Gigabyte Aorus X3 Plus R7 Gaming Notebook Review

A Closer Look

As we’ve already stated, this is a pretty compact gaming notebook, and it certainly shows. The ergonomics are nothing short of remarkable given the specifications. It’s nice and slim, it’s small enough to fit in pretty much any kind of notebook bag and light enough for travel. There’s a nice angular shape to it too, with a small-ish Aorus logo on the back.

Tucked into the front edge, a bunch of pin hole LED lights for the main indicators.

Down the right side, the front air intake on the corner, followed by the SD card slot, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, and the master power switch.

The left side has another ventilated section to draw in cool air. Behind that filter, there’s a USB 3.0 port, HD audio jacks, USB 3.0, HDMI, and Mini-DP. Overall, there’s fantastic connectivity for such a compact unit, you won’t find Apple’s courage here!

Around the back, the mains power jack, as well as the ethernet jack. There are two large vents here too, allowing for hot air to be ejected away from the system. Given it’s so thin, airflow is vital, but it looks like Aorus have got it taken care of.

The base has four tough rubber feet, giving the notebook some extra airflow on the base where you’ll find lots more ventilation cutouts.

Under the lid

Wow, such a tidy looking configuration a tightly packed keyboard. Obviously, it’s a TKL design and ditches the numberpad, but it makes up with a bank of macro keys on the left.

The keyboard is nicely laid out, with a large and clear font. Im not keen on the compact arrow keys, but they’re still more than functional.

The touch pad is quite big given the size of the notebook, making it very easy to control. Of course, gamers may still want to hook up a mouse, it’s not ideal for gaming.

Built-in Macro Keys

This is a gaming notebook, so macro keys are more than welcome here. However, they’re useful for a lot of tasks in the office. You can set blocks of text, or launch photoshop actions from macro keys, as well as macros needed to farm mobs in your favorite MMO.

The keys are obviously low-profile, but they have a great action to them, and good spacing that makes them easy to type on. I do prefer to have a number pad, but on a system this compact, it obviously had to be sacrificed.

The screen has a slim profile, as does the keyboard section. As you can see, the rear of the notebook is fatter, which helps allow for those bigger air vents to keep the CPU and GPU nice and cool.

LED Lit Keyboard

Despite the compact size, this system still packs a gorgeous 1440p display. This means the pixel density is pretty high, and as a result, the display looks super sharp and clear. That resolution bump is great for productivity and will help your games look even better. There’s a good contrast ratio on this display too, with deep blacks and bright whites.

Viewing angles are good too, and while the screen does catch some glare, it’s nicely diffused and remains easy to read.

Now to get some games fired up on this compact beast, and see what it can really do!