Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 Review – The Worst 14-inch Laptop? (Pro-User Must See)

The market for high-performance laptops with compact dimensions is booming again lately. Many manufacturers are not only competing to present jumbo-dimensional flagship products with divine specifications, but secretly they are also competing to bring laptops that are as portable as possible, but offer the highest possible performance. At the beginning of 2021, is it possible for compact dimensions to go hand in hand with high specifications? Let’s look at an example of the product in question. Here’s a review of the Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 with Kaby Lake and GTX 1060 6GB.

The development of professional applications such as Autodesk, which is already more friendly with parallel computing, is something that professionals have been waiting for, especially where they work because it is more budget-friendly. But are laptops like the Gigabyte Aero 14, as well as the Gigabyte P34K V5, which are also compact and we have reviewed previously, able to provide the solutions that the professional workers expect?

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Also read: Gigabyte P34K V5, Best Budget Professional Gaming Ultrabook

Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 Spesifikasi Specifications
With updated components in terms of CPU and GPU, the Gigabyte Aero 14 with dimensions of 335(W) x 250(D) x 19.9(H) mm promises a very massive performance upgrade compared to the previous version that we have reviewed as well. Intel core i7 7700HQ itself has a performance increase of up to 20% higher for certain scenarios than the skylake version of Intel core i7 6700HQ. While on the GPU side, the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 makes it currently at the level of a flagship product in 2021 equipped with the Geforce GTX 980M with a weight of only 1.89KG.

As for the memory or RAM side, the Gigabyte Aero 14 by default is equipped with a 2400MHz DDR4 pc which is faster than some of its competitors who only use a 2133MHz pc. As for the storage side, besides it has limitations where it does not offer a 2.5 slot due to the pursuit of a large battery capacity, this time the Aero 14 version 1060 gets a cut from the number of m.2 slots. If the previous GTX 965M version offered 2 M.2 slots, this GTX 1060 version only offers 1 m2 slot. Of course, the m.2 slot supports PCIe SSD. It seems that this has to be done because the position that could previously be used for a second SSD, is used by the VRAM chip whose number has swelled.

For battery capacity, as a reminder, Gigabyte Aero 14 uses a battery with the same capacity as its predecessor, namely 94.24WHr. An almost impossible battery capacity in a 14-inch barebones 19mm thickness. Gigabyte promises all-day mobility as one of Aero 14’s sales points, of course with non-gaming conditions. The tests we did did not show a significant increase compared to the previous version which reached 154 minutes through the classic mode Battery Eat Pro test. This W7 version only gives an additional 10 minutes or lasts at 165 minutes.

What deserves a thumbs up, Gigabyte tries to provide benefits similar to Razer regarding power adapters. For Aero 14, the Power Adapter is much more compact than most gaming laptops with GTX 1060. With dimensions of xx mm in length, overall it is not as compact as Razer Blade’s. But the Aero 14 offers a USB charging port that you can use to recharge your gadget’s battery without consuming electrical outlets on the walls of the house.

Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 Price in the Philippines

The price offered by the Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 with the configuration of Intel core i7 7700HQ, Geforce GTX 1060 and several specifications as mentioned above is 27.999 million rupiah. With 14-inch dimensions, currently a comparable opponent in the gaming market may only be the Razer Blade 1060, which at the time of this article was written at a price tag of more than 40 million rupiah (in Indonesia). FYI, most laptops with GTX 1060 6GB have 15.6-inch dimensions and are offered in price ranges starting from 23 million rupiah. Then with a more expensive tag of around 4 million rupiah, what benefits does Gigabyte Aero 14 offer?

Also read: Review of Gigabyte Aero 14 – Razer Blade Killer?

But hey, as advertised on its official website, Gigabyte targets Aero 14 to 2 different user segments, Gamers and Professionals. With a thickness of less than 20mm, it can still be compared to professional ultrabooks from several other brands. For example, Lenovo Yoga 910, HP Specter, Microsoft Surface Book Pro, Dell XPS to Macbook Pro which are priced at a minimum of 20 million rupiah for the highest specifications. Compared to the products mentioned earlier, the Gigabyte Aero 14 is indeed the most powerful in GPU performance. This is why in the beginning we invited professionals to consider this product as a portable rendering engine in the field.

