Razer Blade 15 Gaming Laptop 2019: Intel Core i7

Razer Blade 15 Gaming Laptop 2019: Intel Core i7

Razer Blade 15 Gaming Laptop 2019: Intel Core i7

Razer Blade 2019 review
The sharpest Blade yet


Recommended
You’re taking home the whole gaming laptop package with the Razer Blade 2019.


OUR VERDICT

The Razer Blade may be egregiously priced, but Razer fitted much more value into its high-power gaming laptop than ever before. If you do end up spending the money required, you’ll taking comfort in the fact that you’re taking home the whole gaming laptop package.

FOR
Excellent gaming performance
Huge battery life improvement
Windows Hello camera included


AGAINST
Awfully expensive
Somewhat goofy keyboard layout

The new Razer Blade 2019 is the most improved Razer laptop yet. In fact, Razer has finally produced a truly well-rounded gaming laptop that will see you through all those demanding games.

Despite the fact that the Razer Blade 2019 is weirdly similar to its 2018 predecessor, it definitely has more than its share of updates to make the price rise worth it. One major upgrade to the Razer Blade 2019 that we appreciate is the new Nvidia Turing graphics inside, making it undeniably much more powerful than its Pascal predecessors. On top of that, the popular gaming laptop has also gotten a significantly longer battery life and an infrared camera to finally offer users Windows Hello login feature.

However, these premium improvements also come at a premium cost. If you have the money, then it’s certainly worth upgrading whether or not you need to.

SPEC SHEET

CPU: 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H (hexa-core, 9MB cache, up to 4.10GHz)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 (8GB GDDR6; MaxQ); Intel UHD Graphics 630
RAM: 16GB DDR4 (2,667MHz)
Screen: 15.6-inch FHD matte (1,920 x 1,080, 144Hz, IPS, 100% sRGB)
Storage: 512GB SSD (NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4)
Ports: 1 x Thunderbolt 3; 3 x USB 3.1; 1 x mini DisplayPort 1.4; 1 x HDMI 2.0; headphone jack
Connectivity: Intel Wireless-AC 9560 (802.11ac); Bluetooth 5.0
Camera: HD webcam with Windows Hello (1MP, 720p)
Weight: 4.63 pounds (2.10kg)
Size: 13.98 x 9.25 x 0.70 inches (355 x 235 x 17.8mm; W x D x H)
Price and availability

For the model packing Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics, the Razer Blade 15 will set you back an exorbitant to start. That will get you an RTX 2060 GPU driving a 144Hz 1080p display and paired with a 512GB SSD storage.


If you’re looking for something less pricey, you can compromise with a GTX 1060 coupled with a 128GB SSD, 1TB of storage and a 60Hz display. This should slash off the price, 

This graphics card, however, isn’t available in Australia. However, you can opt for a configuration with a GTX 1060 Max-Q and the same amount of storage instead, which will cost you . Another option is configuration with a GTX 1060 Max-Q and a 256GB SSD plus 2TB dual storage for AUS

On the other hand, if you’ve got deep pockets, you can also upgrade to one with RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, paired with a 256GB SSD for or another with a 512GB SSD for. Both configurations have the same 144Hz Full HD display.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics option (our review configuration) is packing a 512GB of SSD storage for and the very same 1080p display. 4K display models are also available for the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 configurations in the US and the UK, which are of course more expensive. However, this display is not available in Australia at the time of writing.

No matter which configuration of the Razer Blade 15 you get, you’ll have 16GB of RAM – which can be upgraded to 64GB, though you do have your pick of an Intel Core i7-8750H or an i7-9750H. So, basically, the Razer Blade is once again one of the most high-priced gaming laptops you’ll find right now, especially taking the actual specs into consideration.

For example, the Razer Blade model with RTX 2070 graphics and a 1080p display is only  cheaper than as a similarly-configured 15.6-inch Gigabyte Aero 15, which Gigabyte has very recently upgraded. However, Gigabyte’s offering has a far larger 512GB SSD and larger battery capacity. And of course, it’s newer.

You also have the choice of an Asus ROG Zephyrus GX701 with the same graphics card, but an enormous 17.3-inch 1080p display, 1TB SSD and 9th-generation Intel Core i7.

Since you can get similar gaming laptops with RTX 2060 graphics from MSI or Asus for literally half of Razer’s asking price for a laptop with an RTX 2080 (knowing it wouldn’t be nearly as premium a build), you really need to think about how important those beefier graphics are to you before pressing that ‘Buy’ button.


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The Razer Blade has the same all-black, unibody aluminum case.

The new keyboard still feels comfortable and satisfying to use.

The trackpad also it feels excellent to use.


It’s trimmed with the more stripped down RGB lighting from last year.

The Razer Blade keeps the exact same angular shape.



It has three USB 3.1 ports.

The Razer Blade keeps the webcam in its ideal position while utilizing narrow bezels.



