Aorus 15G review

Let me introduce you to the Aorus 15G, one of the first adopters of the latest 10th Gen Intel H-series CPUs and Nvidia RTX Super GPUs. For $2,199, you get a massive performance increase over the previous-gen as well as long battery life and a smooth 240Hz refresh rate. 

However, the newer components can’t help its dismal 15.6-inch display, mediocre speakers and a poorly placed webcam packed into a thick chassis. It’s like a mid-range gaming laptop dressed up with premium components and selling for a premium price. 

Still, the new CPU and GPU make it easier to overlook those glaring flaws as does the over 6 hours of battery life. It’s still a solid gaming laptop, it’s just not one of the best gaming laptops you can buy.

Aorus 15G price and configuration options

The Aorus 15G I tested costs $2,199 and is outfitted with an Intel Core i7-10875H processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super GPU with 8GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 1080p, 240Hz display.

If you’re looking to save some money, the base model costs $1,899 and drops you down to an RTX 2060 GPU. For the high-end model, you’ll get a Core i9-10980HK CPU, an RTX 2080 Super GPU, 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, all for $2,899.

Need something a little less expensive? Check out our best cheap gaming laptops page.

Aorus 15G design

The Aorus 15G doesn’t look like your average gaming laptop, but it’s nothing spectacular, either. It sports an aluminum hood slathered in gunmetal paint, accompanied by a glossy-white Aorus logo stamped above the center that lights up when the laptop is on. The hinge itself stylishly curves like the backend of a racecar -- it even has little accents carved into the grilles on the sides.

Lifting the lid reveals a sparkly mechanical keyboard with per-key RGB lighting, narrow bezels on the display and the tiniest webcam I’ve ever seen on the deck, hiding behind a privacy shutter. There’s a fingerprint reader embedded in the touchpad, which is annoying, as it cuts down the trackpad’s real estate. On the lip of the deck is a cutout with a row of carved rectangles shaped like a V. Just above the keyboard there are similar cutouts, this time for the heat intake.

At 4.9 pounds and 14 x 9.8 x 1 inches, the Aorus 15G felt relatively light in my hands, but it’s a little thick for a 15-inch laptop. The Razer Blade 15 (2019) (4.7 pounds, 14 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches), Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED (4.9 pounds, 14 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches) and Asus ROG Zephyrus S GX502 (5.1 pounds, 14.2 x 9.9 x 0.7 inches) are all notably thinner.

Aorus 15G ports

Aorus packed a solid number of ports into the Aorus 15G -- there’s even a Mini DisplayPort, which makes it easier to set up VR.

On the left side, there’s an HDMI 2.0 port, the aforementioned Mini DisplayPort, one USB 3.0 port, a headphone jack and an RJ45 Ethernet port. The right holds room for the power jack, an SD card reader, a USB Type-C port (Mini DisplayPort) and two USB 3.0 ports.

If you still need more ports, check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.

Aorus 15G display

For a premium gaming laptop, the Aorus 15G’s 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 display is frustratingly dim and isn’t colorful enough to scream “I’m worth $2,199.” The only thing it has going for it is a 240Hz refresh rate.

In the Jungle Cruise trailer, there’s a wide shot of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt climbing stairs toward some kind of boulder, but the scene looked lifeless, as the screen wasn’t bright enough to reveal any details in the shot. In a closer shot of Blunt, her green shirt and red scarf were muted and couldn’t deliver that satisfying visual pop, which is something I expect from a cheap gaming laptop, not a premium one. The panel was still sharp enough to highlight the stubble on Johnson’s face.

When taking a dive into Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the sandy greenery that surrounded my character didn’t look as lively as it should have. During a nighttime cutscene, the screen was dim enough that, despite being anti-glare, I could see the reflection of the sun behind me as well as the shadow of my face on the screen. Thanks to its 240Hz refresh rate, I could turn the graphics down and experience the full fluidity of shoving a spear into someone’s chest and punching them in the neck to effectively knock them loose.

According to our colorimeter, the Aorus 15G’s display covers 114% of the sRGB color gamut, which falls short of the 143% premium gaming laptop average. The Zephyrus S also hit a low mark at 109%, but the Razer Blade 15 and Aero 15 excelled at 149% and 200%, respectively. 

At 243 nits of brightness, the Aorus 15G’s display is one of the dimmest panels on a premium gaming laptop that I’ve seen. It’s far from the 330-nit category average. The Razer Blade 15 (262 nits) and Zephyrus S (249 nits) were brighter, but not by much, while the Aero 15 (357 nits) showed off the luminescence of a true gaming laptop display.

Aorus 15G keyboard and touchpad

I have mixed feelings about Aorus 15G’s Omron B3KL mechanical switches. On one hand, the keys have deep travel, but on the other, they feel kind of mushy and don't provide the satisfying click you’d expect from traditional mechanical keys.

I hit 74 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is above my 70-wpm average. Again, the keys weren’t punchy or firm enough -- I’ve typed on membrane keyboards that felt better.

When it comes to colorful lighting, the Aorus 15G doesn’t cheap out, delivering per-key RGB lighting that you can customize via the Fusion tab in the Aorus Control Center. You can choose presets like Flow or Breathing, change the speed and brightness, and even change the direction the lights flow.

The 4.1 x 2.7-inch touchpad is soft to the touch and has a solid click. However, the fingerprint reader embedded in the top-left corner can get in the way sometimes. Windows 10 gestures, such as three-finger tabbing and two-finger right clicking, felt natural thanks to the Windows Precision drivers.

