GIGABYTE - AERO X16 - Copilot+ PC - 16" 2560×1600 WQXGA AMD Ryzen Al 7 350 - 1TB SSD - 32GB DDR5 RAM GeForce RTX 5060 - Space Gray

The laptop is surprisingly powerful in such a compact package. It delivers beyond what I've ever experience with a laptop afar as performance is concerned, especially at this price point. That said, it does have a few shortcomings. 1) In my experience, The graphics card switching (for battery savings) bugs out, and requires me to boot into bios to disable in order to reset it. 2) The laptop overheads fairly easily. It becomes scalding if you actually use it on your lap for more than a few minutes. You probably want to keep it elevated at all times when in use. 3) The battery life is abysmal. 4) does not seem to charge with USB C, at least not adequately for the required power draw, even with extremely high wattage adapters. 5) I have yet to find a dock that works with this laptop that does not require the laptop to simultaneously be connected to the OEM power adapter. But if you use this laptop as an ultraportable powerhouse, it's great.

I’ve been using the Gigabyte AERO X16 with the RTX 5060 for about a week now, and it’s been an outstanding all-around machine. As a graphic designer and video editor, I really appreciate the bright 16″ 2560×1600 display—it’s sharp, color-accurate, and smooth at 165 Hz. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU and RTX 5060 combo handle design apps, 4K video editing, and moderate gaming without breaking a sweat. What impressed me most is how lightweight it feels for a 16″ laptop—easy to carry between home and work. The cooling system keeps performance steady (though it can get a bit loud under heavy load), and the build quality feels premium. Battery life isn’t exceptional, but that’s expected for a performance laptop. Overall, this is a great choice for creators or gamers who want a portable, high-performance system that looks professional and delivers reliable results.

The device is a slim portable laptop that packs a mean punch when you need the extra performance. Packed with 32GB DDR5, this is a perfect laptop for both creators and gamers looking to have the ability to game on the go without hauling heavy brick chargers and account for extra 10 lbs of weight in your luggage.

For context, this is my first gaming computer; I've had a Mac that I did not use for gaming before, and I had an ASUS way before that I also did not use for gaming. I bought it on sale for $1,299.99 and used a ton of gift cards to finance it, but before I had even received it, it went down to $1,199.99, so I asked if I could get a price match and Best Buy gave me it, giving me back $100. For this price, I would say this computer is pretty great, mostly because it's a functional but not-so-expensive gaming computer with 32 GB of RAM, which is getting way pricier now due to the AI boom, so I appreciate that for this lower-end gaming computer, they still have this amount of RAM. In addition the 1 TB of storage is a godsend because I was about to have to settle for a 512 GB storage device if I wanted a lower-end gaming laptop. So the memory specs for this are great, and that's why I bought it in the first place. When I first received the laptop, I was really shocked by the packaging, and the chassis. GIGABYTE sent it in a cardboard box filled with really fun designs, and they also gave me a few stickers along with the product details. The chassis looks really nice and feels sturdy, the hinge between the screen and base has a gap so particles don't get stuck (my previous Mac did not have this, and it was one of my biggest annoyances), and the keyboard is extremely smooth and very fun to type on. I like the noise and I also love the rainbow colored lights that it has if you disable power saving mode (I've kept mine on for a while, but I still do miss those lights). I had a few issues when first starting the computer and setting it up, and it made me restart the set-up process, but after that, everything has been working pretty well without any major hiccups on that front. The real kicker was the bluetooth. I have a great pair of Bose headphones that I have been using for a while now, and when I tried connecting to this computer, it kept disconnecting or saying it was connected and not being connected, and other things like that. I also tried pairing the computer with a bluetooth speaker (this one is of arguably lesser quality than the Bose headphones), and it also had an awful time trying to connect with it. Sometimes it even says it is connected when the bluetooth speaker is completely off, so I don't know. Finally, I also tried connecting it via bluetooth to my Intuos M-BT Wacom drawing tablet, and it was also getting a lot of similar issues with connecting and then disconnecting. At first, I tried to troubleshoot the issues, and I read that some people had similar issues with a GIGABYTE motherboard, but I don't have experience with opening up my laptop or anything, so I couldn't try to do anything with the motherboard itself, but I did try using the troubleshoot option that Microsoft has, and it worked sometimes, but the issues still kept appearing. I ended up just using a good set of wired headphones I have laying around, not using the speaker anymore, and just wiring my Intuos M-BT Wacom drawing tablet to the computer instead of using bluetooth. In the future, I might try to use a Bluetooth dongle to try to help this computer out a bit, but we'll see. Other issues with this computer: the sound quality is absolute trash. I tried playing some songs out loud and holy crap, I did not expect it to sound so crackly and muffled, and awful like that. I already knew going into it that it wouldn't have the best audio quality, but I thought it would be at least average, not really bad. Battery life, as expected for a gaming laptop, is not the best, but I don't have experience leaving it on battery; I only have experience keeping it plugged in (and on battery saving mode), so I can't really speak much on that. In terms of fan noise and heat, it really just depends on what mode you're using. Right now, as I am typing this review, there is absolutely no noise at all. I can feel the computer heating up just a little bit, but it's not super noticeable either. I even tried it while playing FFXIV, which is what I would say a mid-tier game for computer performance, and I could not hear the fan at all. However, when I flipped the computer to performance-focused / gaming mode, the fan instantly started activating, and it was indeed very loud, as I expected. Overall, I really do enjoy this laptop, and it feels pretty decent especially for the price I got it at. The issues really bugged me at first, especially the bluetooth issues, since I did not expect that one, but after thinking about the other qualities and how I overall feel about this laptop, I rated it 4 stars because I seriously don't know of another laptop with specs like these for this price (but I am a noob to gaming computers, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt).

Pound for pound this is the best value out there. If you're a beginner builder in AI (like me) or simply have a limited budget (like me) this is the way to go without blowing out your budget and still getting outstanding performance. The fact that I can easily expand RAM down the road is the cherry on top.