I was in a dimly lit room in Vegas, CES
2014. I was in the middle of a meeting with a shady character. Minlang Tan and
I were sitting across from each other on couches. I had recently given the Razer
Blade 14 2013 edition a mostly positive
review, but I was in the middle of laying into him about how frustrating
that notebook had been for me because I thought it was basically perfect if it
wasn't for the TN screen. Midway through he kind of started smiling and then
finally he said, "Okay, so Lionus, then what you're saying is that if I fix the
screen for you in the next iteration, you'll call it perfect on
camera." Not being able to think of anything else I wanted changed, I
agreed. Let's find out if I held up my end of the bargain. Is the Razer Blade
2014
perfect? With its power loss protection, affordability, and performance, the
SP920 from Adata makes upgrading to an SSD remarkably safe and simple. So, here
is my review of the 2014 Blade 14. And
apart from my customary complaint that Razer really needs to fix their bloody
product naming scheme, I may have to give this my first ever editor's choice
award. It's expensive, but it's a truly
remarkable piece of technology. On top of ditching the rubbish panel type,
Razer quadrupled the pixel count to an extremely sharp 3200 by 1800, made it a
10point multi-touch screen, and they improved the core specs of it as well.
So, we're getting an upgrade to a fourth gen Core i7472HQ quad core with
hyperthreading. We're getting an upgrade to a GTX 870M with 3 gigs of GDDDR5
memory, which is remarkable given the form factor. That's anywhere from 60 to
100% faster in realworld games versus
the last gen Blade 14. And as long as it's running at full speed, which
amazingly on a flat surface it does, we're getting 2.5 GHz on the VRAMm and a
slightly boosted overbase 967 MHz on the
GPU in heaven with the graphics core running at 82° and the CPU running at
77°. On battery, these values dip a little bit down to around 875 MHz core
and 2 GHz RAM. But I guess that's to help conserve battery life. Although I
still got a very respectable, if not overwhelming, 45 minutes of continuous
3D use out of it. Not bad considering
its size. All right, so let's move on to the physical overview. The Power Brick
is incredibly small for 150 W, just like last time. And that's about it for
accessories. Onto the machine, it features an aluminum unibody
construction that gives off a definite Apple would make notebooks like this if
they were cool vibe. that also assists with cooling and keeps it extremely
light at just under four and a half pounds or about 2 kilos. It's got an
illuminated Razor logo on the back with subtle sort of accent bumps and
basically it looks just like the Last Blade 14, which means it is still
beautiful. The bottom has two cooling intakes and two rubber feet to keep the
notebook from sliding around. Then moving to the left side, we've got power
in, two USB 3 ports, and a headphone/microphone combo jack.
Finally, on the right is a Kensington lock, an HDMI output, and another USB 3
port, which brings us around to the top. The trackpad has a very pleasing finish
and satisfyingly clicky, if a little bit
narrow, dedicated left and right buttons. The speakers are unhindered by
obstructions and sound loud, even if they're not particularly deep and
boommy. The power button sits below the screen, above the exhaust that spits hot
air out above the keyboard here. and that keyboard. Razer has outdone
themselves here. The layout is spacious and nearly perfect. Every key is
programmable. The backlight has an extravagant 20 levels of illumination.
And the keys have a satisfying tactile clickiness that is
unlike any other chicklet type notebook that I have ever used. It is
outstanding. Now, I know I already kind of awarded it
an editor's choice, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to ask for a few things to be improved in the next
revision. And number one is actually related to the next stop in our tour,
the screen. The resolution makes it super sharp whenever text scales
correctly, and colors and viewing angles of the screen are much better than the
last chip, like worlds better. But there's still a noticeable color shift
when viewing offc center. And although it makes up for it somewhat with an
incredibly bright backlight and therefore a very solid contrast ratio,
black levels of this screen are not as deep as I'd like, especially for use in
a dimly lit room. Number two, Razer, the
memory is soldered on and you only gave us 8 gigs. That's good enough for today,
but what about tomorrow? I regularly use 6 gigs of RAM on my desktop just
browsing the web. The 256 gig skew and
up need to have 16 gigs of RAM for this machine to last long enough to justify
the sticker price, especially if it's not going to be upgradeable. And number
three, well, I think we got just enough USB3 ports. And while I appreciate the
upgrade to Intel's solid 7260 AC wireless solution, I don't think a
gaming machine is complete without an Ethernet port, even if it requires an
adapter or something. And then while we're at it, I would have much rather seen mini DisplayPort in the place of
HDMI out due to its higher resolution support and ability to be inexpensively
adapted to anything else. But that's it.
It's all I got. It's an engineering marvel. I mean, out of my measly four
complaints, one of them could have been resolved with a $25 USB Ethernet
adapter. A trivial amount of money for anyone buying a Blade 14. Which I guess
leads into one more like extra bonus criticism. One that's very different
from the others. and that I don't expect Razer to be able to fix it anytime soon.
The Blade 14 is very, very expensive. I
don't have to like it, but I do understand it. And that's the reason why
I'm not taking its editor's choice award away for costing as much as my car for a
512 gig model. For the same price, you
can of course get a much more powerful gaming desktop or even a much more
powerful gaming notebook. But this is a luxury item that a lot of R&D went into.
So, someone has to pay those engineers and that's why it costs this much.
Sadly, it's too expensive for my tastes. But for affluent gamers who want
something beautifully crafted that they can take on the road with them, this
notebook will absolutely annihilate similarly crafted machines like Apple's
13-inch MacBook Pro. So, here's the conclusion. With network streaming
gaming technology advancing so quickly right now, how longived thin and light
gaming notebooks will be as a category remains to be seen. But one thing's for
sure in my mind. Right now it's alive and this one rules the roost. If you can
afford one, I wholeheartedly recommend the Blade 14 2014. Nothing is perfect,
so I'm reneggging on that deal where I have to call it perfect. But I will say
it's the first notebook I've ever seen that just plain doesn't feel like a
compromise in any way. It's thin, light, beautiful, and powerful, and it's my new
favorite. Well done, Razer. Thank you guys very much for watching. Like this
video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it. Leave a comment under the video letting me know what you think of
the Razer Blade 2014. If you think that Razer should really let me keep this
instead of making me send it back, which is making me very, very sad right now as
I try to finish this review. Anyway, in
the video description, you can check out the support link, guys, where you can
buy cool t-shirts like this to maybe help me afford a Razer Blade 2014. You
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