GIGABYTE AERO 15 CLASSIC-XA Review
Using the Laptop
The AERO 15 CLASSIC-XA is by no means cheap, but that price tag carries through to the experience of using it. The screen lifts with little force and can be done with one hand, yet is stable enough to remain in place at any angle.
Once you hit the power button, it it mere seconds before you’re greeted by the desktop. The display is vibrant without being overly saturated, but that will be covered in full on the next page.
Touchpad
The touchpad has the feel of a tempered glass cellphone screen, and the entire pad is clickable. As such, there are no physical buttons below the pad. Right clicking is done by placing your finger on the right half of the pad and clicking. There is a dead-zone of approximately 1 cm on all sides of the touchpad, but this is for palm detection and not an issue. The touchpad supports a multitude of gestures for easy use in Windows.
Keyboard
The RGB-lit keys have a very responsive feel to them, with a solid actuation bump as you press each of them. Thankfully there isn’t a spongy feel at all. The lighting doesn’t have a very smooth transition with the default settings. It can, however, be configured on a per-key basis using RGB Fusion. One minor annoyance is the location of the arrow keys, which takes a bit of getting used to. Overall, the keyboard is a pleasure to use. The keyboard also supports per-key macros through the GIGABYTE Control Center, and 8-key rollover.
Sound
The sound on the GIGABYTE AERO 15 CLASSIC-XA is actually quite good. The Nahimic sound is supposed to emulate 7.1 surround sound through stereo speakers. However, in testing it isn’t at all comparable to a true surround sound setup. Moving on, the sound quality was good but lacked bass. Some laptops have had integrated mini subwoofers, so it can’t be blamed on simply being a laptop. Lastly, the volume level was above average. All things considered, if you’re serious about gaming, movies or music you’ll likely have a quality headset. However, for the times you’re not using a headset, the integrated speakers do a fine job. The microphone quality was acceptable, and the noise cancellation worked well.
Network
The laptop sports Killer Doubleshot Pro LAN and Killer Wireless-AC 1550 Wi-Fi, which means that the laptop uses the Killer Control Center for network management. This allows for monitoring of network activity as well as prioritizing certain applications and setting limits. This proved handy, especially when running downloads at the same time as requiring real time bandwidth. A great example of this is updating your Steam library while streaming from YouTube.
Webcam
We can’t miss the elephant in the room, however, and that is the webcam. Placed below the screen and angled up, the party on the other end of a video call is looking directly up your nostrils. This is largely thanks to the near-bezel-less design, and there isn’t really an alternative location for it. One idea could have been to have the webcam pop out of the top of the screen, like the selfie camera on some flagship cellphones.