Razer nailed it again with the Razer Blade’s display.

It's just 14 inches wide with a 15-inch display, thanks to those slimmer screen bezels.



Razer Blade’s keyboard layout issue has been inherited from previous models.
Design


Donning that same all-black, unibody aluminum case, the Razer Blade inherits the exact same angular shape for 2019 that’s in its 2018 predecessor. This time around, however, it’s furnished with a more stripped down RGB lighting from last year’s – down to just the keyboard and Razer logo on the lid.


At 0.70 inches (17.8mm) thin, this year’s Razer Blade is marginally thicker than before, though it’s only just as heavy at 4.63 pounds (2.10kg). And, it, too, is a laptop just 14 inches wide with a 15-inch display, thanks to those thinner screen bezels.


Par for the course, the Razer Blade keeps the webcam in its rightful position above the screen while using thin bezels. However, at just 720p, the image this webcam produces is low-res and feels antiquated. It’s adequate enough for video calls, just not good enough for broadcasting yourself while gaming.


Luckily, the new keyboard feels just as comfortable and satisfying to use, and it continues to offer forceful enough feedback for an island-style keyboard. The downside is that the Razer Blade’s keyboard layout issue has not been fixed from previous generations – with the ‘up’ arrow key set between the ‘Shift’ and ‘?’ keys.


This makes typing questions a bit of a nightmare, as you’re constantly accidentally pressing the up arrow and adding a question mark to the line above where typing. It happened to us all the time during our testing. We would certainly have preferred smaller arrow keys if it meant a more practical, less typo-prone layout.


As for Razer’s trackpad, it still feels incredible to use, but much like the keyboard, it’s also held back by one tiny weakness. In this case, the tracking surface is a little too close to the laptop’s edge, triggering minor palm rejection issues when navigating the operating system. We haven’t seen this problem while typing specifically on this year’s model, which is a good thing. Still, for this much cash, the experience should practically be flawless.

Finally, we’re glad to see Razer finally bring Windows Hello facial recognition to its Blade webcam array. It’s not the fastest or most elegant implementation of the feature, being a little sluggish than other flagship laptops we’ve reviewed while also blasting a garish red light in our faces during scans. However, it’s still a handy feature to have, even if it necessitates just a little more refining.

The display boasts 144Hz refresh rate, which smooths out the animations and motion.
Display

Razer nailed it again with the Razer Blade’s display… well, mostly. It does keep the same display from last year, which is not necessarily a bad thing. With a matte coating that’s remarkably effective at minimizing glare, this screen is definitely making the most of what it can do. Even if it’s still only 1080p.

Much of that dazzling display is thanks to its 144Hz refresh rate, which smooths out the animations and motion by outpacing the frame rates the GPU inside is capable of. This is the best-case scenario for Nvidia’s new ray tracing and deep learning supersampling (DLSS) techniques for rendering lighting in games. Drops in frame rates due to these intensive features were rather buoyed thanks to this refresh rate.

Again, the 100% sRGB color gamut makes for quite a wide variety of colors supported at impressive precision and vibrancy. The screen calibration done by Razer on the assembly line helps a lot as well.

For a laptop with such an exorbitant price tag, you would expect excellent all-around performance, gaming and otherwise. And, the Razer Blade without a doubt holds its own in this respect, delivering impressive frame rates in some of the latest games.

BENCHMARKS

3DMark Sky Diver: 32,902; Fire Strike: 16,484; Time Spy: 7,082
Geekbench 4: 5,032 (single-core); 19,064 (multi-core)
Cinebench CPU: 906 points; Graphics: 104 fps
PCMark 8 Home: 3,997
PCMark 8 Battery Life: 3 hours and 54 minutes
Battery Life (TechRadar movie test): 5 hours and 29 minutes
Total War: Warhammer II (1080p, Ultra): 74 fps; (1080p, Low): 160 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, Ultra): 87 fps; (1080p, Low): 106 fps

The numbers you see here show a significant improvement from the prior model. Frame rates in Total War: Warhammer II at ‘Ultra’ settings increased by a sizeable 22%, whereas 3DMark Time Spy results saw an astounding 45% boost.


Of course, the processor performance isn’t going to improve much year to year, especially since this laptop is fitted with the exact same Intel processor as before. That’s not a big deal since that hexa-core processor is plenty powerful to handle demanding workflows like video encoding and other intensive tasks. Anyway, if it isn’t enough for you, you can always upgrade to the 9th-gen CPU.

At this level of power, the Razer Blade could easily do function as both a creative professional’s workstation and a hard-core gamer’s gaming powerhouse. However, it’s the laptop’s Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort connectivity that really drives this point home. Even if this configuration of the laptop doesn’t come with a 4K display, it can absolutely drive one via either option – or two with both.


