The Gigabyte Aero 14 Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,835 words · ~9 min read
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Razer didn't surprise anyone when they released the new Razer Blade with better
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hardware and identical build quality to its predecessor it was the massive price
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drop that got me and a lot of others excited about it but apparently Gigabyte
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doesn't think they went low enough Gigabyte figures they can do the same
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thing for $600 cheaper for a 512 gig model wow and
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this is it the arrow 14 or as I'm calling it The Poor Man's
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blade Mast drop is currently featuring their exclusive k7xx red headphones
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built by AKG learn more and buy one today at the link in the video
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description let's start with specs it would be easy to put a core i5 with
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onboard Graphics in this thing and say Hey look it's cheaper so you can't call
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something a blade competitor unless it's similarly equipped so like the blade 14
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my config of the Aro 14 more on that later rocks a core i7 6700 HQ 16 gigs of
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ddr4 memory an m.2 SSD and a
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gtx970m graphics card though it has 3
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gigs versus 6 gigs of vram which leads
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us pretty well into the differences because while raw system performance
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should be pretty darn close in some ways
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in others the experience will be pretty different for starters the SSD in my
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config is SATA instead of NVMe in spite
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of the product pages PCIe messaging
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right at the top onto the power brick in
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spite of its slightly lower rated output it's a touch bigger But it includes a
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2.1 amp USB port which is a super convenient feature for regular Travelers
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next is IO where it's hard to declare a true winner the arow 14 rocks three USB
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3 5 GB typ a ports just like the blade
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adds a USB 3.1 10 gbit port on its
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type-c Port but it sacrifices
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Thunderbolt on that same type-c connector and then it gets more
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complicated they both have HDMI but the Aro 14 has HDMI 2.0 for 60 HZ 4K output
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and a mini DisplayPort for easy conversion to anything including VGA
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making up for some of the functionality lost by that Thunderbolt Port that's
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missing and then finally and if this isn't a home run it's a ground rule
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double for sure the AR 14 has an SD card
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reader woohoo moving on to the display
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the A14 has what Gigabyte very optimistically refers to as a free K
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14in IPS display with an actual resolution of 2560 x440 which I've
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usually heard referred to as 1440p or 2
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1 12K which is only about
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64% the number of pixels as the blade
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14's 3K plus display but deceptive
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product marketing aside I think this is a great move at this size it doesn't
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appreciably affect the sharpness of text or other onscreen elements and it
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contributes directly to better battery life and longer battery life when gaming
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at the panel's native resolution it's not as bright as Razor's display and the
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huge chin bar bar reminds me of notebooks from years past but it's got
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DC backlight modulation that's why it's not flickering in RB roll and a matte
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finish with strong contrast performance that makes it look really good in person
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I did miss the touchcreen quite a few times and gsync or higher refresh rates
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would be on the wish list for an arrow two but these features would add cost
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and device thickness so overall I'm not complaining here on the subject of
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thickness whatever Gigabyte might think about this the blade 14 continues to be
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the obvious competitor here and while
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you could convince me that the AR 14 is the same size if it had been a couple of
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weeks since I'd seen Cena blade side by side the difference is noticeable the A1
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14 is about 15% larger by volume most of
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which is due to its increased thickness but once again this is a matter of
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tradeoffs rather than an opportunity for me to declare a clear winner for your
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extra thickness you get socketed memory slots two of them allowing the arrow 14
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to be upgraded to 32 gigs of off-the-shelf RAM this apacer stuff that
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I had lying around from an ad spot a while ago worked great making it a
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shockingly well equipped workstation competitor you get a second m.2 slot for
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an additional storage drive with raid support by the way and you get a
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whopping 90 plus wat hour battery that translated into a huge realworld battery
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life Advantage at the same screen and keyboard backlight brightness speaking
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of the keyboard Gigabyte also makes a point of mentioning the super Long Key
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travel in their marketing materials but frankly I don't think it contributed
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anything here I mean the good news is that it didn't hurt the experience
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either the force required to type is a little bit heavy for my tastes but I did
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get used to it in a few days and at this point I feel like the keyboard uh with