QHD+ Display Panel

The first benefit is the QHD+ display panel. For a professional, who needs a PC for rendering, a high resolution monitor is an absolute necessity. To take the pro-user market niche, Gigabyte provided the Aero 14 with a high-resolution 14-inch display panel. The performance of the Geforce GTX 1060 seems to be getting a commensurate opponent, especially in terms of rendering capabilities armed with its large enough VRAM capacity.

The Gigabyte Aero 14 that pemmzchannel review uses an LG Philips LP140QH1-SPB1 panel, Model: LGD0419 which offers a resolution of 1440p. With a brightness level of 310nit, the LCD display panel on the Gigabyte Aero 14 is not the crispest. But for color accuracy, it is in the luxury category.

Design, Build Quality and Handling

Build Quality and handling are two other benefits of the Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 mainstay. The combination of aluminum and high-quality plastic makes it a compact product that is rigid but tends to be lightweight. Many manufacturers are trying to target their products to be lighter, using premium materials. As a result, the price is relatively expensive. Gigabyte seems to still want Aero to enter the segment below the Aorus. Offers high performance, but with more affordable design and material options.

As for the design, mostly there are almost no changes including new color options other than Black, green and orange which were already offered in the previous series. You can still find the carbon-textured triangle area to decorate the pastel color dominance. Like the MSI GS63 that we reviewed earlier, this Gigabyte Aero 14 hinges LCD panel model also allows it to open up to 180°. There is a possibility, Gigabyte is preparing an SKU Aero 14 that uses a display panel with a touch screen feature.

Workstations, Ports & Connectivity

This area also has not changed, including the supporting features. The wide keys will be easily liked by those with XL fingers. But it does require a little habituation for those of you who use this keyboard more for typing. The characteristics of the keys are more comfortable for gaming than making reports. Likewise the dimensions of the touchpad which we think are maximum enough for a 14-inch laptop workstation. Although the performance of the touchpad does not provide satisfactory experiments. You will also still get 5 macro keys that you can adjust up to 5 different presets via the dedicated macro key switch. This button will light up with different colors according to the preset you selected.

The Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 offers almost the same connectivity configuration as the Gigabyte P34K. It’s just that Aero 14 has a more advanced display out with the presence of a mini DisplayPort. Unfortunately, the USB 3.1 type C port does not support thunderbolt 3. The Gigabyte Aero 14 is also equipped with an external LAN adapter (Optional) which when you have to use one of the USB ports you have to sacrifice. Overall, in terms of ports and connectivity, the Gigabyte Aero 14 can be said to be very understated. For network and wireless connections, the Gigabyte Aero 14 is equipped with WiFi a/c and Bluetooth V4 which are quite modern.

The Most Maximum Performance Ever in a 14-inch Laptop

With 2 main components that have been updated, the final result that pemmzchannel gets is a significant increase compared to last year’s GTX 970M version. CPU increased by an average of 20% and GPU Alhamdulillah rose even worse, reaching an average of 40% more. This is also a benefit for the current Aero 14, where many other professional-grade laptop manufacturers have not shipped gaming laptops with Kaby Lake and GTX 1060 6GB configurations. More details, you can see in the following table.

This significant capability is perhaps the highest performance achievement ever achieved by a 14-inch laptop, even compared to the Razer Blade 1060 which we will also review. Naturally, making it still priced quite high when compared to other GTX 1060 6GB laptops. To play games, pemmzchannel does not recommend that you only rely on the capabilities of the default cooling system. We recommend that you use an extra cooling pad for long periods of playing time.

Conclusion

As we know, premium laptop products for professionals generally offer premium concepts and designs as well. According to pemmzchannel, the Aero 14’s design is much better than their previous P series. But if it goes out of bounds and is competed with the champions in the professional laptop market, Gigabyte really needs to learn more to make this Aero lineup look more premium-looking if it targets professionals as one of the user segments.

In the gaming segment, many actually still doubt the capabilities of the 14-inch barebones. The mindset in the local market is that a laptop that has gaming capabilities is at least 15.6-inch. But in today’s era of 14nm fabrication and performance per watt, all manufacturers are able to make high-end components run on barebones that are much more compact. and the Gigabyte Aero 14 W7 is one of the most powerful ultra-portable gaming notebooks in the pemmz.com product catalog.

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