As we’ve said before, the just okay 1080p display supports the laptop quite a bit in delivering some incredibly smooth gameplay in the latest games that utilize Nvidia’s ray tracing dynamic lighting technology. Both Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus play with nary a hiccup at ‘Ultra’ settings with ray tracing triggered.


The Razer Blade offers a startlingly impressive battery life – by gaming laptop standards.
Battery life

One of the biggest surprises from this year’s Razer Blade is its startlingly impressive longevity – by gaming laptop standards, that is. Inheriting the same 80Whr lithium ion battery from last year’s model, Razer was somehow able to attain an enormous 87% bump in this Blade’s PCMark 8 Battery Life results.

Likewise, the laptop ran 98% longer during our local 1080p video playback test. These numbers put the Razer Blade much more in line with competing thin and light gaming laptops, which has been long overdue.

You shouldn’t expect to see similar numbers or anywhere close to these while gaming on battery. However, you are ultimately getting a gaming laptop from Razer that can last long enough to get some real work (or even light entertaining) done while you’re traveling or commuting.


This app lets you toggle ‘Gaming’ (a GPU boost), ‘Creator’ (a CPU boost) and direct cooling fan control.
Software and features

One of the best things about Razer gaming laptops is that they’re set up with no extra bloatware or third-party software. There are no McAfee or eBay apps loading upon boot here. Of course, there’s always Synapse, Razer’s intuitive system for personalizing its Chroma RGB lighting across the laptop, which in this case, only covers the keyboard.

With this software, you can choose from an assortment of lighting choices down to each individual key, and design lighting profiles specific to particular games that, once loaded, will activate as soon as you enter said game. This app also allows you to do performance toggles for ‘Gaming’ (a GPU boost) and ‘Creator’ (a CPU boost) as well as direct cooling fan control. That’s a pre-installed app we can get behind.



The Razer Blade 2019 packs in as much value as possible.
Final verdict

The Razer Blade 2019 is Razer’s most improved gaming laptop to date. Both sheer graphical performance and long-lasting battery life are immensely better.

Razer also took this opportunity at a refresh to fix the glaring exclusion of Windows Hello. While the application needs a lot of refining, we still welcome the almost essential feature – especially at this price point.

This may be one of the most egregiously priced gaming laptops out there, but Razer has obviously taken great pains to pack in as much value into the Blade as possible, enough to make it worth your hard-earned cash. If you do end up dropping the thousands required, rest assured you are taking home the complete package.

Design


Razer's laptops have always looked great. Those ink-black aluminum chassis never ceased to incite a thrill in me. But now that Razer's started playing with color, I have only one question, What took you so long? The Mercury White version of the Blade is a vision in silvery alabaster. And usually I'd complain about the lack of logo backlighting, but I'm loving the way the gleaming embossed emblem reflected every color in its vicinity, particularly the bubblegum pink Razer Krakens perched on my desk.



With Mercury White, Razer is inviting even more pointed comparisons to Apple's MacBook Pro -- they're both silver and sleek, without a need or want for adornment. But in some ways, the Blade out-Apples Apple. There's no unsightly bezel surrounding the Blade's display, just slim metal bezels. And of course, you have those pristine white keys accentuating the pulsating rainbow of individual LEDs. No, this is a Razer through and through.



But where Razer really apes the MacBook and 15-inch gaming systems is in its size. The 4.7-pound, 14 x 9.3 x 0.7-inch Blade 15 is one the smallest 15-inch gaming systems you can get on the market. Sure, the 15-inch MacBook Pro (4 pounds, 13.8 x 9.5 x 0.6 inches) and the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin (4.1 pounds 14.1 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches) are lighter, but you can easily fit the Blade 15 on each system with plenty of room to spare. And at 4.8 pounds, 14.3 x 10.8 x 0.8~0.7 inches, the Alienware m15 is the largest of the bunch.

Razer 15 price and configurations

I had an inordinately good time reviewing the  Advanced Model of the Mercury White Razer Blade 15. It comes with a 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-8750H processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM with an Intel UHD Graphic 630 GPU and a 1920 x 1080 panel with a 144Hz refresh rate. For , you can upgrade the screen to 4K at 60Hz.

Want the crème de la crème? Check out the model with its black metal chassis and GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM.

The  base model has a 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-8750H CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD with a 1TB 5,400-rpm hard drive. You also get an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU with 6GB of VRAM with an Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU and a 1920 x 1080 panel at 60Hz refresh rate.

Ports

For a notebook with dimensions as slim as the Blade 15, it manages to fit a surprising number of ports.



For example, you have a USB 3.1 port, a Thunderbolt 3 port, an HDMI 2.0. a mini DisplayPort and a Kensington Lock slot on the right side. And on the left are another two USB 3.1 ports, a headset jack and the proprietary power port.



You won't find a memory card slot, though.

