Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsa lot of problems
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2018
its a good pc on paper. when its working, it works well. well as in it out performs everything ive thrown at it from dark souls 2/3, fortnite, final fantasy 14, and 4k editing. it does these well, if it doesnt blue screen. ive had this pc for a few months, and it has blue screened every single day, sometimes every hour. people kept telling me itll be fixed soon with firmware, windows updates, drivers, etc. it has gotten worse over time. i have to reset my pc about once every hour if i want to be able to watch ANY kind of video, from youtube/netflix/hulu, it doesnt matter. itll work fine for 5 minutes, then the screen will freeze for about 5-10 seconds. you can still hear audio, but the picture freezes. then after about 5-10 seconds, it plays 'catch up' and youll see the 5-10 seconds of video you missed fly by the screen on something like 8x fast forward. this is CONSTANT, and happens within 5 minutes of a restart. the drivers are upt o date, ive tired different ones that were 'proven', tried full windows reinstall. nothing helps.
after updating one day, my favorite feature is gone. there used to be a sldier bar for the battery, that you could literally slide from low which is low performance, high battery life, to high, which is high performance and low battery life. i updated smart update one day, and that feature has left the building. it is gone, and the pc is 100% of the time now on full performance while plugged in, and 100% battery saver when on battery. this is not okay, and it is not adjustable anymore. great. speaking of battery, it is abysmal. even on battery saving mode, youll get maximum 3 hours out of it watching youtube. the speakers are garbage, about as loud as your phone can get when NOT on speakerphone. you know how you can kind of hear someone talking on the phone next to you, if the speaker is loud? its like that, at its loudest.
the biggest problem seems to be drivers and support for the pc. drivers will never be perfect, since parts inside these pc's are completely different. a buddy of mine bought this laptop, and it came with a kingston 512gb nvme ssd. mine came with a 'liteon' 512gb ssd, a totally different brand, make, and model. whatever drivers they use for the samsung, will not work with the liteon properly. this s only one part, who knows how many variants of this same pc there are.
you cant adjust anything in the bios whatsoever.
sometimes ill be gaming at 120 fps, and suddenly, im at 30 fps. there is no rhyme or reason to this, it seems to happen randomly. i do not even have anti virus, so its not running a scan. even if it was, youd think it could handle it without losing 75% of its power. speaking of power, the power button only works about 1/5 times. every morning, it can take anywhere from one press to 15+ presses to get it to turn on. when it does turn on, my external monitor is not discovered about half the time. so, i have to umplug my monitor and plug it back in. ten times/day i have to do this because also, it seems to happen randomly. ill be watching something, all of a sudden, my monitor shuts off and i see the laptop screen light up behind it. i keep the lid ajar while using an external monitor, because if i keep it fully closed, the cpu will reach temperatures well over 90C. according to gigbyte, this is normal. i dont care what you say gigabyte, this WILL destroy other parts in the pc AROUND the cpu that CANNOT handle the 90C(even if the cpu can, which i doubt).
i could keep going, but long story short, this pc is a joke. i returned my macbook for it, and wish i kept the mac. dont waste your money.
ill be back if anymore wonderful quirks appear.
