66 PCWorld MAY 2020REVIEWS GIGABYTE AERO^17
Gigabyte’s Aero 15X, amusingly enough.
Mind you, video playback isn’t exactly
hard work. Push the CPU hard in Photoshop
or Premiere, and we’d say you’ll be lucky to
see 2.5 hours of runtime. Play a game orrender on the GPU and we’d say expect no
more than 1.5 to 2 hours at best. Even web
browsing is likely to result in 4 to 5 hours
rather than the 7 we saw here.
Let’s not take away from what the Aero 17
has pulled off, though. Fantastic battery life
with a giant 4K screen is nothing less than
impressive.BOTTOM LINE
We’ll end this by pointing out the obvious:
Ryzen 4000 isn’t going away. Everything
we’ve seen tells us it will shake up the laptop
world as we have never seen before.
At the same time, you can’t just say “this
laptop would be better with Ryzen.” Intel-
based laptops have advantages, too—like
Thunderbolt 3, and (so far) options for high-
end GeForce GPUs that can’t be found on
AMD right now.
So where does that leave us? We can say,
with one hell of a laptop for content creation
professionals that seems to hit all the high
points, with a fast CPU, a fast GPU and a giant
4K calibrated screen.
It’s far from perfect: We didn’t get into the
fan noise, but let’s say they’re often loud when
set to the gaming profile, and border on
being too loud. The speakers are nothing
special. And don’t forget the nose cam.
We can tell you we’d take a 17.3-inch
wonder like the Aero 17 over any 13-inch and
most of the 15-inch models in today’s world,
because we know portability isn’t everything.Gigabyte Aero 17Core i7-10875HGigabyte Aero 15X
Core i7-7700HQ
Gigabyte Aero 15Core i7-7700HQMCore i7-8750HSI GS75 StealthAsus ROG Zephyrus G14
Ryzen 9 4900HS
MCore i7-9750HSI GS65AlienwCore i7-9750Hare M15 R2MCore i9-9880HSI GE65 RaiderDell G7Core i7-9750HAlienwCore i7-7820HKare 17 R4Origin PC EVOCore i9-8950HK -17SAlienw51m R1are Area
Core i9-9900K
Acer Predator Helios 700
Core i9-9980HK
Acer Predator Helios 500
Ryzen 7 27004K Video Battery Life
MinutesLONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE42338341027441430139922316313613 412272323