Michael Lowry

May 24, 2018

Razer is quite famous for their gaming laptops, and its laptops like the Razer Blade Stealth and Blade Pro have risen to prominence over the years. This is because these laptops are updated nearly every year, while it has been a while since the ‘middle’ Razer Blade received a major design overhaul.

Yes, there have been internal hardware upgrades over the years, since its inception, but its design has somewhat stayed the same. It was due time that Razer did something about it and they have- changed it totally.

Design

Perhaps the real reason why you might want to upgrade to the new razer is its design. Made from black CNC Aluminum like other Razer laptops, the laptop doesn’t weight that much, but just 4.6 pounds. Measuring 14 x 9.3 x 0.68-inches, the laptop boasts more of a boxy shape, thus leaving its previous rounded curvy designs to bite the dust.

Although the glowing green Razer sigil is still there, thankfully there aren’t the pair of lines around it anymore. Compared with the ex-Razer Blade, the laptop does weigh and measure more in dimensions, since the previous one weighed 4.2 pounds and measured 13.6 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches but it still is lighter and slimmer than the current ones in the industry. The Asus Zephyrus ROG M GM501 at 5.5 pounds and 15.1 x 10.3 x 0.8 inches, HP Omen 15 at 5.7 pounds and 15.3 x 10.9 x 1 inches and Alienware 15 R3 at 7.4 pounds, 15.3 x 12 x 1 inches still can’t beat the Razer Blade in portability.

Ports

There are three USB 3.1 ports on the device, along with a Thunderbolt 3 port. There is also a mini DisplayPort as well as an HDMI 2.0 for outputting your laptop screen and as usual: A charging jack as well as a headphone one.

Battery Life

Since the laptop can now house more stuff than before, courtesy of a larger size, its battery life has also increased courtesy an 80Wh battery. As of now, the exact battery life isn’t known, though combined with power management options, its expected to last out better than its predecessor for sure.

Display

There were those unpleasant thick bezels on the previous Razer Blade, and now thankfully they are gone. The bezels are down to just 0.19 inches, this means that the previous nearly 14 inches panel is now replaced with a 15.6 inch one within the same chassis size. That is a great feat, since not only this, but Razer only managed to squeeze in a webcam too. In all, this makes the laptop look quite elegant.

You have a lot of Display options to choose from, with the differences primarily being the screen resolution and refresh rates. You can choose an FHD screen with 60 Hz refresh rate or an FHD one with 144 Hz. You can also get a higher resolution 4K screen with a 60 Hz refresh rate. It seems that the 4K display is quite vibrant and shows vivid colors.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Razer Blade is known for its island-style Chroma keyboard, and this one lives up to the tradition as well. The keyboard offers great customization as you can easily set the colors, effects, and brightness the way you deem fit courtesy the Razer Synapse control panel. Also expect a good typing speed due to the anti-ghosting keyboard, which makes sure that no key is missed.

Though for the two discrete mouse button fans, you might be disappointed, since the laptop has ditched them and instead there is a massive precision touchpad now. On the contrary, this means that the gestures would be quite quick and accurate now.

Specifications

For a layman, the Razer blade would look aggressive and a tad bit expensive for its $1,899 base model price tag, but he doesn’t yet know what’s under the hood. Yes, you heard that right since the laptop has a whopping six core, 8th Gen 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-8750H processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU with 6GB of VRAM and a 1920 x 1080 (60Hz) display. If this is not a working powerhouse, then what is?

Even if this still doesn’t suit your needs (which we are sure it would), you can buy the maxed out version for $2,899 which houses a 512GB PCIe SSD, a GTX 1070 GTX Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM and a 4K touchscreen. Now that’s a lot, seriously.

Our Verdict

The laptop has quite to offers for its price and is totally worth the buck if you have the money, especially because the laptop is now quite different than what it was back there in 2013.