ones last year,
00:59because it was just such a good performer.
01:01So having used this for several months straight last year,
01:05I just have slightly more experience with this device than some other people that are doing reviews on this thing.
01:11I will say, though, that as much as I liked the Aero 15, there are a few things that I dislike about it,
01:16the first one being the keyboard.
01:18This is a keyboard that I mentioned in the review as being quite difficult to get used to, and it is,
01:22but even after using this thing for several months, I never got really comfortable on it.
01:26There was always something about it that just felt kind of off to me.
01:29The layout is fine, but mechanically, the keys feel a little stiff and kind of flat to me,
01:34and it's also got this cramped feel to the keyboard.
01:37I don't know what it is, like visually it looks fine, but I can never type super fast on it.
01:41Another thing I didn't love about it were the fans.
01:43So I just mentioned how I loved how the thermal performance was excellent,
01:47but the fans, to get to that excellent thermal performance, were super loud,
01:51and this is just, you know, manual control to bring it up to that speed,
01:54but I just wish that somehow it was quieter at the top end, but it is quite loud.
01:59And another thing that bothered me were the speakers.
02:02So these speakers are quite poor.
02:04They package it with software to tweak around with the sound,
02:07but it's a very flat-sounding speaker and relatively quiet.
02:10In fact, of all the thin and light performance gaming laptops that I used last year,
02:14I would say that the Aero 15X had the worst speakers of the bunch.
02:17And obviously, this is something that's not going to affect everybody.
02:20Some people don't care about the speakers at all, but if you do, these aren't great.
02:24Okay, the thing that bugs me the most about the Aero 15X, though, was actually its design aesthetic.
02:29It's thin and light, but it's not a particularly good-looking laptop to me.
02:33And it's not that it's super ugly, it's just that there are devices out there
02:36that have this kind of price point and this kind of performance.
02:39They just look so much better, and when you're spending this kind of money,
02:42for some people, like myself, you just want it to look a particular way.
02:45You want it to look good, and when you have devices out there that look like the Razer Blade,
02:49this just looks less attractive to me.
02:51And again, this is only for people that care about the design aesthetic of their laptop,
02:54because not everyone does. I get it.
02:56Okay, so there's other things that I really like about this device, and I'm going to go through those.
03:01The first one is the screen.
03:03The panel on this particular unit is a 4K panel, and it's awesome.
03:07Like, the one I had last year was a 1080p screen that looks really good already.
03:11The 4K panel looks amazing.
03:13Like, if you're doing video or photo work regularly, I would highly recommend this screen if you can afford it.
03:17If you're playing games, though, I don't like the look of the 4K panel.
03:21Like, compared to a 144Hz screen, stuff just looks a little bit choppier.
03:24So, depending on what you do, you're going to have to choose between the screens.
03:27Another thing I really like about this device is the SD card reader.
03:31So, this one on here is a UHS-II compliant one. It's super fast.
03:34So, a regular SD card reader will cap out at like 85, maybe 90 megabytes per second.
03:39This thing's triple the speed.
03:40If you frequently offload footage from an SD card for, like, video work or photo work, this thing's nice.
03:46There's also a good selection of the other ports.
03:48There's three USB-A's and two USB-C's.
03:51There's one on each side, and you also have an Ethernet jack on the left, which is nice.
03:54The AC adapter's on the right, and it's a 230W AC adapter.
03:58It's a standard-looking unit.
04:00The trackpad's been improved. It used to run Elan drivers.
04:02It's now a Microsoft-certified Windows Precision touchpad, which I like.
04:06And the internals of this laptop are also still easy to get into.
04:09It's a bunch of screws on the bottom.
04:11And this is still one of the very few thin and light gaming laptops that supports two NVMe drives.
04:16It also has a huge battery still, 94Wh, and on this unit with the 4K panel, screen at 250 nits.
04:21I'm not getting amazing battery life.
04:23It's 5.5 hours, but that's with a 4K panel.
04:26I think with the 1080p, like, 144Hz screen, you're gonna get significantly better battery life.
04:30Last year, I got around 7, 7.5 hours, I believe, on the regular 1080p screen.
04:36Now, this device, the Aero 15, is running this new feature that they're calling AI integration with Microsoft Azure.
04:44And the way that they explain is that this laptop can supposedly speak to Microsoft Azure's database
04:49to kind of figure out what applications you're using,
04:52and then it'll adjust your CPU and GPU usage depending on that application.
04:57And I tested this with what I'm assuming is a relatively early version of this software.
05:01And when it came to gaming, regardless of the title, like, super light titles or very demanding titles,
05:06I was getting the same frame rate.
05:07But when it came to Premiere, like Adobe Premiere, there is a noticeable difference, but it's slight.
05:12So, I guess my take on this whole AI integration thing, I don't like the name of it.
05:16I feel like by using the AI in the title, like, it's almost disrespectful to people that are actually doing work in artificial intelligence fields.
05:24Like, that's some serious stuff.
05:25This, to me, is not AI.
05:27I do feel like there is a little bit of a benefit.
05:29Like, it's not making my render slower, it's not making my games run slower.
05:34But I don't know how beneficial it is for most people.
05:37Now, pricing on the Aero 15 isn't cheap.
05:39I've been told it's going to start at 2,400 bucks for the 2070 Max-Q model.
05:43It's expensive, but that's kind of the price you have to pay for top-of-the-line tools in professional content creation.
05:48Okay, so the Aero 15 this year, fantastic hardware.
05:51Awesome hardware for gamers, awesome hardware for creatives.
05:54The 4K panel in particular is something special.
05:57I will say, though, that the thermal performance on this thing, just, it surprises me.
06:01This thing's running an i9, 2080 Max-Q, and still just rock-solid performance with great temperatures.
06:08Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
06:10Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
06:12See you guys next time.