Gaming laptops usually emphasise performance over style and portability, but the new Razer Blade has all three in spades.
What Is It?
Razer have been making amazing gaming accessories for a while now, but it has only been in the gaming laptop business for a year or two now. Despite the short lead time, it has already had a massive impact on the space by building laptops you can actually take places and use for ordinary stuff as well as for high-performance gaming.
The new Razer Blade is a smaller, even more portable take on the first amazing gaming laptop it premiered last year.
It only comes in the one spec as far as the processor and graphics card are concerned, which may immediately turn off PC gamers who love hardcore customisability in their gaming experience. Thankfully, the spec it comes in is powerful enough to keep you happy for the next few generations of video card hardware.
The screen you won’t be able to take your eyes off of is a 14-inch QHD+ (3200×1800) touchscreen with a 16:9 aspect. As far as power is concerned, the new 14-inch Blade is running a 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-7402HQ quad-core processor (Turbo up to 3.2GHz), 8GB of RAM, the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M, either a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB SSD, three USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI-out, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and Windows 8.1.
All that is packed into an impossibly thin chassis, measuring 34.5cm wide, 23.5cm deep and 17.8cm high with a footprint just over 2kg. Not something you’re about to notice when it’s crammed into a satchel or backpack, that’s for sure.
The only real difference you can make to the spec before you buy is in the SSD. $3299 gets you the 128GB model, $3499 nabs you the 256GB model and for the 512GB model, you’re looking at a slightly eye-watering $3699.
It’s on sale through JB Hi-Fi and Razer’s online store.
What’s It Good At?
First of all, it’s a gaming laptop you can actually move around. So many of the laptops from Dell’s Alienware range and the ASUS Republic of Gamers offering are laptops in name only: moving them around would give you a back injury. Not the Razer Blade 14, however. It’s a slim, portable beauty with a beast under the hood for all your gaming needs.
On top of the slim and portable chassis, Razer has thrown its considerable accessory expertise at the thing and developed one of the best mechanical keyboards we’ve yet seen on a gaming laptop. There’s great spring and travel to the keys and the noise it makes on the keypress will keep hardcore mechanical keyboard lovers happy.
Then there’s the big beautiful screen. It’s a 14-inch, 3200×1800 panel, and the colours are crisp, vibrant and well-balanced. Playing games on this thing is an absolute treat.
Under the hood, the Blade is still a powerhouse.
Razer Blade 14: Performance
Graphics: 3D Mark Fire Strike: 4171 3D Mark Fire Strike Extreme: 2085
Gaming: Tomb Raider (Normal Settings): 42fps Tomb Raider (Normal Settings): 20.6fps
Storage: CrystalDiskMark (Sequential Read): 502MBps CrystalDiskMark (Sequential Write): 260Mbps
Battery: Gizmodo Torture Test: ???
Every single one of those specs outperforms other, larger gaming laptops like the Asus ROG 550JK we tested a few weeks ago in the Gizmodo labs. Less really is more.
It’s running Windows 8.1 out of the box as well which is nice. Means you won’t have to go through a cumbersome upgrade process as soon as you pull your pride and joy out of its box.
The Blade is a joy to game on, but the power can be a little too extreme if you’re buying it for pure productivity. It performs every day tasks so well that if you’re not gaming on this thing all the time, you might feel like you overspent.
What’s Not So Good?
Despite the fact that Razer make great accessories, the trackpad mouse could use a little extra work. It’s a tap-only affair, with single and secondary click buttons below the trackpad. The trackpad surface itself is pretty small, and the even smaller mouse buttons make selecting stuff a pain.
Of course, if you’re buying a gaming laptop, one assumes that you’re going to be using an external mouse anyway. It’d be nice, however, to have the option of a clicking trackpad as well as the two buttons down the bottom rather than being forced into one use case.
The Razer Blade 14 is packing loads of connectivity options by way of ports, but there are still some noteable omissions. There’s no Gigabit Ethernet port, for example, and you’re left without a CD/Blu-ray drive. It’s a smaller device than its larger Razer Blade Pro counterpart, but making sacrifices on such an expensive laptop is still going to be a turn-off for hardcore gamers.
But by far the worst thing about the Razer Blade 14 is the Australia Tax you’re slugged with at the checkout.
