Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition
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THE RAZER BLADE 15 Studio Edition is a mobile workstation that’s packed with some of the most powerful laptop components on the market today, and is part of Nvidia’s RTX Studio program, which brings its powerful RTX Quadro professional GPUs to laptops.
While Razer is best known for creating gaming laptops, the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition is aimed squarely at creative professionals – especially those who need a laptop or workstation that has some serious graphical grunt to render high resolution images, photos and videos.
In many ways, Razer’s move to catering to creatives makes a lot of sense – after all, it’s excellent gaming laptops already pack some of the most powerful mobile components into thin and portable bodies. By keeping largely the same hardware (except for the inclusion of a professional-grade GPU, rather than one aimed at gamers) and toning down some of its more outrageous (and some could argue, garish) design choices that are also aimed at appealing to gamers – such as flashing LEDs.
The aim is to provide the power of one of its gaming laptops in a design that won’t embarrass you if you take it out in a meeting or office.
Razer isn’t the only company that’s pushing its gaming expertise to create laptops aimed at creatives – such as Acer and its ConceptD line. What does set it apart, is that it is one of the few laptops worthy of being included in Nvidia’s RTX Studio lineup. But, can this undoubtedly powerful laptop win over designers and creatives away from the likes of the MacBook Pro?
DESIGN
In many ways, the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition’s design is very similar to the Razer Blade 15. In fact, it’s pretty much identical. So you get that all-black unibody aluminum case, along with those unmistakable green USB ports and Razer logo on the lid which, like the gaming version, glows green when on.
If you’re worried about buying a workstation that looks like a gaming laptop, then you may be a bit put off by this, but at least the design isn’t too over-bearing, and the Razer logo isn’t too outlandish. So, you’d
still get away with pulling it out during a meeting.
In fact, in our review of this year’s Razer Blade 15, we commented on how the design appeared to be more conservative than previous year’s models. So, while the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition looks pretty identical to the gaming edition, that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe, Razer tweaked the design of the 2019 Razer Blade 15 in anticipation of the Studio Edition.
While the MacBook Pro 15-inch makes do with just four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack, the Razer
Blade 15 Studio Edition is far more generous. On the left-hand side of the laptop there’s two full-size USB 3.2 ports, along with a headphone jack and proprietary power connector, and on the right-hand side there’s another USB 3.2 port, a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port, HDMI port and Mini DisplayPort.
SCREEN
When Razer says that the screen of the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition offers “Retina shattering accuracy,” that’s not just hyperbole, it’s also a dig at Apple and the Retina displays of its MacBooks. That’s because the Retina display of the 15-inch MacBook Pro is 2,880 x 1,800, while the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition features a 4K screen at 3,840 x 2,160.
Not only does the screen of the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition beat the MacBook Pro’s in terms of resolution, but it’s also OLED, which offers stunning color vibrancy and contrast ratios, and it’s a touchscreen to boot.
Put them side by side and there’s no competition – the screen of the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition absolutely blows away that of the MacBook Pro.
The screen also has 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, which is essential for any creative professional (such as video editors) who require accurate color reproduction on their workstations. The display is also factory calibrated, and it really is a highlight of the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition, and for many people will make the high price worth it.
PERFORMANCE & BATTERY LIFE
While we didn’t test the highest-end model with professional with the Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 GPU, the model we’re reviewing features the RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics card.
This is still a mightily formidable graphics card, and while it’s mainly aimed at gamers, it still does an excellent job at running professional applications as well, while the Max-Q design of the GPU means Razer has been able to fashion an impressively thin laptop around this powerful graphics card.
Even though this is not a gaming laptop, despite its looks, we’re able to play some games on it, and the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition does an excellent job, as you’d expect. The RTX 2080 isn’t powerful enough to run modern games with full graphical settings at 4K resolution – but you won’t find a mobile GPU that can do that.
In our battery life benchmark test, which runs a looped 1080p video at 50% brightness, the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition lasted a respectable five hours and 28 minutes. Now, that’s not a huge time, but it’s better than we expected.
However, it’s very likely that you’ll be using the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition for much more strenuous tasks than simply watching 1080p videos, and that’s when you’ll see the battery very quickly drain away.
VERDICT
The Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition is a brilliantly powerful workstation aimed at digital creatives. Photographers, video editors and games designers will appreciate the powerful components inside, along with the stunning 4K screen. However, it is very expensive, and that might mean that anyone who’s after a work laptop, but doesn’t quite need that level of performance, will want to look elsewhere. Australian availability is still up in the air, but we’re very keen to see the Studio Edition make its way downunder.