Gigabyte Aero 14

It's roughly mid-June today, any word on US availability? I was hoping to see some true reviews for this laptop before purchase, but unfortunately my prior laptop died on me a few days ago so i'm running short on time

 

same situation. i have around 1 week before leaving USA and i really want this one. please let us know when it is available. thanks!

 

First review has been posted. Not very informative but it's something.

http://unlocked.newegg.com/reviews/review-gigabyte-aero-14-laptop

 

Hey, still better than laptop mag...

 

For those who are interested, apparently, it is already being sold in some Taiwanese website. Here are some links to them, http://www.pcking.tw/goods_view.php?no=6432, http://www.rakuten.com.tw/shop/blueocean/product/358739e-nb16-015/ . You will get a glimpse of the pricing as well, which, personally I find really depressing, it is way pass 1700 USD.

 

Gigabyte asked me if I could update the article with a link to the Aero 14 on Newegg ... they are going to notify me as soon as it's available. I just followed up to see about a definitive date. Hope to hear back within a day.

Charles

 

Gigabyte said they're going to get in contact with me ASAP ...though I imagine it might be another 12 hours from now, since Taiwan is 12 hours ahead of the east coast US.

Charles

 

One of the more annoying features of the XPS 15 is that you need two hands to open the screen. It seems that the Aero 14 allows for one handed opening. At least that's what seems to be the case in the first few minutes of this video...

 

For those in the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands, the Aero 14 is now for sale (pre-order) on scan.co.uk in 256Gb and 512Gb variants (black with 970M only). They are expecting to start shipping from about 24th June. Dell was messing me around with my XPS 15 order (not delivered two weeks after "shipping" and no tracking information/lies from customer support) so I cancelled and ordered the Aero 14 for about the same cost (£1500) on the basis of several excited hands-on previews. Even if this overheats/throttles under full load, I'll happily undervolt/underclock as I was only going to be getting a 960M in the XPS 15 (which incidentally also throttles sometimes unless repasted/undervolted). I think that I would have preferred the 1080p 15.6" screen/size of the XPS 15 due to its thinner bezels, but the battery and power of the Aero are winners for me. Although possibly falling short of the XPS in regards to build quality and design, the Aero 14 does appear to be substantial step up compared to previous Gigabyte models (which I considered and discounted). The Razer Blade 2016 looked nice, but then the battery life was probably less than I need, it is not available to the UK yet, or with a UK keyboard and looking at price conversions + tax, I am expecting a cost nearer to £1700, which is hard to justify (£1500 was hard enough already!).

Edit 1: Updated with hyperlinks.
Edit 2: Just received an email from Scan confirming expected dispatch date of 24th June.

 

Hello everyone,

Other than the official reviews from some other websites, I believe I may be one of the first people in the world who have the Gigabyte Aero 14 as a regular joe.

I have just purchased it at the Gigabyte store in Taipei, Taiwan.

I have yet to do full upgrades yet (2x 1tb 2280 ssd's), but i'll do the first impression that I have received so far.

To give perspective to the different qualities of laptops that I have extended uses with are as follows.
1. 2008 MacBook Pro (before unibody)
2. 2010 MacBook Pro (unibody)
3. 2015 Thinkpad x250

Build Quality
1. Overall chassis is ridiculously sturdy. with the laptop screen closed, the sturdiness is like of the MacBook pro unibody. With the laptop closed, there is a very very slight flex (I use the word "slight" due to I have no other word to explain) on the logo side of the display. But that goes for almost every single laptop on the market. Quite compact, and it does seem very dense. When holding the Aero 14, there is definitely a sense of packed hardware, but very sturdy.