Display

The color on the Blade 15's matte, 15.6-inch display is just as striking as its chassis. However, I wish the 1920 x 1080 panel was a tad brighter. When I watched the trailer for the upcoming Shaft movie, I was captivated by the trio of maroon dusters blowing heroically in the wind as three generations of the titular character walked across a plaza. Details were so crisp that I could clearly read see the word Shaft stamped across a speeding 9mm bullet, as well as the stippling from the gun of the battle.



The panel has a 144-Hz refresh rate, which should cut down on motion blur and jagged images. At least it did while I was playing Battlefield V, which allowed me to quickly blast an enemy soldier in the chest with my shotgun before doing a 180 and tagging another enemy in the back.


The display can reproduce an impressive 149 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which explains the vivacious hues. It's almost on a par with the m15 and the Stealth, which measured 150 percent and still topped the 140-percent premium gaming laptop average.

Averaging 262 nits of brightness, the Blade 15's display missed matching the 279-nit category average. The screens on the Alienware m15 and the MSI Stealth were much brighter at 284 and 293 nits.

Audio

The Blade's top-firing speakers are clear, but not as loud as I would like. Even at top volume with the Dolby Atmos software enabled, the laptop barely filled our lab space. I could even hear the newscast our product tester was listening to.





Still, the audio is pretty clean. I could hear songstress Tamia switch between alto and soprano without losing the timbre of the piano chords as she sang. The low end on Black Thought's "Fentanyl" was lacking, however, which is a shame, because the other percussion was so crisp.


The gunfire wasn't as loud as I would have liked as I did a run-and-gun to an enemy airfield, and the explosions didn't have the oomph that I expected. Still, once the mission got going and the violins gradually increased in volume, I was fully immersed in the game, fighting to complete my mission.

Keyboard and touchpad

Razer's ultra-low profile island-style keys are a bit of a mystery to me. With a 1.2 millimeter key travel (1.5mm is our minimum) and 68 grams of actuation force (60 g minimum), the keys aren't clicky, but they're not mushy, either. They definitely feel better than the keys on my work-issued MacBook Pro. And with that per-key RGB lighting, they look better, too.





I hit my usual 70 words per minute on the 10FastFingers typing test. My fingertips still felt good after 2 hours of typing, despite the shallow key travel. After passing the laptop around among my officemates for them to try out and comment, my colleague Andrew Freedman said it best, "It splits the difference between being good for typing a paper and serious gaming."

Razer outfitted the Blade 15 with a massive 5 x 3-inch Precision touchpad. My fingertips slid effortlessly over the smooth glass surface. The touchpad delivered fast and accurate responses to gesture inputs, including pinch-zoom, two-finger scroll and three-finger tap.

Synapse 3.0

I'm reviewing what Razer calls the Advanced Model, which, in addition to more powerful specs, also lets you customize each key with its own individual lighting effect. The magic happens in the company's Synapse 3.0 software. A cloud-based software, Synapse allows you to create customize lighting effects for the keyboard as well as create macros. You can also make profiles that launch with specified games or apps.



A newish Synapse feature lets you adjust system performance. There are three modes: Balanced, Gaming and Creator. Balanced gives you the optimal performance for battery life and overall performance, while Creator and Gaming increases power to the CPU and GPU, respectively. Each of these settings lets you toggle fan speed and the screen refresh cap.

Gaming, graphics and VR

The next generation in graphics cards is here, and it comes bearing gifts of ray tracing and artificial intelligence. Nvidia's new RTX chips are faster and more powerful than previous generations and have the added benefit of ray tracing, which makes games look photorealistic, and DLSS (Deep Learning Super-Sampling), which renders high-quality graphics using a variety of shortcuts that translate into graphics and performance improvements.


That means that when I played Battlefield V, the Blade 15's Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM delivered a buttery-smooth 95 frames per second. So when I shot the explosive barrel positioned behind a pair of enemy soldiers, their bodies went flying ever so gracefully towards kingdom come.

The Blade 15 had a strong showing on all of our gaming benchmarks, starting with Rise of the Tomb Raider, where it notched 56 fps. It's below the 63-fps premium gaming laptop average, but more than enough to surpass the Alienware m15 (49 fps) and the MSI Stealth (44 fps) with their last-gen GTX 1070 Max-Q GPUs.



When I played Battlefield V, the Blade 15's Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM delivered a buttery-smooth 95 frames per second.

During the Hitman test, the Blade 15 tied the 96-fps average, beating the Stealth and m15, both of which scored 79 fps.

The Blade 15 also matched the 76-fps Grand Theft Auto V category average, easily defeating the m15 and the Stealth, which obtained 66 and 61 fps, respectively.


On the Middle-Earth: Shadow of War benchmark, the Blade 15 reached 91 fps, cruising past the 87-fps average and the Alienware m15's 75 fps.

Performance

The Blade 15 isn't all play. Thanks to its 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-8750H processor with 16GB of RAM, the laptop cut through all my multitasking like so much tissue paper. I watched an episode of The Dragon Prince on Netflix while running 22 additional Google Chrome tabs, some of which were streaming Twitch or YouTube or scrolling through my Tweetdeck. Despite the load, there wasn't a bit of lag to be found.



