Razer Blade Pro 17 2020
The best choice if you wantwan a sleek and powerful gaminggamin laptop with a 17in screen, but it’s not flawless
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PRICE £2,667 (£3,200 inc VAT) from razer.com
Razer has built a brand around arou d its powerful laptops, but the th Blade Pro 17 is the biggest and a d baddest of the lot. Its 2020 refresh of f this monster is more powerful than tha ever: with the latest Intel CPUs and an Nvidia GeForce RTX Super silicon inside, Razer’s machine poses a serious threat to Apple’s finest: the 16in MacBook Pro ( see issue 305, p52).
It looks the part too, with a slab-like chassis carved from a single block of blackened aluminium. I wouldn’t want to drop it on my toe. Decorative adornments are kept to a minimum, with only the three-armed Razer logo backlit in green on the lid while the Razer Chroma RGB keyboard glows with multicoloured menace on the inside.
Weighing 2.4kg, it looks decidedly chunky next to the 1.38kg LG Gram 17 ( see p56), but this is a surprisingly compact machine: note the slim bezels to the left and right of the display. It isn’t the slimmest laptop around, measuring 22mm thick if you include the chunky rubber feet, but that’s a reflection of the powerful components inside and the need to keep them cool: two of these rubber feet run the entire width of the underside of the machine and providing space for four intake fans to suck in air for cooling, with hot air pumped out of the vents at the rear of the laptop. Neatly, these are only exposed when you open the lid.
It doesn’t want for physical connectivity, either. On the right edge of the laptop are single USB-A, USB-C and full-size HDMI ports, along with a full-size SD card slot. These are all helpfully arranged towards the rear of the machine, giving you space to mouse if you end up filling them all. The left edge holds another USB-C port, a pair of USB-A ports, one 2.5Gbits/sec Ethernet socket and a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a proprietary three-pin power input. This being a high-power gaming machine, you can’t run it on USB-C power alone.
Naturally, there’s decent wireless connectivity here too, with Bluetooth 5 and an Intel AX201 module delivering Wi-Fi 6.
Colourful keys
Razer, like Apple, has taken a dislike to number pads, so the keyboard sits isolated in an expanse of black aluminium. It’s flanked by a pair of speaker grilles, one of which has the laptop’s power button built into it. The speakers go loud, but don’t punch them up too high because they sound harsh at higher volumes.
The keyboard is pleasant to type on, but the Scrabble tile keys feel light compared to the 16in MacBook Pro’s damped keys and it’s no match for the fully realised feel of the mechanical switches on the Gigabyte Aorus 15G ( pcpro.link/311gig).
Where Razer’s keyboards excel is their RGB
lighting, which is fully customisable using the company’s Synapse and Chroma Studio apps, which let you select from various lighting animations, specifying the colour and behaviour of each key. There’s even Philips Hue integration so you can synchronise the colour of your bulbs and keyboard together while gaming.
The touchpad is less interesting but effective nonetheless. It’s big, measuring 135 x 80mm, and there’s a nice weight to the built-in diving-board-style click buttons – they’re not too light, not too heavy.
Mixed display
Razer doesn’t offer any OLED screen options on its 17in laptops – choose the new 15in Razer Blade ( see issue 308, p56) if this is a must – but compensates with high refresh rates. It reaches 300Hz on the 1080p model or 120Hz if you opt for 4K.
I found it difficult to go back to a normal 60Hz monitor after using the Blade Pro’s display - everything just feels so smooth and responsive here. However, you’re unlikely to find a game so undemanding that you can reach the heights of 300fps even on a 1080p screen, so it’s a little disappointing that the 120Hz 4K screen option isn’t available on the two more affordable variants.
Razer sent us the Blade Pro 17 with a 300Hz 1080p panel, and it sacrifices gamut for refresh rate. If you want to edit RAW photos on