Gigabyte Aero 15X v8-BK4 (i7-8750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD, NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB, 15.6" Full HD 144Hz, Windows 10) VR Ready Gaming Notebook

The Gigabyte Aero 15x is a great gaming laptop for the price. It'll play any AAA game that you throw at it at max graphics without too much of an issue. The M.2 SSD is also wonderful and super fast.ProsThe laptop is definitely well built and doesn't feel cheap at all. The screen is absolutely gorgeous. Gaming on this is a breeze, as most games I tried ran well above 60 fps at ultra settings. Just keep in mind that the laptop will get really hot and the fans noisy when playing games.ConsThere is a known issue with the USB ports acting up, especially when you plug in an external USB hub, where the ports seems to reset themselves randomly. During my troubleshooting, this was caused by an issue with the Intel Graphics drivers, as when the drivers are uninstalled, everything works fine (but you don't get the 144HZ option for the screen without the drivers). In addition, you can't install Nvidia's drivers, so you're forced to use Gigabyte's drivers. Finally, the laptop gets really hot and the fans are noisy when running at full speed. I wouldn't say its a Razer Blade 14 circa-2015 noisy, but its definitely noisy.

I wanted to give it a little time owning this computer before leaving a review- I'm happy to report that it has been an all around phenomenal purchase. I'm using a 15X-BK4, i7-8750H with the RAM upgrade to 32GB. I opted for the 512GB SSD but have since upgraded with an additional 512GB 970 EVO drive (I hadn't yet "needed" it, but I saw myself filling up the drive with games/home vids/photos/etc).I'm not a typical computer gamer...at least I hadn't been since I was in high school. Now some couple decades later....I'm baaaaaacccckkk. My intent with the device was relative portability (all this power at sub-5lb is incredible), battery life (I actually haven't had to maximally test this out- I have left it on high power, all settings maxed out and managed ~4hrs- but if I tweaked everything I could easily see this going to the 8-10hr range), VR gaming (thus far everything I've thrown at it has been flawless at max graphic settings; using a Samsung Odyssey), 4K video editing (seamless)- and I wanted all of this in a "professional" looking package, rather than some futuristic-beast-gaming laptop. This delivers.I'm extremely happy with this purchase.

Mixed set of review about this one. Overall, i really like the laptop, but the experience was soiled by couple of initial hiccups. I felt the system to be slow initially, so re-imaged it. Seems much smoother now.Pros:* Nice form factor* Build quality is good* Performance is good, and the gigabyte software for configuring the system work wellCons:* Suffered from initial software related issues (Regarding audio port, and Nvidia driver update issue). The audio port issue has known fixes (check reddit), and it seems they are working on the Nvidia driver issue.* My screen has backlight bleeding. This seems to be prominent in Gigabyte machines. For me, this is acceptable as i will primarily be hooking the screen to my monitor.* Not particular fan of the ELAN touchpad driver. Hoping for a windows precision driver option soon.

This is the only laptop that checked off every item on my list. I wanted something thin and reasonably light for carrying to work, vacation, or over to a friend's place and simultaneously pack the beefiest gpu you can squeeze in. It had to have a number pad, thunderbolt 3, a 15.6 inch screen, huge battery, back-lit keyboard, with an aluminum frame. To top off that list, and it's admittedly a ridiculous list, but I wanted it to look nice. No "badass" gaming aesthetics, no colors other than neutral black and white, just a simple and minimal design.I was ready to sacrifice a few of those, but I didn't have to. Gigabyte just nailed it, it's the most well rounded machine I found throughout all my research. Plus I got some goodies, like a backpack and a wired mouse (the Beats by Dre headphones are still on back order, I'm patiently awaiting those).As someone who uses their laptop for everything, even as a desktop by docking to a USB-C Hub, I can't speak more highly of this machine. It's pricey, but not unreasonably so considering there were no corners cut in my opinion.