In some ways, the Blade 15 out-Apples Apple.

The Blade 15 continued performing, producing 22,379 on our overall performance test, Geekbench 4.1. It was just enough to beat the 22,276 premium gaming laptop average and the 18,046 put up by the MSI Stealth (Core i7-8750H CPU). The m15 and its Core i7-8750H CPU performed slightly better at 22,873.

When we ran our productivity test, the Blade 15 paired 65,000 names and addresses in 45 seconds, which is just a few seconds slower than the 0:42 average. However, it was much faster than the MSI Stealth and the Alienware m15, which clocked times of 0:54 and 1:03.

Loaded with a 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD, the Blade 15 is seriously fast. The laptop took only 8 seconds to copy 4.97GB of multimedia files, which translates to a file-transfer speed of 636.2 megabytes per second. It's faster than the 599.6MBps average and the Stealth's (512GB M.2 SSD) 193.3MBps. However, the m15 and its dual 1TB M.2 NVMe PCI SSDs delivered an incredible 1,017.9 MBps.


During the video-transcoding test, the Blade 15 took 12 minutes and 53 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. That's slower than the 9:55 average as well as the Stealth (12:01) and the m15 (9:51).


Battery Life


More power, less endurance. Thanks to its RTX Graphics, the latest version of the Blade 15 is more powerful than its predecessor, but at the cost of battery life. The 2019 Blade 15 lasted only 5 hours and 2 seconds. That's more than an hour less than its predecessor (6:09). But that time is still better than the 3:22 premium gaming laptop average. The Stealth and m15 were faster at 5:40 and 6:28, respectively.

Heat


For gaming laptops, particularly thin and lights, the hunt for the better cooling solution continues. For Razer, the answer lies in a slim copper vapor chamber, which the company says is more efficient than regular heat pipes. As the water transforms into vapor, the resulting heat is channeled away from important components via heat exchangers. From there, the dual fans blow the heat out the vents.


Still, there's only so much Razer can do to keep such a slim system cool in the heat of battle. After spending 15 minutes infiltrating an enemy base in Battlefield V, I measured the system's touchpad, keyboard center and undercarriage. I saw temperatures of 95, 104 and 123 degrees Fahrenheit. The last two results surpass our 95-degree comfort threshold, so be careful with it around your lap.


Once the laptop cooled off, we ran a 15-minute full-creen HD video. The touchpad was a bit warm at 96 degrees, while the middle of the keyboard measured 89 degrees. The bottom of the aluminum chassis rose to 100 degrees.

Webcam

The Blade 15's 720p IR webcam gives you just enough detail, but it's not great. In my test shots, you could make out the individual strands of my locks, as well as the shift from orange to purple to dark purple.



However, there was a fuzziness that blurred the finer details of my face. It's passable for video chats and streaming in a pinch. It can also be used to unlock the system using Windows Hello.

Software and warranty

Razer knows that gamers want as clean a slate as possible when it comes to storage. Which is why outside of the typical Windows 10 bloatware you won't find too much clutter. There are some third-party editions, such as links for Netflix, Plex and Hulu. There's also PicsArt and a photo editor/collage app.

Outside of Synapse, Nvidia Experience will be the most helpful to gamers with its useful suite of utilities, including Battery Boost, Whisper Mode and Shadow Play.

The Razer Blade 15 ships with a one-year limited warranty. Check out how Razer fared on our Tech Support Showdown, Best and Worst Brands and Best and Worst Gaming Brands special report.

Bottom Line


Razer continues to raise the bar with its gaming laptops. For , you get the Advanced Version of the Razer Blade 15, which comes in a stunning white aluminum chassis. And measuring 14 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches, it's officially the smallest 15-inch gaming system on the block. But this is a svelte beast, as it packs l a Core i7 CPU and Nvidia's impressive new RTX GPUs. The notebook is ready to game, video edit, crunch numbers and more at the drop of a hat.

If you're looking to save a few dollars and get a better display and longer battery life, check out the  version of the Alienware m15. Just keep in mind that you'll be missing out on Nvidia's RTX graphics (for now). But if you're looking for a system that's supremely portable and powerful, the Razer Blade 15 is for you.

