Wrap Upward: Skilful Specs, But What Went Wrong?

Despite the Gigabyte P34W v5 ticking many boxes on paper, unfortunately the final product isn't polished or impressive enough for me to recommend it over competing gaming laptops on the market.

I'll offset with the positives, which mostly concern the laptop's hardware. The selection to utilise an Intel Cadre i7-6700HQ paired with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M, up to 16 GB of RAM, and ultra-fast solid state storage was a good one at this laptop's price point. This hardware combination is capable of playing today'southward high-stop PC games at 1440p using high or very high quality settings, which is exactly what yous'd desire out of a gaming laptop with these internals.

The brandish itself is also generally decent, packing a ton of pixels (if you get the 1440p model) and delivering above boilerplate color reproduction every bit well as great viewing angles. The display isn't perfect – information technology isn't as bright as today's ultraportables, and a lack of Chiliad-Sync hurts the gaming experience – only I tin forgive both of these things considering the use example and toll of this gaming laptop.

Where the P34W v5 falls down is in pretty much every other aspect. The design is so banal and uninteresting that I tin can't truly tell whether information technology uses metal or plastic for the majority of its structure. You lot do get a good option of ports, including HDMI ii.0 and USB Type-C, although the inclusion of Ethernet and, inexplicably, VGA prevents the P34W from challenging in the thin-and-low-cal gaming notebook market.

The keyboard, while adequately spaced and laid out, feels mushy, and I don't like how Gigabyte relegated key system setting adjustments backside a part cardinal. The ELAN trackpad is awful and needs serious piece of work on both a hardware and firmware level to even compete with the best Windows trackpads I've used. It doesn't register gestures very well, it'southward not responsive when information technology needs to exist, and doesn't feel swell to use.

And then there's the issues with the cooling solution. The Gigabyte P34W v5 runs very hot and very loud, indicating the two-fan-and-heatpipe system is not doing its job very well. While the fans practise frazzle quite a bit of hot air during load, the laptop trunk gets very hot also, to the point where it'due south uncomfortable to use on your lap. Parts of the keyboard also exceed 45°C, which is far from platonic, and the fan dissonance could easily be described as 'piercing, similar a jet engine'.

At $1,499 for the base 1080p model, and $i,759 for the 1440p model I reviewed, the Gigabyte P34W v5 is very reasonably priced for a 14-inch gaming laptop: in fact, it's the cheapest 14-inch gaming laptop on Newegg by a margin of $100, and information technology's quite a bit cheaper than the $2,399 Razer Blade.

Nonetheless, that $100 pricier laptop is the MSI GS40 Phantom, which includes by and large the same hardware as the base of operations P34W v5, but in a better, lighter package with double the RAM and features like Killer networking and Thunderbolt 3. When you're already spending $1,500 or more on a gaming laptop, I'd say spending the actress $100 on a better production is well worth it.

If you're non completely fix on buying a 14-inch notebook, there are also better options for a like price at either smaller or larger screen sizes, particularly from MSI, Asus and fifty-fifty Alienware. If you're more interested in a portable gaming laptop, products from Razer and Gigabyte'south own Aorus make, even though they're more expensive, may also be what you're afterward.

Pros: Decent gaming hardware for the toll, including a GTX 970M and up to a 1440p IPS display. Good selection of ports.

Cons: Extremely bland design, with a mediocre keyboard and terrible trackpad. Substandard cooling solution makes the laptop run hot and loud. Smaller than average battery capacity.