Razer Blade 17
This laptop has all the power and performance you need to handle the most demanding modern games and then some
The 2022 edition of the Razer Blade 17 is a hugely impressive and powerful laptop, whichever way you want to look at it. It brings the power of 12th-gen Intel chips and the performance of the much vaunted RTX 3080 Ti GPU from Nvidia. But with big specs comes a big price tag, a very big price tag.
Our review configuration came in at an eye-watering £4,300, but it is packed with components that the casual everyday user simply won’t need. This laptop is strictly for serious gamers and video editors who have a healthy bank balance.
So what do you get for the big pay out? First up you get a gorgeous-looking black slab of aluminium metal and plastic that is solidly put together, and feels like it’s going to last.
But, with a screen measuring 17 inches from corner to corner, you’re always going to have to put up with a certain amount of bulk. But this isn’t a laptop that feels overly large or cumbersome to carry, measuring 395mm x 260mm x 19.9mm and weighing in at 2.75kg.
There is a choice of screen specs; our review unit came with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels and a max refresh rate of 240Hz – all very impressive. The panel is sharp, bright and fluid, and the best games look stunning on it. The bezels aren’t the thinnest, but they’re by no means chunky – and there is room for a 1080p webcam with Windows Hello support, enabling easy logging in through face recognition. There’s plenty of ports: you get a 3.5mm combination audio jack, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-C port and three USB-A ports. An impressive selection no matter what your needs are in terms of hubs and peripherals.
The internals are impressive, but the undoubted highlight of our review model was the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti GPU, currently one of the most powerful graphics cards on the planet. That was accompanied by a 1.8GHz 14-core Intel i7-12800H processor, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage, specs that are going to make even the most seasoned gamers drool.
A top-tier CPU and top-tier GPU equates to top-tier performance. Even at the top resolution and the most advanced graphics settings you can find, the top games are still going to run super smoothly. Noise was never a problem with the Razer, although the sound of the cooling system is definitely noticeable once it gets going.
Gaming aside, the trackpad is sensitive and responsive, and the keyboard was a far more comfortable experience than our regular computer. Sound is provided by eight separate speakers creating a stereo array with support for THX Spatial Audio. It’s difficult to fault them – even at louder volumes, details are crisp, clear and sharp, though they can lack bass punch.
Where you shouldn’t expect too much is battery life. When gaming, we were seeing drops of around 30% every quarter of an hour. In other words, you’re going to have to keep your charging cable close by.