Razer Blade 15 Gaming Laptop 2019: Intel Core i7

Bluetooth	Bluetooth 5.0
Brand	Razer
CPU	2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-8750H processor
Company Website	www.razer.com
Display Size	15.6
Graphics Card	Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU/Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU
Hard Drive Size	512GB
Hard Drive Speed	n/a
Hard Drive Type	NVMe PCIe SSD
Highest Available Resolution	3840 x 2160
Native Resolution	1920x1080
Operating System	Windows 10 Home
Optical Drive	None
Optical Drive Speed	n/a
Ports (excluding USB)	Thunderbolt 3, Noble Lock, Mini DisplayPort, Headset, HDMI 2.0, USB 3.1
RAM	16GB
RAM Upgradable to	32GB
Size	14 x 9.3 x 0.7 inhces
Touchpad Size	5 x 3 inches
USB Ports	4
Video Memory	8GB
Warranty/Support	1 year limited warranty
Weight	4.7 pounds
Wi-Fi	802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Wi-Fi Model	Intel (R) Wireless-AC 9560

This newfangled technology comes at a cost though, with most of the RTX Razer laptops breaking the  barrier – and one model even exceeding . That’s a hell of a lot of dosh considering you can buy gaming laptops with Nvidia 10 Series cards for a little over a grand.

So, are the performance boost and RTX features worth the massive hike in price? Personally I’m not convinced, despite Razer continuing its fine form of producing classy, premium gaming laptops.

The Razer Blade 15 design looks just as fancy as previous models

Why alter perfection? This was clearly Razer’s thinking, as it hasn’t changed a single thing about the physical appearance of this gaming laptop. It still has the same ultra-thin black aluminum chassis and iconic illuminated green logo on the lid. In fact, it’s best to think of the 2019 iteration of the Razer Blade 15 as an additional model, rather than an entirely new entry to the Razer lineup.

You needn’t be concerned about this design stagnating in 2019, with the impossibly thin screen bezel remaining as trendy as Fortnite and avocados. The top bezel is still slightly bulky in comparison, but that’s to accommodate the 1-megapixel webcam – not that you’d want to use it, since its video quality is a fuzzy, pixellated horror.


You really won’t want to use the integrated webcam for Twitch streams

Two up-firing speakers sandwich the keyboard. As always with Razer laptops, audio quality is impressive. You can crank the volume up a fair way, while the drivers have sufficient boom for all your grenade explosions. I’d still recommend some gaming headphones instead though.

The same ports make a comeback too, including Thunderbolt (Type-C), USB 3 and HDMI mini-DisplayPort. Don’t worry, there’s also a headphone jack, so you won’t be forced to make the jump to Bluetooth cans just yet.


The new Razer Blade 15 has a generous number of ports

The only real physical difference between each model is the dimensions. The base GTX model is slightly thicker than the RTX range, with the former sizing up at 19.9mm and the latter being 17.8mm. The difference in size is likely due to the base model’s dual-storage SSD, giving you 1TB of more space to store your game collection.

With an untweaked design, the Advanced Model also brings back a couple of flaws, mainly the fingerprint-magnet surface. Carry the Blade 15 for a few seconds and you’ll notice fingerprint marks smudged all the casing, leaving the laptop looking grotesquely grimy.

A gaming laptop’s keyboard is never going to compare to the crunchy feel of a mechanical keyboard, but I still expect some sort of tactile feel when I’m spending A lot on a portable. Unfortunately, you don’t get that with the Razer Blade 15.


The RGB keys could do with more travel and feedback

If the Razer Blade 15 was an ultrabook I could forgive its shallow keys, but as a high-end gaming laptop, I just don’t think there’s enough travel or feedback here. I couldn’t happily hammer the WASD keys during a first-person shooter. Razer argues you’ll probably just buy an external gaming keyboard anyway, and while that’s true, it’s not a good solution for when you’re on the go.

You can also customise the RGB keyboard lighting, which looks real snazzy without being overbearing. Thanks to Razer Synapse 3 you can sync up the light show to your Razer peripherals, so your gaming mouse and headset all glow in satisfying union.


The glass trackpad here is one of my all-time favourite in a gaming laptop

The glass touchpad makes a return. I’m a big fan of it, being super smooth and ultra responsive. You’ll likely want more accuracy for first-person shooters, so buying a gaming mouse is a good idea. But compared to rival gaming laptops, this is probably my favourite trackpad.
The Razer Blade 15 display is superb for gaming, but lacks G-Sync

Every RTX Blade 15 laptop is available with a Full HD display and 144Hz refresh rate at a minimum, ensuring a super-smooth experience for any game you load up.

There are several upgrade options too. If you want a 4K display, you can upgrade that, or, if you prefer to game in Full HD, there are 144Hz and 240Hz options available with the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 options, too. For those with cash to burn, you can even splash out on a 4K OLED, if you want contrast levels and colours to really soar.

Disappointingly, there’s no option of an RTX laptop with a Full HD 60Hz display. This would have been an incredibly useful option for those who fancy feasting their eyes on the new ray tracing technology, but aren’t prepared to cough up the extra cash for all the other premium trimmings.


The 144Hz refresh rate ensures a super-smooth visual performance for games

Even more disappointing, not one of the RTX Blade 15 laptops have Nvidia’s G-Sync. For those unfamiliar, this technology syncs up the GPU’s frame rates to the display’s refresh rate in order to prevent screen tearing.