Keyboard
Coming from a extended use of the Thinkpad X250, I would say that the typing experience on the Aero 14 has not been as "swift" in terms of being naturally typing with low error rate. I'll explain the pros and cons of the keyboard.
1. Key travel feels good, but I get the sense that I it requires a full press in order to input letters. My ring finger and pinky finger tend to miss the input whilst typing. I tend to type pretty heavily, due to the mechanical keyboard I use at the office, so I don't mind that the Aero 14 has tendency to need some heavy input.
2. The keyboard is rock solid frame, even on the thinkpad x250, I feel some flex at times. The Aero 14 is rock solid in all sense. All keys are wonderfully stable.
3. The keys are enormous, and perhaps one of the main reasons I am still getting use to typing on it. Coming from the recent Thinkpad X250 daily driver, the keys were smaller and have a curved shape to them.
4. One thing that I noticed that I have having "mess ups" on my typing is due to the keyboard format. With the home end pgdn pgup on the right, and the macro keys on the left, I tend to "over reach" due to past typing experiences. It use to be that my pinky reaches to the "end" of my laptop to input "enter", but now i'm getting pgup or pgdn. I believe this is a matter of time before you can get use to it.
OVERALL, A COMBINATION OF THE THINKPAD KEYBOARD, AND AERO 14 KEYBOARD WOULD BE THE OPTIMAL SET UP FOR ME AT LEAST.

Speakers
Wow, let me just say that I use to think that the apple products tend to have great on board speakers for laptops. The Aero 14 has some real loud speakers and sound quite good. I have been a DJ for 6 years and I have found that I can get a very good reference to all my songs with the Aero 14 speaker.
For people who like watching movies and shows, or need to do edits that have audio involved can definitely get the job done. It def doesn't beat a external speaker of great caliber or some great headphones, but it will do the job just fine.

Display
From using it for 8 hours only so far, and coming from a 12.5" daily driver, I will say I need some more time to find the balance that is suitable for my eyes. The thinkpad x250 took me a while to get use to, i'm sure the Aero 14 with the QHD display will come with time.
Colors are nice, and playing around with the preinstalled system software by gigabyte, I can easily switch my displays colors and warmth, while also changing a parameter on blue light protection.
Physically, no flex on display as well. Decently solid.

Preinstalled software
I actually like the main system software it came with to control displays, wifi, Bluetooth, etc etc. I'm sure you can imagine what it does. But overall it's quite convenient to use.

Fan noise
Fan noise is "audible" in a very quite room. Quite meaning no AC blowing, or music, or outside traffic noice etc. The Thinkpad X250 didn't activate it's fan until it the cpu is around 50 Celsius. The Aero 14 has a constant fan running at low temps/ idle. The software says like 1200rpm or something. I cranked the fan to 100 percent speed and damn this thing can get freaking loud if necessary. If you have the laptop cooling stands, i'm sure it'll aid the need for the laptop to run really loud.

Gaming
Havent gamed yet, cannot say the experience.

What came with the box
It came with a gigabyte mouse, and a gigabyte backpack (decent if you don't have one). Mouse is alright, pretty standard, plug in type of mouse. I'm sure you can play any FPS just fine with it.

Battery
When I first turned on the laptop, it did say "10 hours of usage" on the battery sign on balance setting for the battery. Due to it being a new system, I still need to turn off a lot of background stuff to aid the battery life. I would like to say it will be very likely it is only a 6-7 hour usage, but we'll see. I don't have any actual testing references. Don't take this info as being accurate.

Conclusion
For now, I am happy about the purchase. It's roughly 1800USD from how I bought it.
I still need to upgrade my 2 slots of ssd to 2x 1tb m.2 2280 ssd's and we'll see how I like it.
The GTX 970m is to be tested, and I would say that if my assumptions are correct, I can see the system have throttling potential by running too hard. Which for my usage, I tend to optimized the system with lower systems so that it runs cooler.

Please throw questions at me if you are interested. I'm just a regular user, with regular need. I don't believe i'll be able to answer some very technical stuff, or benchmark (someone can enlighten me on how to do bench mark)

Sorry for the long post. and don't mind if there are typing errors

 

Thanks for that review.
Just one question, you said the fans run constantly even when in idle. This could probably be eliminated via replacing the thermal paste with a high-end one, undervolting CPU, moving all basic graphics to CPU instead of GPU, reinstalling a clean and optimized windows version without all the bloat and using a cooling pad (with a super silent 800 rpm fan).

So my question is: can the heatpipes/heatspreader from CPU & GPU be taken off? You'll probably see it anyway when you have to disassemble it for the SSD-upgrade so I am kindly asking if you could provide me some photos from the insides afterwards.

 

How was the heat displacement?

