SADLY, IT SEEMS THE MINERS HAVE GONE MOBILE
The Gigabyte Aorus 17G seemed a great way to get your hands on an RTX 3080 but as with most other things this year this gaming laptop has disappeared from all but resellers that have significantly increased the price. That is not to say you shouldn’t keep an eye out for it to come back on sale, for as Kitguru discovered this is a beast of a laptop.
There are those that will question a 1080p display on a 17″ laptop with an RTX 3080, but with a 300Hz refresh rate you might actually make use of the GPU’s power, not to mention what kinds of external screen you could power with the Aorus 17G. The Intel Core i7-11800H is paired with 32GB DDR4-3200, which are cooled with Gigabyte’s WINDFORCE Infinity Cooling Technology; as is the GPU.
They also included a mechanical keyboard with OMRON switches for fans of the click, or if you prefer a different solution the three USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A or single Thunderbolt 4 Type-C plugs should accommodate the peripherals of your choice. Storage is fast but limited, a 512GB Samsung PM9A1 M.2 NVMe drive might be a little cramped for some but will offer great performance.
THE LUCKY RAZER BOOK 13
CHECK OUT XE GRAPHICS
Intel’s Evo certification is a continuation of Project Athena, which is more or less their old Ultrabook standard risen from the dead via a necromantic ritual. The standard requires having an 11th Gen Core processors with Intel Iris Xe, WiFi 6, Thunderbolt 4, at least nine hours of battery life on an HD screen and the ability to resume from sleep in less than a second. For everyone but AMD shareholders, these are good goals to have.
The $1500 model of the Razer Book 13 fits these specifications, on paper at least, and so TechSpot set out to determine if it does in real world usage. The 13.4″ touch screen is an attractive 1920 x 1200 and there is a full sized HDMI to connect to an external screen. In total it weighs in at 3.1lbs (1.4kg) and measures 0.6 x 11.6 x .7.8″ (15 x 295 x 199mm) and it is held shut by a magnet which ensures it doesn’t partially open when in your bag, though that necessitates the use of two hands to open it.
The integrated Xe graphics will let you play most games at the native resolution as long as you lower the graphics settings, as you would expect. Razer sells a Core X Thunderbolt 3 external GPU system which you can connect to the laptop if you need additional graphics horsepower, something TechSpot intends to test in the future.
