The Aftershock S17 which I’ve used extensively for four years finally gave up its ghost during the last week of March, and no amount of coaxing would revive it. I couldn’t figure out what had finally failed, but I suspect it’s likely the power brick that was no longer drawing power into the laptop. Once the lockdown measures are lifted sometime this year, I just might bring it down back to the Aftershock service center in Bendemeer Road here to have the unit checked and if it’s indeed the failure of the power brick, if it’s worthwhile at all to acquire a replacement.
In the mean time, I was out of a multimedia and gaming-capable laptop for use at home. Nope, I’m not a hardcore gamer anymore, but I still enjoy getting a game or two on occasion. I had mixed feelings about whether I should go back to a 17.3″ laptop though. The larger display like the one on the S17 is a significant bonus and simulates a real desktop experience, but it also makes any such laptop hard to bring around. And 17.3″ gaming laptops typically weigh a ton: normally around 3kg, and that’s not including the routinely gargantuan-sized power brick that’s needed to power its components.
In any case, the usual spreadsheet was drawn up, and just over a dozen laptops got listed for my checking. My shortlist included several models from Aftershock (Terra 15 normal and Lite editions, Forge 15 Pro, and Apex 15 Lite), Asus (ROG Zephyrus G GA502DU, ROG Strix G G531GU, STRIX G731GU), Lenovo (Legion Y7000 SE), and Acer (Predator Helios 500), and Gigabyte (Aorus 15-W9, Aero 15-X9, Aero 17 SA). Within this range, there were the usual wide variances in build and display quality. But unlike other classes of laptops, the CPU and GPU specs of these gaming-able notebooks were fairly limited in variety: most of these models were offering the i7-8750H or i7-9750H processors, and GTX1660i, RTX2060 to 2080 GPUs. The majority of the models within my budget – around SGD2.5K – was offering either the GTX1660i or the slightly faster RTX2060. My preference would had been to get an Aftershock again, but a visit to their showroom in early April – face mask, social distancing measures in place etc. – revealed that all of their 15.6″ laptops were no longer in stock, with the earliest ones available only in late-April. Bummer. Part of this might had been a sales embargo of sorts, since there were rumors that the company were readying launch of its gaming laptop lines equipped with the Intel 10th gen CPUs.
So, I was largely settled instead on getting the Acer Predator Helios 300. This offering from Acer it was on a little on the heavy side, of a kind of funky angular form factor that game enthusiasts love but not me (I prefer my laptops to be more conventional i.e. rectangular in the looks department), and offering the somewhat less quick GTX1660i GPU. But the Helios 300 was within budget. But just before committing to one, I stumbled on a retailer on Shopee that was clearing its stock backlog of last year’s models and I found one particular bargain that met all my requirements. In addition, it was by far lighter than the usual 15.6″ gaming laptop: the Gigabyte Aero 15-X9.
The purchasing experience from this seller was a little frustrating though: they didn’t have a normal shopfront, and communication with the shop’s proprietor was a real challenge: mostly on account of language, and also a miscommunication on her part about item pick-up timing. Nonetheless, the Aero 15-X9 was at a fantastic price: about 20% off a similarly spec-ced laptop, so I picked it up in person from her a day after ordering it – and just before the soft lockdown measures were instituted that would have made traveling around less socially responsible. I was even a little leery initially whether this was a legit unit, or a grey parallel import one: but the company info seemed authentic enough (they seem to primarily do just warehouse sales), and the unit warranty registered just fine on the Gigabyte web site too. The laptop was also in mint condition, all the accessories were intact, and its internal specs exactly the same as the several international reviewer units I compared it against.
My first impressions and one week usage notes in the next post!
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