This review may seem like a lot of text, but is information rich, and explains Why, rather than (i like this)
I do very thorough research before I buy anything, I walked around Best Buy and Walmart to inspect build quality first hand on many different brands and laptops. I was looking for a laptop that didn't look cheesy(MSI black &Red- Yuck), cheap (most keyboards text & screen wobble/plastic). I wanted something thin and light without sacrificing battery life, thermals, or performance (razer 15 loses on all fronts) I originally only wanted to spend no more than 1200$ but I wanted something to replace my 2011Macbook. I edit alot of photos in photoshop and I didn't want to save a few bucks by getting the 1050ti over the 1060.
Opening the box for the first time was a big sigh of relief because 1700 clams is alot of money! Keyboard is low profile, has responsive mechanical key switches that sound & feel great without being noisy(if you don't smack them they are completely silent) the keys are not flat and have just the slightest curve to them so they feel comfortable, and are well spaced for typing or gaming. Each key is individually color mapped using the Gigibyte Fusion software. Its not a perfect and could be a little less laggy but it works well with many features (just as good as other manufacturers software.)
Screen. 1080p @ 144hz. It looks great, has great refresh rate. No need for anything higher resolution with the GTX 1060 @ 15.6" you really wouldn't see anymore pixels if you went to the 4k version anyway, so save your money. No back bleed or dead pixels. Pantone color calibration (great for all the photo editing I do). Thin bezels are with the times.
Benchmarks & Gaming: I noticed that sometimes windows would lag a bit under almost no load. Realized that it was the Intel integrated graphics. Its crap, go into the Nvidia control panel and change the setting for primary video device to the 1060. All lag disappeared. Passmark scores were CPU 11,538 (90th%) GPU 8896 (90%) . That means out of all the people who ran the Passmark benchmark, this Laptop is better than 90% of computers. That is impressive. Heat: All the vents are underneath, I would reccommend using something to prop up the back edge of the computer when gaming or process intensive tasks. The fans are on either side so it is cold on the sides and hot in the middle. Great for WASD gamers. Because this is a thin and light the fans get pretty loud when gaming. Pretty typical of all gaming laptops (get a pair of headphones) Dolby Sound...meh, okay for browsing the web but my iphone 8 plus has better sound quality. Should have been better but you were going to get headphones anyways right!
Battery life in my tests was a little less than the 10hr advertisement. 8hrs is what I experienced. 5.5hrs when playing Fortnite or COD. Certainly better than many laptops. Packaging was sufficient, charging cable was surprisingly small, and for some dumb reason Newegg wont ship to MN or WI for this product, so Amazon got my business (it was cheaper here with my Amazon card 5% kickback too) Thanks Newegg!
This was an excellent purchase and I don't have any regrets.
Gigabyte: Ways to improve for next time. Get AMD processors, it will make your laptops less expensive and people won't really notice a difference. Bigger fans(the bigger the fans, the quieter the laptop) You can afford to make this laptop a bit bigger in thickness or width. it won't kill anyone. Also if there was something built into the laptop to securely pop up the backside for airflow, it would be excellent. (no cheap flip ups, nice metal ones on both sides with rubber feet on them. like on the back of desktop keyboards) then people won't have to worry about finding someway to pop it up themselves to eliminate choked airflow. Get speakers with more bass. Great laptop though.
| Standing screen display size | 15.6 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 Pixels |
| Processor | 8032 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR3 |
| Memory Speed | 4.1 GHz |
| Hard Drive | 512 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 1 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 10 Hours |
