Let’s be honest, Gigabyte. Your marketing for the Aero X16 is giving Razer Blade, from the colors and font of the spec slides to the thin design of the space gray laptop itself. While we haven’t tested out this model to see how it stacks up to Razer’s gaming machine, its price is certainly a lot more attractive. At Best Buy, you can get a capable midrange model with AMD’s Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU, Nvidia’s RTX 5070 graphics chip, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD for $1,299.99 (normally $1,649.99).
Whether you’re in need of a laptop built mainly for gaming, creative work, or work tasks, there’s a lot to like with this Aero X16 configuration. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio QHD screen, which affords a bit more vertical space than your average laptop screen (letting you read more lines at once without scrolling, for example). It has a lot of other specs that I’m happy to see in a laptop that costs less than $1,500, like a 165Hz high refresh rate screen, a capable RTX 5070 GPU, plus the ability to easily add more RAM (two slots, with support for up to 64GB DDR5 5,600MHz) and storage (two PCIe 4.0 slots) after purchase.
Comparing this Gigabyte model to its closest Razer Blade 16 equivalent isn’t exactly apples to apples, of course — there’s some features you just won’t see in the Aero X16. The RTX 5070-equipped Blade 16 is $2,399.99, and likewise comes with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, but you’ll also get a QHD OLED panel with a 240Hz refresh rate by default, not to mention a more polished design.
