Stephanie
Oct 28, 20205 min
Updated: Oct 30, 2020
The Gigabyte Aorus 15G stands out from its peers based on a singular feature: the mechanical keyboard. Designed together with feedback from professional esports team G2 Esports, the Aorus 15G is designed to combine performance and portability in a stylish package.
Even if you're not a professional player that prizes the aggressive yet satisfying feedback of mechanical switches, it just feels so dang good to type on.
Anyway, enough about the mechanical keyboard, let's take a look at the whole package. The Aorus 15G comes in a range of specs - ours comes with an Intel Core i7-10875H processor with RTX 2070 Super Max-Q graphics.
The exterior of the laptop is made out of a warm-toned metal which looks and feels extremely premium, and keeps it simple by featuring nothing but the Aorus logo on the lid. No fancy edges or RGB lighting, just a simple backlit Aorus falcon. Is it a falcon anyway? I actually can't tell if it's a bird with an extremely loose jaw or an eagle that's flexing - but in any case, it looks gorgeous, so plus points for Aorus on this front.
The hinge does have a little wobble but otherwise feels solid with a decent amount of tension. I appreciate that you can easily open the lid with one hand without the laptop budging from the surface it's sitting on at all.
The display is 240Hz, which is nice and smooth for gaming. It is also Pantone-validated with 72% NTSC in case you're both a gamer AND an art student who needs to do some light colour work from time to time. The brightness is great for indoor usage, though I would avoid using it outdoors. As for light leakage, there's little to none, and there is only a little bit of flex in the screen.
The bezels are extremely slim, as they are on most modern laptops. In fact, it's so slim that they didn't manage to mount a webcam above the screen - instead it's been unceremoniously relegated to the main chassis, right above the power button.
Although the position is rather unconventional, I appreciate that at least they managed to fit one in as online conference calls are getting more common nowadays. If you're also paranoid about privacy, no worries as there is a built-in shutter to prevent hackers from peeking at you fresh out of the shower.
And yes, your knuckles are going to be visible, and people are going to mistake them for knees sometimes.
Ah, the star of the show. The mechanical keyboard is an absolutely delight to type on. Most of us are used to shallow and sometimes mushy keys when it comes to laptop keyboards, but here, you'll have none of that nonsense.
The mechanical blue switches are tactile and clicky, which means you'll probably be a nuisance in public spaces, but who cares when it feels so damn good to type on? The travel distance is huge for a laptop (though with shorter travel than a desktop keyboard, of course), and although it does makes the chassis slightly thicker as a result, the user experience completely makes up for it.
While the font still leans towards a gamer-esque design with squarish edges and all, it's not as offensive as some others I've seen (the slightly thicker font on the WASD keys irks me a little though.)
Of course, you'll get per-key RGB lighting as well as multiple lighting modes for you to toy around with in the Aorus Command Centre.
I'm also extremely happy that they included full-sized function keys and a numpad on this 15" laptop. The arrow keys do take a while to get used to as they're nested into the main cluster, but it's great that they're full-sized as well.
I don't really expect anything extraordinary when it comes to touchpads, but this one felt exceptionally smooth, AND it houses a fingerprint scanner on the top left. The absurdly placed webcam means facial recognition is a no-go, so it's nice to have fingerprint login at the very least.
I'm not a huge fan of the rubber borders though, it's a bit of a dust magnet and I'm unsure how well it would hold up in hot and humid climates like Malaysia. I mean, imagine it getting sticky over time...ugh.
The selection of I/O on the Aorus 15G is great. On the left you'll find an HDMI 2.0 port and Mini DisplayPort 1.4 to hook up your displays, a 3.5mm jack, the RJ-45 Ethernet port, as well as a single USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port.
On the right side, you'll find another two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a UHS-II SD card reader, the charging port. as well as a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port, which is a plus.
The only complaint I'd have is that the charging port is located on the right side, so it's inevitable that it's going to hinder your mouse hand sometimes.
The speakers on the Aorus 15G are side mounted, which is good if you place the laptop on top of your lap a lot (wew what a mouthful), as it won't muffle the speakers. In terms of quality, it's just alright - if you don't listen to bass-heavy stuff you'll be fine. Either way, you should still get a pair of headphones for better immersion as it does get pretty loud when it's under load.
As mentioned in the intro, our review model of the Aorus 15G is running an Intel Core i7-10875H CPU as well as RTX 2070 Super Max-Q graphics. It also comes with 16GB of RAM and a pretty measly 480GB of SSD storage, which gets eaten up pretty quickly if you enjoy playing triple-A titles. Luckily, you can always expand the storage - there are a total of two M.2 SSD slots, one of which supports NVMe PCIe while the other supports both NVMe PCIe and SATA.
The Aorus 15G scored great on both synthetic and gaming benchmarks, netting 97fps average on Borderlands 3 and above 85fps on both Far Cry New Dawn and Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the highest settings. As for Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a game that's known to be poorly optimised, it eked out a total of 53fps on Ultra High settings.
As for the SSD, it was a little slower than others in its class, but still perfectly serviceable.
In terms of cooling, the surface temperatures were perfectly acceptable, with hotspots kept well away from where your hands would usually be. This is facilitated by Gigabyte's Windforce system, which is comprised of 5 heatpipes, 2 fans, and ample exhaust vents on the top, side, and bottom. They have also thoughtfully included an extra thermal pad for another M.2 drive.
Endurance-wise, the huge 94Wh battery did well, clocking in over 7 hours on general tasks like watching videos and light editing work. It is definitely more than sufficient for nearly a full working day, and you probably won't need to carry the power brick out at all unless you plan to play games on the go.
Based on the sweet mechanical keyboard alone, I'd say BUY. If you prioritise a good typing experience, then the Aorus 15G should definitely be at the top of your list.
Performance and thermals are also decent - and while the audio and side-mounted charging port are meh, they are definitely not deal breakers at all. The built-in storage is rather measly too, so you'll definitely want to look at upgrading it.
Besides that, it does have a decent amount of perks, such as the speedy display, a tanky battery, a fingerprint sensor, and Thunderbolt 3 support.
If you're interested in picking up the Aorus 15G, it retails for RM10,499. You can check out their official Lazada store or the official product page for more details on the Aorus 15G XB we reviewed, or the other variants on offer.
However, if the price is out of your budget range, you can also take a look at the Aorus 5 series laptops - especially the Aorus 5MB, which comes with a 10th Gen Intel Core i5 processor and is priced at a more modest RM4,099.