Razer Blade 14 Review - Pint Size Powerhouse
An Ultrabook is typically a thing of compromises, and if you want a laptop that’s thin and light, power is often sacrificed. However, the Razer Book 14 challenges that stereotype and offers a sleek and attractive alternative to other high-end ultra-portables.
So far, E3 2021 Everything was about games, games, games, and other games, but the green snakes at Razer will also showcase some of today’s new gaming hardware, including the all-new Razer Blade 14 gaming laptop. I got the opportunity.
Not only is this the thinnest 14-inch gaming laptop in the world, it’s also the first such device with an AMD CPU-and I say, especially this ultra-slim laptop is also available. It also has one of Nvidia’s RTX 3080 graphics chips that look pretty nice when it comes to.
This is very rare on a 14-inch gaming laptop. Usually, these slightly smaller gaming laptops are the largest on the RTX 3060’s top, and you can do even more with Nvidia’s fairly slow GTX 1660 chip.
After all, if you’re dealing with smaller chassis (especially ultra-thin chassis), there’s less room to ventilate those hot GPU chips and keep everything nice and cool.Even the latest model of Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 It won’t be higher than the RTX 3060, but Razer wants to change that and offer an uncompromising “ultimate” 14-inch gaming laptop.
Red Dead Redemption running on its Ultra preset averaged 58fps — just one frame away from the Blade 15 Base. (All games were run at native resolution.) The game averaged 51fps with every slider manually maxed out, which is still decently playable.
Horizon Zero Dawn ran at 70fps, also just one frame worse than the Blade 15 Base. The Blade 14 actually beat the Blade 15 on Shadow of the Tomb Raider where it averaged 51fps with ray tracing on ultra (the Blade 15 averaged 46fps) and 81fps with ray tracing off.
Just for comparison’s sake, the Blade Stealth 13 only averaged 45fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider with ray tracing off, which is a very noticeable difference. The Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 2060 put up 74fps on Tomb Raider sans ray tracing, and 31fps on Red Dead. Note that both of these laptops were running the games in FHD, so that performance gap is bigger than the numbers make it seem.
THESE NUMBERS MAKE A FAIRLY COMPELLING CASE FOR BUYING THE AMD-POWERED BLADE 14 OVER THE INTEL-POWERED BLADE 15 BASE
It’s no joke when it comes to packing the “ultimate” components. Although the RTX 3080 is not the top 16GB model found on more powerful laptops such as the 2021 edition Asus ROG Strix Scar 15.
The 8GB model chosen by Razer is still a powerful 100W TGP model and is in the same competitive arena as the 8GB and 105W models tested within a fairly large model. Gigabyte Aorus 15G At the beginning of the year. If that’s not enough, AMD’s powerful octa-core Ryzen 9 5900 HX processor is also included. This is the most powerful AMD laptop CPU currently available.
To achieve this, Razer has made existing steam chamber cooling technology more efficient, cooling the CPU and GPU at the same time. Of course, if you haven’t seen your laptop yourself, you can’t comment on the quiet / loud noise that puts a load on the Blade 14.
Razer said in an early preview session that Blade 14 fans “stand out and generate heat,” but don’t “get crazy.” Given the slim, 16.8mm thick chassis, it’s still pretty noisy, but I hope it’s not deafening when it’s finally picked up for testing.
The Blade 14 is also available on other models, and Razer will see variations of both the RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 GPUs during the presentation, but with luck it can be a bit quieter. All models also come with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD. The latter can be upgraded if more storage is needed.
AGREE TO CONTINUE: RAZER BLADE 14
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them, since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.
To start using the Razer Blade 14, you’ll need to agree to the following:
A request for your region
A request for your keyboard layout
Microsoft account
PIN
These are optional:
Wi-Fi
Set up Windows Hello facial recognition
Allow Cortana to access information (including your location and location history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing history, search history, calendar details, content and communication history from Microsoft services, messages and apps, and browsing history in Microsoft Edge) to provide personalized experiences and suggestions
Privacy settings (location, Find My Device, sharing diagnostic data, inking and typing, tailored experience, advertising ID)
Customize suggestions and welcome experiences for gaming, schoolwork, creativity, entertainment, family, and / or business
OneDrive backup
Microsoft 365 free trial
Razer account (to use Synapse software)
That’s four mandatory agreements and 13 optional agreements to use the Blade 14.
Battery life was acceptable, but not as tremendous as we’ve seen from some recent AMD systems. I averaged six hours and 12 minutes of continuous work with the screen around 200 nits of brightness.
That’s not terrible — it’s still not uncommon to see gaming laptops die after just a few hours on battery — but a number of AMD rigs are also breaking the eight-hour mark these days.
Razer has great expectations for Blade14’s Vapor Champer technology.
Even more promising is the Blade 14’s battery life, and Razer claims that the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 models can be used for up to 10 hours and up to 12 hours of web browsing and media playback on a single charge.
Time with RTX3060 version. Sure, they didn’t clarify the screen brightness they used to achieve this number, but as gaming laptops progressed, 10 hours of web browsing was still pretty good, so it’s reasonable. Seems to be able to do a day’s work, which is always a big plus in my book.
Razer doesn’t downplay the Blade 14 display either. There are two options: 1920×1080, 144Hz version and 2560×1440, 165Hz model. According to Razer, the former can fully fill 100% of the standard sRGB color gamut, but its 1440p model covers 100% of the HDR grade DCI-P3 color gamut.
That is, the board. This is a very attractive set of specs when combined with the powerful game interior, both of which support Freesync Premium to support smooth tier-free games with higher refresh rates.
"THE WHOLE CHASSIS IS CNC ALUMINUM"
In case you’ve never used a Razer laptop before, their signature feature (apart from the gaming performance) is the RGB keyboard. The Blade 14 has per-key RGB lighting that you can customize in the Razer Synapse software that comes pre-installed.
The whole chassis is CNC aluminum, and it’s quite sturdy, though also a fingerprint magnet. There’s a respectable port selection, which will allow you to power up to three external displays at a time. You get one HDMI 2.1, in addition to two USB-C ports with DisplayPort 1.4, two USB-A ports, an audio jack, a lock slot, and a charging port.
While many colorful gaming keyboards look obnoxious and garish, Blade keyboards are subtle and chic, in part because there’s almost no backlight bleed from beneath the keys and the fonts are simple, not aggressive.
Key-by-key RGB keyboard lighting, built-in upward-launching speakers with THX Spatial Audio certification, HDMI 2.1 output for up to 4K 120Hz games on compatible displays, and two USB Type-C (3.2 Gen 2) power supplies Port with, two USB Type-A ports (also 3.2 Gen 2), headphone and mic jack combination, support for both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. This is one of the most attractive laptops. It also has a Windows Hello compatible webcam for anyone doing important work from home.
Not surprisingly, the Razer Blade 14 is cheaper because it has all the nice “ultimate” hardware built in, as the base 1080p model with the RTX 3060 will start at £ 1799 / $ 1799 / ₹ 133,000
There is none. There are also two 1440p models (one RTX 3070 and one RTX 3080) for £ 2199 / $ 2199 and £ 2799 / $ 2799 / ₹ 210,000 , respectively. It’s a lot of cash for such a tiny gaming laptop, and much of its lasting appeal will definitely ride on its noise level.
After all, it’s all very well to be the “ultimate” gaming laptop on paper, but if it sounds like a jet engine every time you play the game, it’s probably not so ultimate in everyday use. I feel that there is no such thing.
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