Thin on the outside, relatively burly on the inside.
Gigabyte is challenging the notion that real gaming laptops have to be somewhat chunky in order to support higher-end hardware and offer sufficient cooling. Going in the opposite direction, Gigabyte's new Aero 15 measures just 1.9cm (~0.75 inches), at least at its thinnest point.
A look at Gigabyte's press renders show some added thickness where the external ports are located, but overall the Aero 15 is incredibly thin. It's also relatively light at 2.1kg (~4.6 pounds), at least for a gaming notebook—some ultrabooks weight half as much.
While the Aero 15's waistline is a point of emphasis, it's not the only thing that sets this laptop apart. It's also the first laptop to feature an X-Rite Pantone certified display for accurate color reproduction—in this case, a 15.6-inch panel shoehorned into a frame with near-borderless 5mm bezels. It's basically a 14-inch laptop with a 15.6-inch display.
The panel is available in 1080p (1920x1080), with a 4K (2840x2160) option coming in the third quarter of this year. Either way, it's powered by an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB of GDDR5 memory.
There are two DDR4 memory slots and two M.2 PCIe SSD ports inside the Aero 15. On the outside, users will find dual 4K output options with HDMI 2.0 and mini DisplayPort 1.3 connectors, along with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. There also appear to be three USB 3.0 ports and a GbE LAN port.
The Aero 15 is carved from CNC aluminum and comes in three different colors—black, orange, and green. Of course, the real question here is cooling, and that is not something Gigabyte talks about in its press release. In our experience, thinner gaming laptops tend to get really hot, which can lead to throttling. Until we test an Aero 15 out for ourselves, we can only wonder how Gigabyte combats this, especially with a GTX 1060 inside.
You can find the Aero 15 on Newegg for $1,900 plus shipping. Both the green and black models are available, with the orange SKU currently out of stock.