Gaming without compromise? Gigabyte Gaming A18 Pro with large display reviewed

In other areas, the Gigabyte laptop also struggles to keep up with the competition. While its performance in gaming mode is respectable, the device becomes extremely loud. Noise levels are more tolerable with Balanced profile, but this comes at the cost of significantly reduced 3D performance. To achieve a higher overall rating, Gigabyte should also improve the connectivity options (no card reader, no Thunderbolt/USB 4), the speakers, and the battery capacity. Furthermore, the soldered RAM limits the device’s long-term upgradability. On the plus side, the 18-inch laptop offers relatively moderate power consumption for a gaming device, a large touchpad, and an unoccupied M.2 slot.

Weighing just over 6.4 lbs, the 18-inch laptop is certainly no featherweight, but it is still lighter than some competitors such as the MSI Vector A18 and the Lenovo Legion 9 18 (both around 7.7 lbs).

Intel’s Wi-Fi 6E module (AX211) delivers its usual strong performance. Since we recently updated our reference router, directly comparable results from rival laptops are not available at this time.

Mediocre color accuracy aside, the Full HD webcam performs surprisingly well, particularly in terms of image sharpness. The image appears noticeably less washed out than on other notebooks.

The laptop comes with a few user manuals and a 240-watt power supply weighing just under 1.1 lbs.

The bottom panel can be removed after loosening 11 Phillips screws. Underneath, it becomes clear that there is room for a larger battery. Two M.2 slots for SSDs (one of which is still free for the user to take advantage of) are quite decent, but the soldered RAM and the lack of SO-DIMM slots are a drawback from an upgrade perspective.

The packaging is primarily made of cardboard. Only the notebook sleeve and keyboard cover are made of plastic.

Similar to the Gaming A16 Pro, this Gigabyte machine's input devices left us impressed. The keyboard offers solid feedback and a tactile feel, as well as multi-level adjustable RGB lighting. However, the layout does not seem entirely optimal; for example, the number pad, despite having ample space, only has three columns instead of four.

The touchpad, measuring about 5.3 × 3.5 inches, is more than adequately sized. In practice, the mouse replacement remains largely unobtrusive and offers good precision along with smooth gesture support. The smooth surface also ensures excellent gliding performance.

Professional users, on the other hand, can look forward to (almost) complete coverage of the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces. Adobe RGB is covered at around 85%. Gigabyte could, however, improve the brightness; an average of 291 cd/m² is rather low for a notebook in this price range and is generally suitable only for indoor use.

Color accuracy is also not a strong suit of the display—at least not with its factory settings. However, after calibration (our ICC profile is linked above, to the right of the luminance graph), the image becomes very color accurate.

Its viewing angles and response times are at a level typical for IPS panels.

The 18-inch system offers five operating modes, three of which are compared in the table below. For the measurements, we used Game mode, which prioritizes performance at the expense of increased noise levels.

The Core 7 240H is a mid-range chip from the Raptor Lake generation, featuring six performance cores with Hyper-Threading and four efficiency cores, enabling a total of 16 threads. In CPU benchmarks, the 240H performs roughly on par with its AMD counterparts, the Ryzen 7 260 and Ryzen AI 7 350, with the latter holding a slight advantage. However, the Gaming A18 Pro cannot compete with high-end processors such as the Core Ultra 9 275HX and Ryzen 9 9955HX found in some competing 18-inch laptops.

The latency, as with many laptops, could be improved. The LatencyMon tool indicates potential issues in certain applications or scenarios (e.g., brief dropouts).