Looking for help with buying an Aero 15x

Greetings all,

I'm a dutch guy in the market for a new laptop. After a lot of consideration between the MSI gs65, the Aero 15x and the new Razer Blade I have decided on the Aero 15x UHD. Gigabyte has no sellers in my country other than for motherboards so I've been looking online for international sellers. Recently I've been looking at Amazon, Excaliberpc, GentechPC and HIDEvolution.
I've browsed this site among others a lot in recent months and there seems to be a general enthusiasm towards HIDEvolution but for me this seems the worst choice. While I understand I'll have to pony up around $150 for shipping, HIDEvolution tacks on $550 in shipping and tax, $400 more than the others.

I would like to have it modified somewhat, mainly and upgrade to a 1 TB Samsung EVO 960/970 SSD. If possible I'd like to upgrade the thermal paste (non LM) and the wifi card to a 9260 but I can have that done locally later if need be.

Are there any arguments for/against ExcaliberPC or GenTechPC? Is there another seller I should consider?

Thanks in advance!

 

Ordering in the US can be quite expensive considering the shipping and the added customs costs. I've ordered it in the UK (but without modifications), it's way cheaper than the US. Keep in mind that a lot of other countries have totally different keyboard layouts, except the US indeed.

 

Which site did you order from?

 

I've ordered it from scan.co.uk. But the v8 is still on preorder I think and modifications aren't really possible I believe.

Adding another SSD I did it by myself.

 

If you are tech savvy, you can upgrade yourself, which is cheaper. Adding SSD and WiFi are easy. Unscrew the back cover, pry it open, match the slot, and screw it down. For WiFi, more or less the same except you need to take out the old one and connect the antenna. For thermal paste can be a little tricky, but if you do it careful it shouldnt be a problem since you are not doing LM.

I brought it from gentechpc, right now they are not replying emails. And even before when they do, they answered it as short as possible. Dont know if they are really busy or what

 

+1
I've got mine from the UK as well. While I was there on a business trip I asked my partner to order it on Amazon Next Day, and we just substituted it from my regular contract price (-VAT).
I did the upgrades (LM, EVO970) myself without a problem.

 

I'm exactly in the same situation: I live in Switzerland and I'd like to buy a modified version of the Aero15 (LM, EVO970). GenTechPC seems like a good option but I'm a little bit scared of the duty fees. If I decide to do the upgrades myself, will it be difficult to install all the drivers? Is there any procedures to follow?
Another question, is there any other seller in Europe that sells modified Aero15x s?

 

You only need the Samsung Data migration software (if you'd like the new drive to be a system drive) from here: https://s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/global.semi.static/Samsung_Data_Migration_Setup.exe

Its a breeze to clone your existing drive with the full windows package. Once done you'll need to make that the boot drive in the BIOS, and you'r done.

Once booted from the new NVME SSD, you can nuke(format) the SSD the laptop has shipped with to have a clean data drive.

 

I bought a second NVME SSD to put into the secondary SATA slot (PCIE for 1TB is way way too expensive and I don't need that speed for storage purposes). So I keep the original for boot and programs and the second for storage and things like Steam/Streaming-backups/media. I recommend that as by far the most straightforward easy solution both for installation and ordering (just get the 15x that's available and make yourself a D: partition off the second drive). It may still be worth a clean install of Windows, but that's a different task.

 

Yes, I can use the migrations tool but then I'll lose the benefits of a clean installation.
BTW, do you now if there are any shops that sells the Aero in Europe with mods?

 

I've been searching and searching and haven't found any yet. Personally I'm asking around if any friends of family are traveling to the US any time soon so I can circumvent that pesky 20% VAT