 

I'd be curious to see a high res photo of the inside also

 

Also make sure to utilize the GIGABYTE "Fan Tweak" software for customized fan control, while Smart Dashboard will only tell you your fan's RPM.

 

Hello, any word on availability in the USA?

 

Hey guys,
I am still setting up the Aero 14 right now.
I'll have photos and more insight over the next 3-4 days. Currently out on business trip and the Aero is at home for now.

Just some really nice features that I realized last night.

With such a huge battery, the charging time was ridiculously fast.

I was at 20 percent, and when I plugged the charger in, it said it would only take 1.5 hours to finish charging.

Maybe that is standard speed, but I appreciate the fact that it charges so fast. The charger block is sleak and "light".

 

Can we turn off the fans with this utility? Can one create a custom fan-preset like setting multiple temperature-limits and associated fan-speeds or are we forced again to use 3rd party applications like NoteBook FanControl for such a level of control?

 

Whoa, that level of control is possible 3rd party on any modern notebook?

 

Thats was no problem on my old Lenovo ThinkPad, nor a problem on my macbook or asus.
That level of control should be mandatory. Hardware needs to be controlled, why using any pre-created configs when you can tweak and optimize for a better performance/experience? I never understood this, manufacturers could even use a decent and full-feature fan-utility as a marketing bonus.

 

I would guess because users are stupid and would fry their laptops by limiting the fans or something. It's just a cost/benefit thing.

 

"Fan teak" provides pre-set options such as quiet, normal, or gaming options, but also provides the custom feature where you can manually adjust the RPM as well.

 

Hi,
Been following this laptop for few weeks now and just wanted to share that newegg has a page for the laptop (its currently out of stock) so it should be availabe for sale soon.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=gigabyte_aero_14-_-34-233-159-_-Product

 

Regarding fan control. If you scroll to the bottom of one of the scan.co.uk listings you'll see: " Fan Tweak: Customized Stability
Fan Tweak tailors your fan speed to different user scenarios, striking a perfect balance between system stability and needs for tranquility. Under“Customize”mode, you can further adjust the maximum fan speed, embracing the great performance and quiet environment on your own. The 4 modes offer for all-condition tweak options."

In worse news, the Newegg review now has a note saying that " GIGABYTE's shipment of laptops was delayed due to flooding in Taiwan. Current ETA for shipping is early July". I've not had an update on my estimated shipping date of 24th June since this news appeared.

 

Thanks for the link and the info. I didn't know about the flooding until now ...!

Charles

 

Hello,

I don't have an exact date for you. But production is already underway and shipping is right around the corner, however please note that it will vary by region obviously. Look forward to it.

Thanks for the support.

GIGABYTE NB

 

Hey guys, I'm weighing my options between the upcoming MSI GS63 and the Gigabyte Aero 14, and the biggest drawback I can see for the Aero 14 is, of course, the lack of Thunderbolt 3.

This may be a stupid question, but I'm very curious - when it comes to TB3, can they just send out a firmware update that allows TB3 capability, or is it the case that if you buy a laptop without TB3 from the start, you're out of luck?

It could end up being that I really don't need TB3 anyway, but it would be damn nice to have for things like running VMware through an external SSD.

 

Thunderbolt is not software, it is a separate hardware piece.

 

6/29 @ Newegg

GIGABYTE NB

 

Will it be available on Amazon also?
Thank you

 

Do you have any information about a UK release?

Thanks

 

It looks like you haven't read the thread (see links in my posts above). The laptop is available in two variants from scan.co.uk with them now expecting delivery of a shipment tomorrow for onward dispatch to customers within the disUnited Kingdom. Thus, I'm anticipating a shipping confirmation in the next couple of days, and arrival by the end of this week or early next week.

 

I asked Scan this morning and they seem to not have any idea as to when it will be coming, so thought perhaps there is a supply issue and which is why I asked.

 

Ahaahaa, the estimated due date listed on scan has now been moved all the way back to 15th July as well...

 

So it seems that the Aero 14 is in stock on Newegg.ca, but on Newegg.com it doesn't release til 7/19/2016? I'm a bit confused since:

It doesn't look like I can order from newegg.ca since I live in the States (or maybe there's a way? I have no idea). I guess we wait til 6/29 to see if they update the page on newegg.com?

