Razer Blade 15 (2018)
A top-notch 144Hz display and Max-Q GeForce GTX graphics make this a winner – if you can afford it
PRICE As reviewed, £1,942 (£2,330 inc VAT) from razer.com
Razer’s Blade series of ultraskinny gaming laptops have always been an easy sell, but this latest iteration is its best yet. With a fresh design and cutting-edge internals – including the latest Max-Q Nvidia GPUs – the Blade 15 is a mobile gaming beast. If you’re a hardcore gamer who happens to have a hefty trust fund to raid, keep on reading.
The star of the show is a butterysmooth 144Hz screen. And notably, a 15.6in one. Razer has performed some witchcraft to ensure that this Razer Blade is the same weight and size as its 14in predecessor. How? In a trick borrowed from the Dell XPS 13, it’s dropped the thickness of the side bezels to 4.9mm.
Our review model includes a 1,920 x 1,080 IPS screen, but be careful when you order: the bottom-end Blade 15 only includes a 60Hz Full HD screen. I recommend sticking with the 144Hz display – quite aside from the extra responsiveness in games, it’s simply wonderful. The panel proved capable of producing 90.3% of the sRGB gamut, with an average Delta E of 2.16 and a maximum of 4.48. A top brightness of 330cd/m2 is less praiseworthy, but that’s still fine if you keep out of direct sunlight.
If you opt for the 144Hz Full HD screen, you have three options: GTX 1060 graphics and 512GB of storage for £1,980, GTX 1070 and 256GB of storage for £2,150, or a GTX 1070 with 512GB of storage for £2,330, as tested. If you’re spending £2,000, there’s a strong argument for going all the way and spending another £350. You can also wait for the 144Hz 4K touch version, but the price is likely to approach £3,000.
Each Blade 15 is equipped with Intel’s six-core, 12-threaded, eighth-generation Core i7-8750H processor, clocked at 2.2GHz and capable of boosted clock speeds up to 4.1GHz. With 16GB of 2,667MHz DDR4 RAM, it stormed through every test. In our benchmarks, it managed an exceptional image test score of 142, which is on par with a pricey desktop system. Its overall score of 149 makes this the fastest ultraportable gaming machine we’ve tested.
Even being a downclocked Max-Q model – which it has to be to fit inside this chassis – the GTX 1070 ensures slick gaming performance. At its native resolution, the Blade produced a smooth 91fps in Dirt: Showdown, and that was with its highest settings; switch down to 720p and this shoots up to over 100fps. Metro: Last Light Redux proved more taxing on Very High settings but still recorded playable results. With SSAA switched off and all the other quality settings dialed to full, it managed 55fps.
The 512GB SSD is also quick. I used the AS SSD benchmark to record a sequential read speed of 1,013MB/sec and a sequential write speed of 2,099MB/sec
Battery life is much improved on the 14in Blade, too. With an improved heat pipe, larger vapour chamber and dual cooling fans, it survived for 7hrs 7mins in our video rundown test. That’s almost an hour and a half longer than its predecessor in the same conditions. Gaming will drain the 80Wh battery significantly faster, but the Blade only lost a fifth of its charge following an intense 30-minute PUBG shootout.
“With an improved heat pipe, larger vapour chamber and dual cooling fans, it survived for 7hrs 7mins in our video rundown test”
Some things stay the same as before, most notably the threeheaded green snake logo illuminating the laptop’s lid, the all-black aluminium chassis and the RGBbacklit keyboard. Each key is nicely spaced and will be just as good to use whether you’re pounding the WASD cluster or using it to write an email. The glass-topped Windows 10 Precision touchpad, meanwhile, has slightly increased in size and is lovely to whizz your finger across.
Despite its slim chassis, the Blade 15 has more than enough ports for your travels. The right side includes a Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port, HDMI 2, miniDisplayPort and a Type-A USB 3 port. The left houses a further two USB 3 ports and a 3.5mm audio jack, while 2x2 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5 cover wireless duties.
So this is an attractive machine. If the price is too high, then consider Gigabyte’s cheaper but not-socharming Aero 15X ( pcpro. link/288aero), which starts at £1,659. But if you’re already stockpiling 2018’s long list of PC game releases, and you can afford it, you’ll love the new Razer Blade 15.
SPECIFICATIONS
Hexa-core 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H processor 8GB Max-Q Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics 16GB RAM 15in IPS display, 1,920 x 1080 resolution 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5 USB-C Thunderbolt 3 3 x Type-A USB 3.1 HDMI 2 mini-DisplayPort 1.4 80Wh battery Windows 10 Home 355 x 235 x 17.3mm (WDH) 2.1kg 1yr limited warranty