I noticed this ugly effect a few times in both Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus with the Razer Blade. Significantly cheaper gaming laptops can be forgiven for not including G-Sync or FreeSync,  this omission is a real let down.

How does the display actually look? To the human eye, the Razer display seems solid, the screensaver immediately catching the eye with a rainbow-spectrum of colours.


The Razer has a lovely rich display great for both gaming and Netflix bingeing

However, our colorimeter tests show that while Razer’s screen is decent enough for a great gaming experience, it’s far from making the grade to satisfy professional creatives who require colours to be displayed as accurately as possible.
If you want more in-depth results for the display, head over to our Razer Blade 15 Screen Review page

Overall then, the Razer Blade display isn’t spectacular, but is still decent enough for a great gaming visual experience. But at such an extravagant price, missing features such as G-Sync are really difficult to forgive.
There’s a Razer Blade 15 configuration for every budget

Since the Razer Blade 15 (2019) first launched, Razer has steadily introduced more configurations to an already generous lineup.

The most important thing to know is that there are four graphics card options, ranging from the Nvidia 10-Series GTX 1060 Max-Q all the way up to the ray tracing-capable Nvidia 20-Series RTX 2080 Max-Q.

There are plenty of other alterations you can make to your Razer Blade 15 laptop too, including processor, storage and display, with the refresh rate, resolution and screen type all customisable.

There’s an impressive range of options here – which only seems to be growing – that can appeal to a broad audience. The cheapest model costs  while the most expensive will set you back  – that’s a whopping  difference. The lineup can be seen in the table below.
The Razer Blade 15 is a seriously powerful gaming laptop

I called in the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 configurations of the Razer Blade 15 for testing, and found these laptops boast monster performances. Both the GPU and CPU deliver, posting some of the best results I’ve ever seen in gaming laptop.

The CPU is fast enough to blitz through multi-tasking jobs. There’s easily enough processing power here to plough through any video game. I never saw the Blade 15 struggle with multiple tabs, while CPU-intensive titles like Civilization 6 will really benefit.

We’ve tested the Razer Blade 15 with both the 8th Gen and 9th Gen Intel Core processors, and can confirm both will easily meet your super-speedy needs. Going for the more powerful option out of the two will provide a minor performance boost, but it’s not significant enough to make a noticeable difference so I suggest hesitance if you’re considering upgrading.

It’s the GPU performance that makes the Razer Blade 15 one of the most powerful gaming laptops currently available. We tested the two laptops with two of the most demanding games currently available in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Ghost Recon Wildlands. For the former title, the two Razer laptops saw frame rates glide effortlessly past the 60fps performance target while running the game in Full HD with all the graphics settings pushed up to the ‘Ultra’ preset.

But while playing Ghost Recon Wildlands with maxed out settings in HD, neither the RTX 2070 or RTX 2080 Razer Blade 15 could quite reach the 60fps golden standard, but they were both very close. Scaling down the graphical settings will sort this out though, so I can still confidently say both gaming laptops will be able to play any AAA game you fancy.
Check out the Razer Blade 15 Performance review page for the desktop’s in-depth benchmark results

The RTX graphics cards bring along a slew of special DXR features, with ray tracing being the most significant. Nvidia’s new technology enables more realistic light and reflection rendering.

In Metro Exodus, I could see the reflection of derelict skyscrapers in the murky puddles of the trenches. Light also seemed more atmospheric, as it seeped through the gloomy clouds above. All of these improvements are subtle and difficult to notice without being aware of them beforehand.




On left: DXR turned off. On right: DXR turned on (Game: Battlefield 5)

At the very least, ray tracing offers an exciting glimpse into the future for video game visuals – but I’m concerned there are more negative points than positive in its current state, with limited game support and technical hiccups proving problematic.

For instance, the supported DLSS feature – purpose-designed to recoup the frame rate drop that ray tracing brings – not only negatively impacts the visuals in a game, but won’t even function with the RTX 2080 edition of the Razer Blade 15 with a Full HD display.

It’s not a massive surprise the Razer Blade 15 makes a fair bit of noise when running video games. It’s not loud enough to become audible over the booms and blasts of your favourite shooter, but it’s still mildly annoying during quiet cut scenes and loading screens.

More concerning is the heat generated by the Blade 15. It doesn’t get hot enough to become uncomfortable to touch or make you worried it’s about to explode like a boiled egg in a microwave, but it’s still alarming to think all those pricey components are getting a roasting.


I’d love the option of an RTX Razer Blade 15 with 1TB storage

The RTX Razer Blade 15 laptops have a max storage option of 512GB. That’s pretty stingy. With GTA V taking up 70GB alone, it won’t take many AAA games to clog up the Blade’s storage.

While a 512GB hard drive is forgivable for a laptop , it’s less excusable  And even if Razer’s reasoning is that it doesn’t want to drive up the price further, it would at least be nice to have the option to upgrade to a 1TB model.