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the well positioned macro Keys contributing significantly here is a
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strong point for this device in spite of its monochromatic backlighting and
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missing right function key that makes one-handed volume adjustments a bit more
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of a chore as for the touchpad it's not
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the best I've ever used but I've been using this thing daily for over two
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weeks now and it's yet to make me upset so very good marks for both of these on
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to overall build quality the one finger 180 plus degree hinge is really nice the
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speakers are very loud and very clear but sound like they're coming from
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somewhere else due to their position on the bottom of the device the built-in
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webcam isn't anything special and and there's more chassis Flex than premium
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products like Dell's xps15 Apple's MacBook line and yes that comparison
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again the blade 14 but nowhere near the
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Gigabyte notebooks of old that I refused to review because I could bend them into
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a boomerang shape with minimal effort and you are saving a few bucks here so I
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don't mind making some concessions when it comes to overall
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robustness but what about performance then lonus well as long as it doesn't
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thermal throttle this Hardware combo shouldn't shock us so the only real
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difference here comes into play if you insist on playing at Native resolution
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so make of that then what you will on the subject of thermals it's trade-off
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time again the arow 14 manages to be
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quieter than the blade 14 underload and I'm thinking this is in no small part
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due to its much less restrictive exhaust vent under the screen but It suffers
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from noticeably higher keyboard and touchpad temperatures at idle then while
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gaming its touchpad is actually 4° cooler but its keyboard which you're
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more likely to be touching while you're gaming because you'll probably be using
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an outside Mouse is 4° hotter add to
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that though that the components inside the blade 14 generally run hotter and it
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becomes a question of personal preference at least if you have enough
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to afford either one which leads us then into the conclusion I don't like some of
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Gigabyte's sketchy claims 3K display all
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those call outs for m.2 NVMe raid when
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my config the only one available in the states at the moment has a single 512
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gig m.2 SATA drive and I don't
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understand why they felt the need to behave this way because there's no need
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to stretch the truth for the Aro 14 to be a fantastic machine it does that on
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its own it gives up some build quality
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it gives up a touchcreen and an RGB back click keyboard and Thunderbolt and it is
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a little bit bigger than the blade 14 but it offers up significantly better
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battery life HDMI 2.0 an SD card reader
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more flexible configurations so I talked about my config I'd expect to see more
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in the future thanks to two slotted memory and m.2 Bay a 2-year Global
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Warranty and a much lower price and it
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does all that while including a USB to Ethernet dongle for folks who prefer
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wires to killer networking wasn't that fun you know what else is
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fun saving money on your phone bill do you ever find yourself going gee why is
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it that I when I go to the restaurant I have to order you know six cheeseburgers
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for the week and then if I don't use four of those cheeseburgers I just have
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to throw them in the garbage I only ate two of them why can't I just buy two
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well that is how mobile phone bills work
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you have to say in advance like oh I'm probably going to talk to you know
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people for 200 27 minutes this month but
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then if you only use 226 you paid for something you didn't use well not with
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Ting with Ting you pay for only what you use and the average Ting bill is only 24
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bucks a month per device just head over to lin. ting.com we've got it linked in
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the video description and try out their savings calculator you enter your last
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couple of bills and then it spits out hey here's how much you would be saving
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on Ting and boom you can see if you'd be a happy person and by the way data is
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now just 10 bucks per gig beyond the first
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Gigabyte pretty freaking cool so sign up
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and you'll get 25 bucks in service credit or towards a new device
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wow so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or check out the link to where to buy this laptop which we will
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have in the video description usually it's at Amazon also linked in the video
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description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our
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community Forum which you should totally join so you can talk talk shop with
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other Tech Geeks now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably
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wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right to
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check out our latest video over on Channel Super Fun barkl and Dennis go
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for a joy ride in my car for some reason who does that kind of thing