Aorus 15G audio

The Aorus 15G’s bottom-firing speakers are unsurprisingly subpar. Unlike Pluto’s “Riptide” opens with a muted guitar riff followed by hollowed percussion. The vocals were clear, but the bassier sound effects didn’t have enough depth to make the song pop. It almost made the song sound like a cover instead of the real thing.

In the opening scene of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, King Leonidas’ voice was crisp as he gave his speech. However, when the battle broke out, the thuds and slams sounded muffled while the stabs and punctures weren’t as bright as they should have been. And when the horned instruments chimed in to make the scene sound epic, they were too muted to make an impact.

While the Aorus 15G comes with the Nahimic audio software, it didn’t really help much. The software comes with four presets: Music, Movie, Communication and Gaming. Within each preset are settings for Surround Sound, Volume Stabilizer, Voice, Bass and Treble. When I fiddled with these, they didn’t seem to change much apart from how loud the audio got.

Aorus 15G gaming, graphics and VR

Underneath the hood of the Aorus 15G is a brand new Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM. It ran Assassin's Creed Odyssey at 54 frames per second on Ultra settings at 1080p as I rode a horse down a mountain range, jumped off and parkoured my way down some rocks.

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest, 1080p), the Aorus 15G nailed 83 fps, flying above the 67-fps premium gaming laptop average. With a previous-gen RTX 2070 GPU, the Aero 15 (60 fps) and Zephyrus S (46 fps) scored much lower.

The Aorus 15G averaged 76 fps on the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (Very High, 1080p), which is surprisingly below the category average (83 fps). It matched the Razer Blade 15 (76 fps), did one-frame better than the Zephyrus S (75 fps), but ultimately beat Aero 15 (81 fps).

On the Far Cry New Dawn benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), the Aorus 15G bounced back and hit 87 fps, climbing above the 84 fps premium gaming laptop average and crushing the Aero 15 (77 fps) and Zephyrus S (48 fps).

When going up against the Metro: Exodus benchmark (Ultra, RTX on, 1080p), the Aorus 15G hit 52 fps, which is just below the 55-fps category average, but it still beats the Aero 15 (48 fps) and Zephyrus S (46 fps).

Aorus 15G performance

Similar to its GPU, the Aorus 15G is packing a brand spankin’ new CPU, aka the Intel Core i7-10875H processor with 16GB of RAM. It juggled 40 Google Chrome tabs and five 1080p YouTube videos without flinching while Assassin's Creed Odyssey ran in the background.

On the Geekbench 4.3 overall performance test, the Aorus 15G achieved an awesome 28,508, sailing past the premium gaming laptop average (25,860). It crushed the Core i7-8750H CPU in the Razer Blade 15 (22,379) as well as the Core i7-9750H processor in the Aero 15 (22,339) and Zephyrus S (19,639).

The Aorus 15G transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 7 minutes and 59 seconds on our HandBrake benchmark, which is more than a minute faster than the category average (9:03). The Razer Blade 15 (12:53), Aero 15 (10:53) and Zephyrus S (12:44) couldn’t make it in under 10 minutes.

The Aorus 15G’s 512GB SSD copied 4.97GB of data in 7.74 seconds, translating to a transfer rate of 658 megabytes per second, which is slightly under the premium gaming laptop average (859 MBps). Its SSD is still faster than the 512GB SSDs in the Razer Blade 15 (636 MBps) and Aero 15 (485 MBps). However, the Zephyrus S’s 1TB SSD was faster, at 727 MBps, despite also being below the average.

Aorus 15G battery life

Slowly but surely, gaming laptops are starting to rise in the ranks in regards to battery life, and the Aorus 15G is no exception. It continuously surfed the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness for 6 hours and 16 minutes, which is almost two hours longer than the 4:21 premium gaming laptop average. It also flew past its competition, including the Razer Blade 15 (5:02), Aero 15 (3:38) and Zephyrus S (5:47).

Aorus 15G webcam

You know what’s even more offensive than a webcam placed on the bottom-bezel? A webcam placed on the deck on a laptop -- a place where you can’t even change the angle.

The 720p captured OK colors, like the light blue in my shirt. However, it couldn’t balance contrast whatsoever, as the windows behind me were completely blown out. As far as the detail goes, it looked like someone colored in my hair with a heavy black marker in Microsoft Paint.

Aorus 15G heat

On our basic heat tests, the Aorus 15G ran comfortably. After streaming a 15-minute, 1080p video, the underside hit 89 degrees Fahrenheit, which is below our 95-degree comfort threshold.

The center of the keyboard and touchpad both hit 78 degrees exactly. I don’t have a heat gun on hand, but when I played Gears Tactics for 15 minutes, the underside felt merely warm and never got too hot.

Aorus 15G software and warranty

Packed into the Aorus 15G is the Aorus Control Center, which lets you control and monitor the status of your CPU, GPU and fans. Through this app, you can also customize display colors, battery performance and keyboard lighting. There are also settings to make a system backup as well. On top of that, Aorus includes the Killer Control Center, which you can use to optimize your bandwidth.

There’s Windows 10 bloatware included with the system as well, including Gardenscapes, Candy Crush Friends and Disney Magic Kingdoms.

The Aorus 15G comes with a one-year limited warranty.

Bottom line

The biggest selling point of the Aorus 15G is its strong performance, long battery life and 240Hz refresh rate. However, the display is super dim, the speakers are mediocre, its chassis is thick and the webcam is in the worst place imaginable.

If you don’t mind an older laptop with much better display and a comfortable keyboard packed into a thinner size, then the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED is the one for you.

But overall, if you’re itching to get your hands on the latest hardware, the Aorus 15G is still a solid gaming laptop.