I've had a review unit of the Razer Blade late 2016 since launch. In fact, I
bought a dozen of the first ones off the production line back in October so I
could box them up and give them out at my staff Christmas party. So, why then
did it take me so long to do this review? because I was waiting for a very
special blade. A one-of-a-kind signed LT
edition blade that will soon be in the hands of a very lucky winner who
graciously agreed to let me showcase his beautiful prize in my review before
sending it along. So, here we go.
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in the video description. The unboxing experience
really hasn't changed a lot since the original Razer Blade 14. You get a
laptop, Razer's characteristically compact 165W power adapter, and some
papers to accidentally throw away before you remember about the Earth. And in
fact, not much has changed outwardly about the machine either, aside from the
textured LT design by Ed, which you
won't find on the one that you buy at the store anyway. It still rocks a
normal non-magnetized power cord. [ __ ] magnets. Hint hint Razer to go
with its three USB 3 ports, audio jack, Thunderbolt 3 port, and HDMI port. And
like it basically looks like the same damn computer, still with the black,
still with the rubber feet, still with the dime thickness, and still with the
bright green Razor logo on the back that causes gamers to rush the stands and
professionals to refuse to go into meetings with their laptops because
they're too embarrassed. Even most of the key specs are the same. CPU same,
RAM same, battery same. Though the
maximum NVMe SSD size got doubled to 1
TB and the GTX 970M from last gen has
been bumped to a GTX 1060, which means
the newest Blade is a very capable little VR machine, and that both the
Thunderbolt and HDMI port can handle 4K
60 Hz. Now, not that a 1060 will run
most games at 4K 60 frames pers anyway,
which is where my favorite difference from the last gen comes in. The Blade is
now available with a glass topped 3200 by800 touchscreen or a matte 1920x 1080
non-touchscreen that's cheaper, saves a little battery, avoids any issues with
poor resolution scaling in Windows, and translates to up to double the frame
rate in games. Now, obviously, you can
turn down the touchscreen model to 1080p, but then you're dealing with
interpolation instead of a crisp native resolution image. And for me personally,
the difference in sharpness has a much much smaller impact on my gaming
experience than the massive difference in frame rates that make animations on
the 1080p late 2016 two to three times
faster than other blades. I mean, sure,
a Razer Core upgrade would boost performance as well, but that things
like 500 bucks plus a video card, so it
got some upgrades, but many of the complaints from previous Blades do still
exist. They run hot. Interestingly, the
higher frame rates of the 1080p model puts more strain on the CPU while
gaming. They are loud when you're pushing them hard, and the input lag on
the mere 60 Hz display with no G-Sync is
far from the best I've seen on what is purportedly a gaming notebook. With that
said, the webcam is still pretty good, even if it hasn't improved much, if at
all. The trackpad took a major leap forward in responsiveness and
acceleration curve tuning in both 2016 models. And the keyboard thankfully
bears no resemblance whatsoever to the one in the higherend Blade Pro. It's one
of my favorite laptop keyboards ever in
spite of the lack of illumination of the secondary functions. a downgrade from
the 2015 model that seems to have been born from a desire for RGB backlighting
and one that bothers me pretty much every day. So, on the surface then, not
a lot has changed, even going back a few generations. But when you look closer,
Razer has been absolutely refining the experience with the improvement to
surface temperatures of the device during use being one of the most
noticeable day-to-day. And while the Blade has been good enough for a while
for me to use as a work first, game
second kind of person, it wasn't until
this generation that it was good enough for me to spend real money on it,
dropping over $25,000 on these machines for my entire
staff. So, in spite of the very small
improvements, do I think the Blade Late 2016 is the best blade yet? You're damn
right I do. Let's just hope that they don't trash the 2017 model by putting
that awful keyboard from the Blade Pro on it. Or the next time my employees get
new computers, they might be from
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TechTips in the how did you hear about us
section. So, thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to
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has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum, which you should
totally join. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next. So, click
that little button in the top right corner to check out my review of the
Blade Pro, the bigger, better brother.