Onto more positive news, the RTX 2080 model of the Razer Blade 15 showcases excellent read and write speeds at 3280.8 MB/s and 1859.6 MB/s respectively. I haven’t seen any other gaming laptop match these scores in the past six months. This means the Razer Blade 15 will be seriously nippy when saving or loading files stored in the laptop.
The Razer Blade 15 sacrifices battery life for GPU performance

With such a sleek form and ultra-strong components, the Razer Blade 15 was never going to have a long-lasting battery life. I’ve found gaming laptops to only last 5 hours on average anyway.

However, I was still dismayed to find the Razer Blade 15 could only just about muster 4 hours with casual browsing and video playback simulated via the benchmark software Powermark.
Want a closer look at how the battery fared? Check out the Razer Blade 15 Battery review page for the full details

While I didn’t get time to test the battery for gaming, expect it to be significantly shorter than the 4-hour figure, especially if playing a high-end game like Far Cry or Metro Exodus.

I’ve found with other Razer laptops that switching off the RGB lighting on the keyboard can boost the battery life by another hour or two sometimes, but I don’t really see much value to this considering this is one of the key features that transforms the Blade 15 from a slab of aluminium to a seriously good looking gaming laptop.
Should I buy the Razer Blade 15 (2019)?

I’m a big fan of Razer laptops. They always boast quality and stylish designs, while offering a performance that can outgun the majority of the competition. The new RTX Razer Blade 15 gaming portables are no different. However, the added cost of the RTX graphics card may just be too much to forgive this time around.

Ray tracing is certainly a fantastic feature, providing an extra polish to stunning environments in the likes of Metro Exodus and Battlefield 5, but since ray tracing is currently limited to two games, negatively impacts frame rates without DLSS and is at times too subtle an effect to justify such a massive price hike, I’m not convinced the technology is ready to be a major selling point just yet.


While it’s certainly no ultrabook, the new Razer Blade 15 is shockingly light

If you’re happy to fling your money about and fancy one of the most powerful gaming laptops on the market, the Razer Blade 15 will at least give you a performance to brag about. But if you’re looking for value with your gaming laptop purchase, there are better alternatives on offer.
Verdict

The Razer Blade 15 may offer ray tracing and one of the best performances currently found in a gaming laptop, but the lack of DLSS support, G-Sync and 1TB storage make that sky-high price difficult to justify.




Performance


It's only been about a year since the original Blade 15 and the number of SKUs are starting to become a bit confusing. This latest Advanced Model pairs an Nvidia RTX GPU with the brand new Intel Gen 9 Core i7-9750H to supplant last year's gen 8 Coffee Lake-H Core i7-8750H. There are no Core i9-9880H options here as Razer says it doesn't offer enough of a performance boost when gaming to warrant its own SKU. We certainly don't disagree based on our experience with a Core i9-9880H MSI laptop, but we believe its omission on the Blade 15 is also likely related to thermals.

System RAM is overclockable via Intel XMP and expandable up to 64 GB across the two SODIMM slots compared to "only" 32 GB on the Blade 15 Base Model.

LatencyMon shows poor suitability of real-time audio even with WLAN dsiabled.






Processor
CineBench R15


Multi-thread performance is roughly 18 percent faster than the Core i7-8750H in the older Blade 15 Advanced Model according to CineBench R15. When running CineBench R15 Multi-Thread in a loop, we can observe an 11 percent dip in performance to imply that maximum Turbo Boost clock rates are short-lived once again. Even so, the i7-9750H is able to maintain a slight performance advantage over the i7-8750H at all times even after accounting for any throttling as shown by our graph below.

Certain systems with the older Core i7-8750H can run faster than our i7-9750H should it offer better Turbo Boost sustainability. The Alienware m15, for example, is able to maintain a slight lead over the newer i7-9750H in our Razer at the cost of higher core temperatures.

See our dedicated page on the Core i7-9750H for more technical information and benchmark comparisons.

System Performance


PCMark benchmarks rank our Blade 15 RTX 2080 Max-Q just slightly ahead of the Blade 15 RTX 2070 Max-Q by a few percentage points across the board. Even the Blade Stealth is just 8 percent behind in the Essentials benchmark meaning that users won't notice the performance advantage of the Blade 15 during day-to-day browsing until more demanding tasks are presented.

We experienced no software or hardware issues during our time with the test unit.

Storage Devices


Unlike most other OEMs who source from multiple SSD manufacturers, we respect the fact that Razer sources most if not all of its SSDs from Samsung for its Blade 15 series. This means that you can expect to have a Samsung drive if purchasing a Blade laptop directly from Razer. Samsung drives are typically much faster when it comes to sequential write rates when compared to other NVMe SSDs from Toshiba, Lite-On, or others.

Razer Blade 15 Gaming Laptop 2019: Intel Core i7

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