Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED vs. Dell XPS 15 OLED: Which Premium Laptop Is Best?

The number of laptops with 4K OLED displays is growing ever so slowly. But if you’re a content creator or a gamer, how do you choose between excellent machines like the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED and the Dell XPS 15 OLED?

If you need the graphics performance, the Aero 15 OLED is the one to choose, but overall, the XPS 15 OLED features a brighter display.

Here's how these two premium gaming laptops stack up.

Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED vs. Dell XPS 15 OLED: Specs Compared

Design

The Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED and the Dell XPS 15 OLED both sport slim aluminum chassis. The Aero 15's hood has a matte black design that looks like an arrow plunging toward the hinge, consuming the aluminum aesthetic at the bottom. It's stylish, but it doesn't compare with the premium silver hood that the XPS 15 boasts.

However, the interior of the Aero 15 holds more goodies, including a gorgeous per-key RGB-lit keyboard with a full-size numpad and a fingerprint reader. The XPS 15 doesn't have any of those, but it does have its webcam on the top bezel (unlike the Aero 15) and its interior has a lovely carbon-fiber design.

The XPS 15 also boasts a smaller footprint, at 4.5 pounds and 14.1 x 9.3 x 0.5~0.7 inches. Compare that with the Aero 15, which comes in at 4.9 pounds and 14 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches.

Winner: Dell XPS 15 OLED

Buy the Dell XPS 15 OLED

Ports

The Aero 15's slightly bigger chassis holds room for more ports, including one Thunderbolt 3 port, three USB 3.1 ports, one USB Type-C/DP 1.4 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, a headphone jack, an RJ45 Ethernet port and an SD card slot.

Meanwhile, the XPS 15 has only one Thunderbolt 3 port, two USB 3.1 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, a security lock slot, a headphone jack and an SD card slot.

Winner: Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED

Buy the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED

Display

Both the Gigabyte Aero 15 and the Dell XPS 15 have 15.6-inch, 3820 x 2160 OLED panels that boast jaw-dropping color and intense brightness, but only one can be the victor.

I watched the trailer for the Joker, and when the titular character was dancing down a long stairway, his red-and-orange suit popped on both of the panels. However, the scene looked ridiculously more vibrant on the XPS 15's screen. When the Joker was beating on a dumpster like it was Jason Todd, both screens captured the surrounding trash in the same light. Although, there was significantly less glare from the XPS 15. The panels were both sharp enough to detail the threads in the Joker's suit.

According to our colorimeter, the Dell XPS 15's OLED panel covers 239% of the sRGB color gamut, while the Aero 15's OLED panel was slightly behind at 200%.

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However, the Dell XPS 15's OLED panel blew the Aero 15's screen out of the water in regards to brightness, nailing 626 nits to 357 nits, which isn't anything to scoff at.

Winner: Dell XPS 15 OLED

Keyboard and Touchpad

As mentioned earlier, the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED boasts a full-size numpad and RGB lighting over the Dell XPS 15 OLED, so it's already at a slight advantage.

When it came to typing, I blasted through 80 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test with the Aero 15's keyboard, while I mustered only 71 wpm with the XPS 15's keyboard.

The Aero 15's keys traveled at 1.6 millimeters and required a solid 71 grams of force to actuate, which crushes the XPS 15's keys, traveling at 1.1 mm, although the required actuation force is 79 grams.

Although the XPS 15's 4.1 x 3.1-inch touchpad is more spacious, the Aero 15's 4.1 x 2.7-inch touchpad is more comfortable to use, despite having a fingerprint reader embedded within it.

Winner: Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED

Gaming, Graphics and VR

Though the Dell XPS 15 OLED rocks an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB of VRAM, which is great for a premium laptop, it doesn't compare with the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED's RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM.

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest, 1080p), the Aero 15 nailed 60 frames per second, sliding past the XPS 15's 29 fps. At 4K, the Aero 15 hit 20 fps, while the XPS 15 could barely function, recording 9 fps.

The Aero 15 nailed 97 fps on the Hitman benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), putting a huge gap between it and the XPS 15, which hit 55 fps. On the 4K benchmark, the Aero 15 averaged 48 fps and the XPS 15 hit 13 fps, marking the difference between playable and unplayable.

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On the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (Very High, 1080p), the Aero 15 scored 81 fps, while the XPS 15 hit only 35 fps. Although the Aero 15 averaged 24 fps at 4K, the XPS 15 didn't have enough video memory to run it.

The Aero 15 scored 79 fps on the Shadow of War benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), which flies past the XPS 15's 39 fps. Meanwhile, the Aero 15 got 36 fps at 4K, while the XPS 15 scored only 16 fps.

Winner: Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED

Performance

The Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED is powered by an Intel Core i7-9750H processor and 16GB of RAM, but the Dell XPS 15 OLED's Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU and 32GB of RAM goes a step further.

On the Geekbench 4.1 overall performance test, the XPS 15 scored 28,165, leaving the Aero 15 in the dust, as it got only 22,258.

It took the XPS 15 8 minutes to transcode a 4K video to 1080p on our HandBrake benchmark That's nearly 3 minutes faster than the Aero 15's time of 10 minutes and 53 seconds.

Dell's 1TB SSD copied 4.97GB of data in 10 seconds, translating to 508 megabytes per second, beating the Aero 15’s 512GB SSD, which has a rate of 485 MBps.

Winner: Dell XPS 15 OLED

Battery Life

The Dell XPS 15 OLED’s battery is leagues ahead of the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED — but all that graphical power comes at a cost. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, the Dell XPS 15 OLED survived a strong 8 hours and 7 minutes, whereas the Aero 15 lasted only 3 hours and 38 minutes.

Winner: Dell XPS 15 OLED

Value and Configurations

The Dell XPS 15 OLED starts cheaper and ends cheaper, but it can't be configured with a quality GPU like the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED can. Let's break them down.

The XPS 15 starts at $1,099 and comes with an Intel Core i5-9300H CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, an Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU and a 1920 x 1080 display. The Aero 15's base model, meanwhile, costs $1,699 and is outfitted with a GTX 1660 Ti GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

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I tested the $2,499 model of the Aero 15, which comes with an Intel Core i7-9750H processor, an RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 4K Samsung AMOLED panel. The XPS 15 we tested is the maxed-out version, which costs $2,649 and has an Intel Core i9-9980HK processor, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, a GTX 1650 GPU and a 4K OLED display.

The Aero 15's break-the-bank version runs for $3,999 and comes with a Core i9-9980HK CPU, an RTX 2080 GPU, 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

The Aero 15 has a number of configurations that can turn your machine into a beast, while the XPS 15 is more consumer-friendly, given the value for the parts.

Winner: Draw

Bottom Line

It was a close matchup, but overall, the Dell XPS 15 OLED takes the win for its design, display, performance, and most important, battery life.

However, the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED is a great gaming laptop that still boasts a more comfortable keyboard, stronger graphics and a wider variety of ports.

But the XPS 15 is a great premium laptop and a champion of OLED.

Credit: Laptop Mag