Gigabyte P56XT

How's the case and build quality on this one? The plastic design does make me nervous since I am very hard on my gear. Anyone do a real world battery test? Looks like the only laptop out there with the performance, size, and battery length that I'm looking for.

 

Hi,

so the case is really "thin" but heavyier than it looks like. Plastic is also not my favour, but it´s better than it looks on the images / feels better than it looks too. And sure, an Alienware or XPS13 in comparison feels different in hand as it´s metal, but the P56 is okay and not that heavy as the metal ones. How long it last under "rude" handling i don´t know.

Real World Battery test: this is up on how you use the machine, i guess a work day (about 7 hrs ontime ) on i-GPU without the GTX should not become a problem, for me it´s (Surfing / Coding / some videos) arround 6hr and a couple of minutes on 50 to 80% brightness incl. some shutdowns n stuff. I guess the information from NBC should match realtime usage.

Theres also the Gigabyte Aero 15 (same specs but just the 1060) which may be a successor as this is much thinner / lighter and also has a large battery.

Btw here´s an image after 3 to 4 hrs gaming on a Coolermaster NotePal, it´s slightly better result as on the wooden table, but not "super different" which means out of my perspective the airflow in the machine seems pretty well designed.

 

Yep I am liking this one more and more. I'm thinking I'll be picking this over the MSI Raider.

 

Here's a question: where can one actually buy this thing? In the USA specifically. Seems impossible.

 

I've actually been debating the Raider and the P56XT as well. What was your decision based on?

Im leaning towards the Raider right now due to the better thermal system, keyboard and speakers. Also, I believe the display on the Raider is better for gaming due to its extremely low response time. The Gigabyte display also used PWM which can be a problem for me.

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Uhm, so the MSI Raider (if it´s about the GE63VR 7RF Something with 7700HQ/1070) seems also a pretty nice machine, will have alluminum parts and steel series Keyboard which usually is awesome to type on. In focus of the RGB Backlight i want to point out i love the P56XT keys as only the "keys itself" flash, there is no "frame / light" arround the keys. On the MSI seems theres more "light arround the key".

Ah and backlight USB3 Ports and a red framed trackpad *lol* so i guess no matter what you do, the MSI will scream it´s a gamer from this perspective (which i like on the P56XT cause it´s looking more serious). Dont get me wrong, my GT72 (old one) was more decent than all further releases of the MSI Lineup GT72/73 with "too much", it looks like a car or transformer stuff, so i guess it´s up on the person who buy if that, if it´s liked or not =) but i don´t catch the fact they went back to this design, as i mean Alienware and the others (Clevo and ASUS and Gigabyte) are able to produce no "toy looking" machines in the meantime. And MSI in 2014/15 did that too.

I guess there´s no ThunderBolt 3 on the MSI, but not sure. Also it seems 120Hz refreshrate display without GSYNC in comparison with P56XT which is only 60Hz screen without GSYNC maybe thats also a point for MSI. It maybe is little thinner, but from weight i guess it will be almost similar (as Gigabyte is plastic, got larger battery, but MSI slightly thinner, smaller battery but metal parts).

Also i guess it will be louder under load (fan noise) than the P56XT but lets wait for reviews. Also MSI will be louder with sound "volume" as maybe slightly better DynAudio speakers (the MSI). On the other hand the P56XT will have an optical drive / swappable bay and there for in sum 2x 2280 / 2x 2,5" , versus MSI which comes with 2x 2280 / 1x 2,5". Beside of that I guess the much larger battery is a point of the P56XT.

Pretty hard decision to take, maybe you have the chance for a direct comparison or write down what points will be ranked over "others" but such is hard to handle.

My personal "need" those days was battery lifetime / no GSYNC (or: and IPS panel) (in favour of battery usage and option with external display), Thunderbolt3 (not sure why as i have no devices..) and a not heavy (as AW15R3) machine with a "full" 1070 (means no MaxQ) and ;P a lot of SSD as option (cause i still had 3x512GB ...), so I choosed the P56XT over the Clevo650RS (lower battery, no TB3) and MSI Raider (personal points: not the "best" customer support experiences on "non upgradable" GT72 some months back, and the "for me too toyish look").

Regards

 

I also had the same concern regarding the lighted USB ports but during a review I was watching, they can be turned off through the Dragon Center software.

You're right, there is no Thunderbolt 3 on the Raider. If you think you'll use it then definitely go with something else.

I'm regards to the display, yes the Raider has a 120hz refresh rate with a 3ms response time which is considerably better than a 60hz 25ms display even with GSYNC.

The speakers aren't a huge selling point for me since I usually wear headphones while gaming but I do watch videos and movies using the built-in speakers. So far with reviews, people are saying that the Raider speakers are the best speakers ever put into a laptop without a doubt. You can tell just by looking at the speaker chambers that they can kick it.

I don't know which one had louder fans though. From what I gathered however is that you can control the fan curve on the MSI but I haven't figured out if you can do that on the Gigabyte.

I'm still up in the air but I'm leaning towards the Raider on thermals and the display alone.

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Yes so on MSI you can manually fix fanspeed as provided in Gentec PC review, you can do slightly different change the fanspeed on the Gigabyte see here https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigabyte-P56XT-7700HQ-GTX-1070-Full-HD-Laptop.234424.0.html smart center, but i will force to run with "auto modes" about to prevent any overheating device (< cause i guess if you force "super silent" mode, you´ll receive super hot mode and hardware may run at their max / throttle).

And yes a 120Hz screen may weight more than Thunderbolt 3 ^^

 

What's driving me towards the Gigabyte is basically the battery length. I also like how discreet it looks but seems like everything else including build quality goes towards the Raider.

 

Yea. If you need to rely on battery a lot, definitely don't go Raider. It will probably only last 3 hours.

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