Razer Neutered the Blade.
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,226 words · ~6 min read
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now it's hardly a secret that i like the razer blade their 2018 model addressed
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almost every previous problem except the price at 2400 us dollars it
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is darn expensive but
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what if you could save a buck by cutting
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that's some razor humor there some of the bells and whistles well razer had
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the same idea this is the base version
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of the razer blade a slightly lower powered slightly thicker model with a
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significant price cut but has this made the blade more
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accessible or just worse well you guys are smart
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kids who read the title before you click a video so i guess you already know the
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answer
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compared to the advanced version of the blade the most obvious change is the
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thickness but in return we ditch the proprietary power connector and we get
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gigabit Ethernet and that's on top of the blade's already very solid i o and
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i'm happy to say that the base version has actually kept Thunderbolt 3 support
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but the extra thickness does take away some of the sex appeal and while the
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overall look and feel is still pretty
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good the bottom feels a lot more plasticky
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and cheap CPU performance also stays solid though thanks to a six core core
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i7 processor and the addition of two
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terabytes of spinning storage on top of the 240 gig boot SSD means that you'll
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be able to bring a massive game library with you on the go and there's even more
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good news for years razer blades were
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known for sounding like an f1 car mating with a leaf blower and although the
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basic blade does get a bit louder than the advanced model it is much better
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than the older rounded versions so far so good
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until now the real sacrifice that was made for the base blade was in the
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graphics department the reduction to a gtx 1060 max-q leaves some gaming
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performance to be desired now it's quite a competent 1080p gaming
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experience and in a vacuum this machine would be getting a stellar
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review but the issue is that other computer
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makers exist ASUS zephyrus leaves the basic blade in
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the dust with its gtx 1070 max-q
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and this thing isn't even an outlier making matters worse the extra FPS
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wouldn't even help us much because the basic is only available with a 1080p
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60hz display which is a real bummer if they at least offered maybe for like a
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hundred dollars more or something a 120 hertz or a 144 hertz screen option they
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could make a real play for esports gamers with this machine titles like
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overwatch and league of legends would easily run at that frame rate on a 1060
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max q so once again
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the zephyrus whops the base blade's butt with a 144
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hertz display on top of its better specs
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and then adding insult to injury the webcam on the zephyrus also pawns the
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blade basic another thing that got a considerable downgrade from the advance
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q so that means that the blade basic is now a tough sell for performance
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enthusiasts esports players and for game
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streamers that's rough but the thing is that while
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the zephyrus does punt the base blade out of the park when it comes to gaming
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like have you ever looked at this thing it has its own issues if you try to use
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it as a lap top like on your lap it just doesn't work between
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the flappy doodle thing at the bottom and the keyboard being so close to you
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there is absolutely no way to get comfortable and while the minuscule
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track pad crammed over on the right here is more usable than you might expect the
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blades is one of the best on the market it's large
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accurate and really my go-to example for how track pads should be done on a
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Windows machine too bad i can't say the same about the
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keyboard so while the basic blade wins for gaming
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on the go i'm really disappointed that they didn't manage to keep the same key
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switches as the advanced model trading them for a considerably mushier
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alternative they're bad enough that if you can find a desk it's safe to say
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that typing and gaming would be more enjoyable on the zephyrus at least until
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the battery dies so one of the greatest strengths of the new 2018 blade is its
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massive battery uh
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but hold on a moment remember how the base blade got a two terabyte hard drive
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why isn't this available on the much more expensive advanced blade
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well you don't save enough space for something like that magically and when
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we did open up the base blade we were greeted with
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well the man behind the curtain so to speak
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there it is so we have swapped out the 80 watt hour
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battery in the advanced for a 65 watt
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hour in order to make room for this hard drive
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on a more positive note at least the upgradability is solid in here with both
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our m.2 drive and our ddr4 sodiums
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easily accessible along with their wi-fi card if you're into that sort of thing
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so we've talked a lot about the zephyrus in
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this video almost as much as the base blade and that's because in many ways it
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is the clearly better laptop if you're looking to do a fair bit of gaming the
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better display and graphics card make the zephyrus the easy choice
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but what about the folks who only occasionally game
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well for you guys honestly i don't think i can really recommend the basic blade either not in
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a world where the dell xps 15 exists for the same price it does cost you a
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substantial graphics downgrade to a gtx 1050 ti
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but the much better screen keyboard general build quality and massive 97
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watt hour battery make it superior in pretty much every other scenario with
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the advanced version of the razer blade 2018 we loved razer's no compromises
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approach it's a great gaming machine but it's also usable day-to-day
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then with the basic what we realized was that once razer started making
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compromises while still commanding a relatively high
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price tag they opened themselves up to competition from all sides making this
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machine still good like just to be very clear
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it's still good it's just harder to recommend so thanks
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for watching guys if you disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or
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maybe consider checking out where to buy this sophie featured at the link in the video description also down there so i'm
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ready to show you closer like this one on our community forum which you should totally join
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what i just want to be respectful of the viewers time they don't want to sit through that
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but they have to anyway it's like 25 seconds or something
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they don't have to we can't force them to do anything
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or can we