I shelled out for this unit, and I'm mostly happy. It gets the work done, and rather impressively for such a small unit. If I had to do it over again, I would either buy the new 16gb razer blade 14 refresh (yes, I know, trust is low, but the specs on the unit are FINALLY right) or an MSI GS60 4k and deal with carrying 2 bags. Overall, this is a laptop with an identity crisis; a company trying to produce a luxury brand, but can't seem to overcome their obsession with stacking deep and selling cheap.
The cons (read as "We are Legion"):
I'll echo what others have said, the build quality is ok, but the QA is schit.
The keyboard in particular is terrible, I had to send it back day 1 because one of the extremely low quality scissor keys just popped off due to an obvious manufacturer defect, the backlight on the G key switch was DOA, this apparently is not considered a defect either.
In a time when ultra-premium laptops sport 2buttjillion color configurable, waving, 100 level brightness control systems, cappuccino and julienne fry making settings, this has 3 states (off, super dim, danger zone) that feel like an after thought and lack even the quality of a 2005 lenovo.
I have a little friend, nay constant companion in the form of a stuck pixel that comes and goes sometimes, but I've come to accept that sojourns to the land of being functional are a passing fancy, my little green dot will always return.
Overall, the quality doesn't depart much from the gigabyte ultrabook models this inherits genetics from (think British aristocratic chin, evolution is questionable). I will name him Tom, it's a nice name. Whether Tom from hardware or Tom from myspace is the daddy is a question best left for daytime talk shows.
Ports are tackier than they should be, usb doesn't go in easy, wobbles when it does, audio doesn't work with anything but shorter 1/8th jacks, mic jack constantly connects/disconnects. Some might point to separate 1/8" jacks for mic and headphones as a positive, but in a world where some of the best peripherals have gone 4 pole, especially in ultrabooks, it just feels old.
USB-C, but no thunderbolt.
The 6700hq CPU is a joke as well. The previous generations of laptops shipped with the 4720hq, which is a MUCH better cpu. The 6700hq, even with higher frequency and faster ram is still as much as 25% slower under loaded operations. Skylake's first gen has been a marked mobile disappointment for me from a performance perspective.
Not compatible with latest intel chipset firmware. It will literally become non-functional in many cases.
Fickle, but the unboxing is weak. I feel the packaging on a 2500USD laptop should feel like it. I'm not a macbook fan, but when you open the box on one, it feels like you've paid for something. The LDPE plastic caddy inside a poorly die-cut folding double walled box, with a coarse wrapping cover emblazoned with the aorus chickenhook logo just comes off as underwhelming.
Wifi has inconsistent performance, even with latest drivers. Let's hope it's a firmware issue.
Spring tension on trackpad drastically inconsistent by side. Gesture support helps.
The OEM configuration of the operating system ships on life support with no bloatware, but a crippled configuration that makes the operating system par unusable. My guess is they still use the same optimization script in production that they used on windows 7. Only recoverable via wipe/reload.
Tons of undocumented keybindings. Like, tons of them. They have a bunch of utilities that run in the background for various laptop functions, and all of them seem to bind keyboard commands that are used in other applications (ctrl+shift+5 is a particularly irritating example). The only way to remedy this is to uninstall the apps.
Bluetooth chip is useless for audio. It stalls every dozen ticks. Which basically means bluetooth is useless for anything on the device. Connected to two amazon echos, so the problem is definitely not target device quality.
No disable secure boot option (delete only), because Windows 10 laptop. Might as well be a suicide button. Mind you, windows 10 is extremely solid, their best OS yet, but some decisions irk.
Underwhelming, antique bios.
Oddball version of intel raid is not recognized by winpe environments, drivers have to be introduced separately.
Now for the good:
-Power port and ethernet are in the back, where they should be
-The vents are not as goofy as they appear, and are quite functional
-The drives are beasts. Tuned properly the stock drives clock in on crystalmark over 3000mb/s. Real NVMe is a thing of beauty, and the real selling point of this device
-Battery life better than advertised
-It stays cool and fits in my purse
-The power supply is much improved from previous versions and will charge an iPhone 6s in a little over an hour. (Mind you, it's an expensive phone charger, so take that with a dead sea level of salt)
-Quiet most all the time
-It runs linux no questions asked, provided you get a distro that can deal with the secure boot partition.
-Except for the hinge, the chassis feels solid
-Easy upgrades, what little is upgradeable
-Good weight distribution
-Trackpad is nice, way better than the review suggests. I've had to use every major brand including Apple's recent MBPs for work, and it's just shy of that experience.
-You get to constantly answer the "what is THAT" question. This should probably go under cons
This laptop is a rattly race car pushing the upper bounds of what its construction can handle, just pushing for that extra little bit of speed. And as with that device, it feels as though it could fall apart and fail at any moment if driven too hard or used wide open. If you can get one for ~1500, it's a solid buy. I would never pay their premium again though, MSI produces a significantly better product for a lot less money. If MSI drops a version of the GS40 phantom with dual NVMe + 4k screen, there will be a very nice, well-kept laptop up for sale.
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