Razer Blade 14 Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
3,091 words · ~15 min read
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Adata XPG V2 memory kits are optimized for the latest Intel gaming platforms.
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Check the link in the video description for more details. Welcome to my unboxing
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and overview of the Razer Blade 14 from well, Razer. So, first of all, it comes
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packed in soft foam. So, it's already my favorite notebook ever. No, I'm just
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kidding. Okay, it does compact in soft foam, but it doesn't get too many points
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for that because it's an extremely expensive notebook. For a 256 gig
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configuration, you're looking at about 2Gs, putting it right up there in the
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Apple echelon in terms of pricing. But the real question is, does it deserve to
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be there? In terms of the unboxing experience, we're going to do a very,
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very short version of it. This is what the box looks like. Foam, typical green,
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beautiful razor packaging as we've come to expect from them. And other than
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that, there's not a whole lot in here. So, there's a little bundle of what you
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typically come to expect. So, you get a couple of razor stickers as well as a
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microfiber cloth. Honestly, it's not going to do you a whole lot of good. The
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black finish is absolutely beautiful, but you can never get it quite perfect
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as far as I can tell. I even tried uh using some alcohol in order to get it
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off, but honestly, it really isn't that bad either. At least it's black, unlike
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these silver finishes that the fingerprints really do show up on. And
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you also get a letter from the CEO and chief gamer of Razer, as well as a quick
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start guide. Not going to worry too much about any of that. Other than that, all
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you'll find in the box is their very sleek, very sexy power brick. This is
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150 W power brick, but as you can see from my traditional phone size
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comparison. Here's an HTC1. Is extremely small for 150 W brick. Razer claims they
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spent several times as much as most manufacturers will on a power brick in
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order to have it fit in this form factor. This was extremely important to them because they were going for
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portability as well as gaming performance with this particular
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machine. So, speaking of portability, it is only 0.66 in thick. So, we're going
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to go ahead and give you a look at it physically. Here's that phone comparison
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for you again. It weighs only 4.1 lb. It is 14 in. And it is not an ultrabook
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because it has well not because but it
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has much more performance than an ultrabook. In spite of the fact that the
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form factor looks an awful lot like an ultrabook. This has a full-fledged GTX
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765M. Razer has done nothing in terms of
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downclocking that graphics card. It also has a Core i7 quad core processor. So
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that my friends is what makes this not an ultrabook. It is a 472 HQ which means
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it runs at 2.2 2 GHz base, 3.2 GHz
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boost. So you can see we're running Crisis 1 right now. So the answer is,
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can it run Crisis? Yes, I'm running at very high 1600 my 900 at the native
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resolution. The keyboard is quite well spaced out considering that this is a
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14-inch notebook. speakers are quite loud. Although, as with most notebook
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sound, it's not the most, you know, rich, gorgeous sound you've ever heard,
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but it is certainly functional for gaming, even in an environment where
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there's a fair amount of ambient noise, such as at a land party. So, back to the
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keyboard here. There are 20 different incremental steps for the keyboard
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backlight, all the way from completely off to an extremely vibrant green that
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reminds me of the Black Widow Ultimate 2013. The keyboard is also fully
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compatible with Synapse 2.0, know, meaning you can remap every key to
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whatever you want and program advanced macros. I wish there was a number pad,
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but given that they would have had to sacrifice the spacing of it, and it is
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actually quite a satisfying tactile keyboard. You can hear there's a bit of
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a click. The one key that I would or the two keys I would really complain about
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are the space bar has a bit of a tiny
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sort of um plasticky feel to it. And then I don't really like arrow pad
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configurations like this, but I don't really find myself using the arrow keys
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much. these days. The touchpad I've seen other people complain about, but I
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personally didn't find it that obnoxious. Um, people were saying they
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prefer a clicky touchpad. I don't. I prefer dedicated buttons at the bottom,
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and that is exactly what you find with the Razer Blade 14. However, there was a
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little bit of glitchiness in fine movements sometimes when selecting icons
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and then clicking by touching the touchpad. It's shown up a couple times
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for me, but not a ton. And hopefully this is something that they can fix in
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sort of a silent revision after the review units go out. This is a review
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unit, not a finished one. For physicality, it's very bare bones. So
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along the right hand side of the notebook, we find USB 3, HDMI, and a
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security lock. On the back of the notebook, Whoa, there's nothing. Where
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are all the air vents? I'll show you that later. Don't worry, guys. On the
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left side of the notebook, we find power in. It fits very snugly. This is a huge
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oversight on one of my notebooks, an MSI gaming notebook I got a few years back.