Take the base 128GB model for example. In the US it costs $US2199. Add a 10 per cent sales tax on top and you’re left with a total bill of $2418. Adjust that for local currency ($US1 > $A0.93) and it costs $2574 in the US compared to a whopping $3299 on Australian shelves. The price even adjusts itself when you go to buy it from the local Razer online store.
Overall, it’s a wallet-melting $725 difference. Time to break out our favourite Australia Tax question: could you travel to the US and buy it there for the money you’d spend on the Australia Tax? Sadly not this time, but it’s close. Flights on Jetstar from Brisbane to Honolulu (admittedly one-way) only cost around $850. You’re on notice, Razer.
That’s almost offensively expensive. Admittedly, that figure is without shipping to Australia and the cost of a local charger, but still, it’s pretty obnoxious.
We’ve quizzed Razer about this before. We were told back then by the guy in charge of the whole operation that there’s a cost the company has to bear for running local warranty, service and after-market support for these laptops. I’d agree that if a laptop goes bang, you want to know you’re going to be taken care of, but to the tune of $700+? Hell, Apple Care on a $3200 MacBook Pro with Retina Display still only costs you $389, and that’s optional!
Should You Buy It?
If you’re in the market for a gaming laptop that fits into a normal backpack or satchel, you’re in luck: the Razer Blade 14 is a masterpiece. It’s fast, functional and all-round brilliant for most out-of-the-box PC gaming experiences.
The only piece of advice we’d have for you if you’re buying one is to use an international shipping service like HopShopGo and buy it from the States. You’ll save a boatload of coin that you could easily invest in precious games on Steam.
Originally published on Gizmodo Australia
Comments
12 responses to “Razer Blade 14: Australian Review”
HAHAHAHAH a 14″ 3200×1800 screen???? You could sticky-tape it to your face at that resolution.
That resolution is FAR too much for a single GTX870M for gaming. Tomb Raider results speak for themselves … that game isn’t demanding on normal settings, and it’s only able to achieve 42fps (at least that’s what I guess its saying because it has ‘normal’ settings written twice with different results each time … I’m guessing the second ‘normal’ setting was actually supposed to be ‘high’?). Look here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-870M.107792.0.html. There is already quite a few games struggling at highest settings @ 1080p with this GPU (roughly 30FPS or lower), let alone 3200×1800! That resolution is just ridiculous on a gaming laptop if you ask me.
Agreed, I have a blade 2014 and I don’t play any of my games at that res…except maybe TF2.
It’s definitely too high, but since the res is so enormous you can totally run a pixel doubled resolution of 1600×900 which would mean you would be no worse for wear when it comes to how the image looks from a scaling perspective (no interpolation). They really should offer an 1920×1080 version.
No Ethernet port? WTF?
I guess if you can afford $3300 for a laptop, you can afford another $100 for an 802.11ac-compatible router with a gigabit ethernet port…
Kinda defeats the purpose of a portable to have to lug around a router everywhere you go.
LOL, what sort of solution is that !
A more likely answer is just a usb ethernet port.
I’ve toyed with the idea of a gaming laptop, but I hate laptop keyboards and would inevitably plug in a keyboard & mouse, so the whole portability aspect starts to become a little redundant…
How is this different from a high powered desktop which I could also afford?
Just like in every way shape and form?
Laptop = portable
Desktop = deskable
Laptop = $$$$$
Desktop = $$
Whenever someone asks me about these things I’d just tell them to spend 2k on a desktop and sub 1k for a surface pro2 or other portable device for on the go needs. I would have to do a SERIOUS amount of travelling/staying in hotels to ever justify a 3.5k gaming laptop. It should be the beez kneez but they end up just being the worst of both worlds.
Me personally, I have a surface pro 2. I ONLY use it when I’m on holidays or go away from work. I use a minidisplay port to hdmi cable and plug it into the hotels tv to watch tv/movies or play some basic steam games or emulators with a wireless 360 controller/dongle.
Anyone who finds the asking price on the Blade a little high should look at the GS60 Ghost Pro instead. It has the same GPU and CPU specs however it has twice the memory more internal storage (including a 2x128SSD on board raid configuration) and a slightly easier to drive native resolution of 2880×1620. It’s also just as thin and you can change the backlight colour from that awful Razer green.
It can be had for around $2800 which is a good chunk less money than the Blade.