The "New" Razer Blade - Better than Ever
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,868 words · ~9 min read
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the latest iteration of one of the only two products to ever win an editor's
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Choice Award from me is finally here
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this is the new Razer Blade from well
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Razer Mast drop is currently hosting a drop for a set of csgo themed keycaps
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learn more about them and many other awesome drops set the link in the video
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description so let's get this out of the way right off the Hop Razer is actually
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calling this thing the new Razer Blade are youing kidding me for starters Razer
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you already had a product called the Razer Blade it had a 17in primary screen
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and this weird supplementary one with a trackpad built into it that was why you
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called the 14-in model the blade 14 when
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you launched it in 2013 do you even remember this but okay fine I'll forgive
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that if for no reason other than that you've already been doing it for a few
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years at this point and while we're at it I'll forgive the way you call each
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new iteration the same damn thing forcing retailers and reviewers to
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augment these with long ass part numbers Andor release years you didn't start
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that I blame Apple for that no no the reason I'm mad is that you keep
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compounding the problem you've actually removed it now but shortly after the
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launch of this one you actually had last last year's model on the site as the
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blade QHD plus something it was never called and something that's not helpful
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because the new blade that you had on the site at the same time also has a QHD
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plus screen I mean stop this who do you
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think you are
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NVIDIA anyway with that out of my system
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let's get down to business the new blade
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features an 0.7 in thick 4.25 lb unibody
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aluminum chassis with decent stereo speakers and as I mentioned before a
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14in 3200x 1800 EXO LCD just like last
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year and while the panel still Sports a
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larger than ideal bezel still doesn't handle off angle viewing as well as the
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best IPS displays out there and still lacks support for g-sync or higher
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refresh rates I understand that the bezel is Big to allow for more room for
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cooling and it still got the 10-point multi-touch screen something that most
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other gaming laptops lack which is a tradeoff that I personally will take I
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didn't realize quite how often I use it to zoom in or reposition something on
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the screen until I ordered an XPS 15 for review you can check that out here by
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the way that didn't have it also back
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for another round is NVIDIA's Maxwell architecture GTX 970m graphics processor
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it's unclear if anything about the Silicon or or binning process has been
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tuned to improve thermals or battery life both of which are improved but we
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do know that it's been upgraded to 6 gigs of vram this time around let's take
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this opportunity then to run through the rest of the specs the Haswell 4700hq
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quadcore has been booted out the door in favor of a shiny new Skylake core i7
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6700 HQ which I left running the id64
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stress test the entire time I wrote this review only to see it reach about 80 to
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85° Max at room temperature an
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acceptable result though one that does come at an acoustical cost and it's one
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that won't hold true with a GPU load added to the mix so the thermal system
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improvements seem to be more focused on keeping heat away from the user's hands
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with actual CPU temperatures as a secondary objective since it does still
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throttle here's a shot though with our thermal camera to show how well they
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achieved the primary objective very
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impressive my favorite notebook webcam and its excellent microphone return yay
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the old Intel Wireless gets replaced with a killer 1535 solution that I was
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skeptical about but that behaved very well and managed some of the fastest
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most consistent Wireless file transfers that I've seen 16 gigs of ddr4 RAM is
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now standard on every model and storage across the board has been upgraded to
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NVMe instead of SATA based solid state
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drives they are using the value PM 951
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model instead of the 950 Pro from Samsung but this is still a big
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Improvement so there's nothing to complain about here but nothing really
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Earth shattering either the big stuff actually happened on the outside at
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first glance it looks the same but IO
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has gotten much much better on the left you'll find power in magnetic next time
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please a couple USB 3 5 gbit ports and a headphone microphone Jack then on the
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right you will find an HDMI 1.4b port another USB 3 and okay so this is the
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only actual Improvement nothing else changed a USB typ C connector that can
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handle an additional USB device or
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Thunderbolt 3 with DisplayPort sick
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right type c is just so cool in so many
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ways little things like charging your typc phone faster all the way up to big
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things like plugging in high-speed external storage devices or even an
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external GPU with products like the Razer core set to be available very very
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shortly the one thing really missing here for me is an SD card reader and
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then it would be dare I say it perfect
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there's more too I can't quantify this but the touchpad definitely feels like
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it tracks more smoothly and more consistently and the keyboard has also
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been upgraded it is still my same favorite laptop keyboard from a tactile
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standpoint and now that that Luke has one his words were something along the
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lines of I never really understood why you're always raving about this thing
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but wow I get it now except that it now
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has the same RGB upgrade as the blade stealth so gone then is the gamery font
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you've got all the usual controls that you would expect out of an RGB keyboard
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you wave this breathe that change color there and I think it's something stupid
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like 14 different brightness level adjustments with the only downgrade and
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this is a huge bummer for me actually being that backlighting on the secondary
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functions of the F keys and the number row razor tells me this is due to the
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position of the switch but frankly I'd have preferred a smaller font and just
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kind of cramming it over there is no longer back lit which sucks because
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these are the things that I'm most likely to have trouble remembering in
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the dark let's move on to the gaming
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experience that frankly hasn't changed much some games that push both CPU and
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GPU very very hard will cause you to encounter your thermal limits and the
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970m is still not beefy enough to really
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game it higher than 1080p in most titles
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if you want to turn details up so there's not much to report here but one
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key difference is that whether it's gaming or whether it's productivity the
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new blad's battery life is better enough
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that I actually noticed the difference day to day I didn't turn the keyboard
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lights completely off per the reviewer guide but I did Dim them to about the
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same level that I normally use about 30% which leads us into the conclusion I
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think the blade 14 2015 was already good
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enough that it was my first choice with the blade stealth given how little I
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game on the go and how freaking light yet well constructed it is being the
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first device that I've encountered that looked even capable of dethroning it
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only to never even enter the ring due to its 8 gig RAM limitation so then
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shouldn't be a shocker that the new blade 2016 model is going to hold its
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Throne almost everything about the old blade I cannot emphasize enough how butt
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hurt I am about the half key illumination is undeniably superior and
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that's impressive but what's really impressive is that they've done all of
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this while significantly lowering the razor tax as I call it in the past
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friends would ask me they'd see this laptop they'd be like that looks sick
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should I get one and I say wow I really
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like mine but that's easy for me to say I didn't pay for it it's very very
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expensive well that changes here and I am really liking the path raisers on
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bringing down the cost of their machines but without the compromises to spec or
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build quality that have made PCS a
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second class citizen compared to MacBooks for anyone who wants a
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beautiful well- constructed mobile device good job guys keep it up and good
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job to Ting keep up what you guys are doing they're the mobile carrier that is
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focused on customer service and customer satisfaction first I mean yeah sure
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there's all the little details like only paying for exactly what you use with the
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average bill being only 24 bucks a month there's the whole thing where you can go
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on their site that's Linus doing.com we've got that Linked In the video
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description enter your last few bills from your existing carrier and find out
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easily in just a few minutes if Ting will be cheaper for you but the most
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important thing is that when you call Ting if there's some kind of a problem
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let's say something goes wrong someone picks up and says hello can I help you
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there is no automated phone system not because they couldn't figure
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out how to do that but because they don't think it's a good idea they're
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very customer Centric and if you want to
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become a customer they've got an offer for you they will cover up to 25% of
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your cancellation fee so that's up to 75 bucks and if you use our link again
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that's lin.com you'll also get 25 bucks
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in service credit or towards a new device so go check it out so thanks for
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