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I think they've addressed it now, but the power plug just slips out a lot of
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the time. So, I do like to see a snug power plug. Would prefer magnetic. Two
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USB 3.0 ports on this side as well as a headphone microphone combo jack. Then on
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the front, we find a whole lot more of nothing. The hinge is very easy to open.
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So, I mean, I guess this is kind of unfair to it, but even holding it up in the air, I can get that separated. You
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don't have to wedge two fingers in there in order to get it open. And how does
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the ventilation work? How the devil did they fit a GTX 765M and hold on, I'm
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just going to turn the sound off. A GTX 765M and a quad core into this form
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factor. Two ventilation fans down here. So, we're running Crisis right now.
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Actually, I'm going to unpause the game so you guys can get some idea of how
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loud these fans are. They are louder than a silent notebook, but here, check
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this out. So, I'm putting this right next to my boom mic so you guys can see
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what I'm doing here. They are quieter than my Aspire S7 which
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is more of an ultrabook but doesn't have a GPU and doesn't have actually I don't
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even think it has about a 6 hour battery life. So battery wise you can get anywhere from around 5 to 6 hours out of
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it in a light to medium usage case scenario. However, when you're gaming
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obviously that's going to be significantly reduced. So these two fans
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on the bottom here vent air aha up here.
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So, it's actually completely stealthed up at the top of the keyboard. There are
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two major exhaust ports here and here. Now, the advantage of this design is
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that you don't have to look at any exhaust vents. The disadvantage is it
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means the top of the notebook does get very toasty in a gaming scenario. And
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because it's using an aluminum uni-body chassis, that heat does tend to spread
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out a fair bit. So, what we're going to be doing uh at near the end of the video
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is I'm going to take my temperature probe right here and I'm going to be
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running this game and I'm going to stick the probe to various parts of the notebook to give you guys an idea of how
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exactly it runs. Even if it means the heat gets spread out, that's a good
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thing for one reason because it's part of what allows that massive power inside
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this notebook to be possible in this form factor. And aluminum compared to
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plastic, there's just no comparison. There's no flex to it. It feels good. It
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reminds me a lot of something like the black MacBook Pro back in the day before
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Apple kaiba that which I think was one of the most beautiful notebooks ever.
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It's stylish and elegant. So on the top you've just got a couple of subtle
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accents as well as an illuminated Razer logo. I'm going to go ahead and turn it
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back on so you can see the illumination there. on the side. The only thing that
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reveals that this is a gaming notebook is this tiny green accents in things
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like the USB ports and then the green backlit keyboard. Other than that, it's
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something that you could easily sit in a boardroom meeting with and you wouldn't
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have to feel like a total weirdo. Part of the way that it achieves that long
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battery life, making it suitable for business use, is the fact that it
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employs NVIDIA Optimus technology. So, that means that the dedicated graphics
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card pretty much turns off when you're not using it. And Intel's new Haswell
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fourth generation core processors are so efficient when they're only being used a
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little bit that well all of a sudden this is possible. I remember saying when
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the original Blade launched, this is interesting, but what I'm really excited
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for is NextG. NextG is finally here.
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Now, with that said, this notebook is not perfect. It lacks an SD card reader.
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It lacks a dedicated hardwired Ethernet port. However, the wireless end solution
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does use Bigfoot killer optimizations in order to prioritize your gaming traffic.
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So, that's at least better than nothing. But the one that really bothers me is
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the screen. So, I'm going to get you guys to come in and have a look at the screen. So, check this out. So, that's
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your straight-on viewing angle. If you guys have been watching my channel for
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any amount of time, you'll know that I am a huge advocate for nonTN panels. And
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this panel is about as TN as it gets. The colors are not as vibrant or deep as
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you'll get with an IPS uh pls or even a
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VA panel of some sort. And the viewing angles are quite um well, they're some
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of the worst I've seen on a notebook that costs more than you know between
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$500 and $1,000 in a very long time. And I found that very disappointing. I for
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one am not disappointed about the resolution. 1600 by 900 is very
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acceptable considering that a 765M is
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not, you know, a desktop GTX 780. So,
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you're better off to have slightly lower resolution natively and be able to run
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at native res rather than running at a non-native res in your games. And the
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pixel density at 14 in for a 1600 by 900
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screen is actually not that bad. Like, I don't I don't mind that at all. Um
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although I've seen complaints about that from other reviewers. This particular
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configuration has eight gigs of RAM, a 256 gig SSD, a 70Wh hour battery,
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Bluetooth 4.0, Windows 8, as well as a
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built-in HD webcam, and some of the things about this notebook that I also
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find exceptional are, check this out. Partly due to the fact that it's an SSD,
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partly due to the fact that it's extremely fast, and partly due to the fact that it has no bloatware. Here's
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our wake from sleep time. Also, it boots from cold in about 12 seconds. So, this
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is I mean, yay, Windows 8. It's one of the few things that really truly is
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great about it. Speakers are I think I already covered that loud enough for
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gaming, but you know, nothing really super special. And I think that pretty
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much covers it. So, let's go ahead and show you guys some crisis gameplay as
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well as give you some temperature readings from various points on the
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notebook. To start our thermal tests, we went with what we found was the hottest
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spot where air was being exhausted from the Blade 14. So, that was right at this
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point right here. and it's about
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50° when we measure the temperature of the notebook in that particular spot.