 

Thank you, do you also have any details on the release of 965M versions of the laptop? I don't see any on newegg yet

 

Is this going to be somewhere else than US ? Or only US ?

 

Unboxing, with good view of internal components at 3:45 and of fan control software etc around 4:45.

 

Just ordered mine from Newegg.com. Strangely enough, only the orange variation showed the option for purchasing an extended warranty. Good thing that's the color I wanted! Anyways, I'll hopefully be able to post here later with some impressions/thoughts for those considering the Aero. FYI, I am a college student, so my thoughts will be coming from that standpoint.

 

I have tested the AERO14 myself in Asia.

Its a nice little laptop but still similar loud fan profile as the P34WV3. The laptop is not fully aluminium as stated here. Its a plastic chassis with aluminum sheets glued on. Similar as the Aorus. The screen is pretty good, keyboard is better than the P34W v3 as well. Because they didtch the plastic keyboard inlay.

The charger is nice and small. Hopefully it will last long as well.

TOo bad it doesnt have TB3. Could enhance the longevity of the laptop in terms of 3D performance with an external dock.

 

The price of the 512GB version is just $1599!?
This is way too low compare to the competitors!
Besides, the price is also ridiculously low compare to those in other countries....
I'd just got one with 256GB SSD for about $1750 in Taiwan.......which is the home country of Gigabyte...= =

 

In the us, always everything is cheaper and thry have larger earnings, thanks to large market and low taxes, still 1599 was without tax (VAT or other so +10% minimum).
Dont worry in mine I think Gigabyte P34W was at 2000$ or more.

 

Well, in fact, P34W V5 is about $100-150 cheaper in Taiwan compare to the price in the US. That's why I'm really surprised by the price of Aero 14 announced in the US. Besides, Aero 14 is just a bit more expensive than P34W V5 in the US with better display panel, larger storage, and better chassis.....

 

Yes sir! I would then assume the 1699$ model is the 32GB RAM US version, which is unnecessary for my needs. Heck, even my desktop has 16GB and it has yet to fully utilize that! And I very much do agree that this pricing beats competitors out. I was about to go for the Surface Book for it's good specs and sizable battery, despite it's less-than-perfect reviews. Hopefully the Aero delivers!

 

Which parts are aluminum, then?
Is it the top panel, the bottom, and the main keyboard/wrist-rest section, and the rest is plastic?

EDIT:
After looking at some photos, it seems like rinneh is right. If you look at some high-res photos, it seems like every edge is made of plastic, and sections like the bottom panel, the wrist rest/keyboard tray area, the bezels around the screen, and the top panel are all aluminum pieces. You can actually see the plastic rim on each of these. I'm guessing this was much, much easier to do than making the entire chassis aluminum.

I'd love to know how it feels because of this. It looks so odd from the sides, with so many dimensions and little ridges.

 

From what I coul dsee because I wasnt allowed to pick it up. The palmrest and maybe the screen lid. The bottom didnt look metal though because of the fangrills.

It is similar built as some Clevo's and the older Samsung Ativbook 8. The aluminum is just for looks. It still has a plastic frame. But fully aluminum it isnt for sure.

 

I just received another update from scan.co.uk, expected dispatch date has been brought forward from the 15th to the 4th July, and the website has been updated to state the same.

 

http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=238&t=4840524
This is a deep review from Taiwanese forum. It includes some dismantle pictures and benchmark. It seems that the chassis is aluminum without doubt.

 

Its plastic, easy to see. The middle chassis part, on which all the parts are screwed such as the mainboard, battery etc is plastic. Its molded plastic and provides the chassis with its strenght. The aluminum sheets stuck on the palm rest, and the bottom door are too thin to provide its strenght. You also can see the modling lines of the plastic in real around the ports.

 

Seems like the Aero got a heat problem just as I thought.
After a single 3DMark session CPU reaches 90°C, GPU 80°C while fans are in Automatic Max mode (will turn up to 100%).

Battery is ok-ish, 6h from 100% to 20% when watching youtube videos over WLAN in powersaving mode on 50% brigthness.
Chassis is still plastic though.

 

Ok, I'd miscomprehend what you're saying. You're right the middle part is plastic.