Deal | Gigabyte Aero X16 with RTX 5060 enjoys 31% price cut to become worthy compact 16-inch gaming laptop

The Holiday season, with its cozy charm and amazing gaming laptop deals, is fast approaching. However, retailers aren’t waiting for the season to arrive to offer some nice discounts on good gaming laptops. For instance, notebooks like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 have recently seen some juicy price cuts. The same is also true for the portable-yet-powerful Gigabyte Aero X16.

We reported previously that an RTX 5070 configuration of the Gigabyte Aero X16 was on sale at Best Buy. But, due to the disappointing performance upgrade that the RTX 5070 offers over the RTX 4070 laptop GPU, even the discounted Gigabyte Aero X16 could be hard to justify for some gamers. Enter the RTX 5060-based Gigabyte Aero X16, which is now on sale at a considerable 31% discount.

The Gigabyte Aero X16 is now retailing at just $1,049.99 at Best Buy, a $450 price cut vs the usual list price. The machine, which is also available on eBay at the same price, packs an RTX 5060 laptop GPU alongside a Ryzen AI 7 350 APU, 32 GB of DDR5-5600 memory, 1 TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage, an RGB backlit keyboard, and a fairly large 76 Wh battery.

A 16-inch 2,560 x 1,600 IPS panel graces the front of the laptop. The display refreshes at 165 Hz with an acclaimed 100% sRGB coverage and 400 nits of brightness. There is also an FHD webcam on top of the panel with support for Windows Hello facial recognition.

Other notables include Wi-Fi 6E/BT 5.2 and a good port selection highlighted by a USB 4.0 connector, three Type-A connectors, and an HDMI 2.1 out.

The Gigabyte Aero X16 is, for the most part, a pretty good gaming laptop. It is relatively compact, weighs under 2 kg (4.4 lbs.), and has enough gaming performance to run AAA titles at FHD/QHD. Moreover, our review of the RTX 5070 and the Ryzen AI 7 350-powered version of the laptop confirms a sturdy chassis and comfortable inputs.

Our testing also confirms that the Gigabyte Aero X16’s display is plenty fine for gaming. The panel covers almost complete sRGB, as advertised, and boasts around 400 nits of average brightness. Combined with a short response time and a 165 Hz refresh rate, the Gigabyte Aero X16 shouldn’t leave you wanting for a better gaming display, especially considering the price.

That said, the Gigabyte Aero X16 is not perfect. The laptop has a few noticeable issues. For instance, the fans can be quite loud under load, which mandates a good pair of headphones if you want to enjoy your games. There is also the issue of only average battery life, mainly due to the small-ish 76 Wh battery. However, the Gigabyte Aero X16 is not a multimedia laptop aiming to have great battery life. So, the lack of a long-lasting battery is easy to overlook.

All in all, the Gigabyte Aero X16 is a compact gaming laptop that you can easily take with you. With sufficient FHD/QHD gaming performance, two RAM slots for a max of 64 GB, and two M.2 slots for a maximum storage of 4 TB (2TB each), the machine will last you for years to come.