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Now, with that said, you don't touch it here, although it does feel very warm to
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the touch, but Oh, look at that. Me touching it reduced the temperature.
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That's awesome. But we are going to take some temperatures at other places where
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it might be more important. Next, we taped our thermal probe to the Q key,
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which is right next to the W key. So, that's typically where your gamer is
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going to want to rest their fingers. And we found that to be around 29 to 30° in
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a gaming load. The other place where a gamer is typically going to rest on the
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notebook is the palm rest. So, we've taken another dab of thermal goop and
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taped down our sensor here where we're getting anywhere from around 30 to 32°.
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It does tend to fluctuate a little bit. Um, so the temperature at least is quite
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consistent from the WD all the way to the palm rest. However, that is quite
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warm and it will cause some sweaty hand syndrome. Now, years ago, the system
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manufacturers wanted to move away from calling these things laptops and switch
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to calling them notebooks because they didn't intend for you to actually
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operate them in your lap because that interfered with cooling. So when we are
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taking a temperature from the middle of the bottom of the notebook, you can see
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that gets quite toasty. Guys, this is a
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notebook, not a laptop at
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45° 46°. Now, the heat being transferred
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into your lap is quite toasty. So, while you're going to get some sweaty hand
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syndrome going on up at the top left here on the keyboard, Razer has
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effectively kept the heat mostly away
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from the top of the notebook. However, on the bottom, it gets quite warm. So,
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I'm going to show you once again where that thermal probe was affixed. The
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closer we get to this edge where the heat is actually being exhausted, the
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well, the more dramatic the temperature increase is. So, right near your knees
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is where it would run the hottest. With all of that said, the Edge14 is an
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absolute marvel of engineering, and it is a miracle that a company that's known
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best for gaming mice and gaming keyboards in only a couple of product
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iterations managed to come out with this. With that said, it's a couple
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grand. Personally, I'll be waiting for the next gen when it's this. Maybe runs
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a little bit cooler or maybe doesn't. maybe has a little bit more performance,
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comes with an IPS screen, and then we're
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really talking about taking some of my money because that's probably going to
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happen. I understand why they used the TN panel. They do tend to have faster
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response times, which for some gamers is more important, but I personally find
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the richer colors um a more engaging experience versus the faster response
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times of a TN. And with that said, IPS panels also do cost more. Don't forget
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to subscribe to Lion's Tech Tips, guys. Leave a comment under the video. Tell me
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what you think of the Razer Blade 14. And as always, wait, don't forget to
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subscribe. Yeah, like the video, too. Do all of those things because it actually is very helpful. So, this is kind of a
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spontaneous uh tearown of the Blade 14. B-roll made a comment that uh we were
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just talking about the cost of this notebook versus other options available on the market, and I said, "Well, you
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know, is an is a MacBook a completely stupid thing to buy?" And he kind of
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went, "Yes." And I said, "Well, okay, but it doesn't have nearly the same kind
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of horsepower as something like this." And he said, "Well, yeah, but it's also
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better built." And I kind of went, "Well, no. I I don't really think so
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because the level of integration that's going on here is outstanding. Plus,
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there are some things that you can do here that you can't necessarily do with
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uh with every MacBook. So, for example, there's an MSA SSD. So, the SSD is
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actually upgraded now or upgradeable. Now, while you can't necessarily upgrade
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everything, you can see all the DDR3 memory is soldered right to the main
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board. You can change, you know, your wireless chipset, it looks like the
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battery should be possibly removable here. We can also see just how flat
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everything is packed within the inside of this notebook. So, there's our two
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cooling fans right here and here. Each of them gets two heat pipes and a very
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small aluminum fin array. So, uh, this
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right here looks like it must be the GPU because I can see the dedicated memory
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around the outside of it. And then this one right here is the CPU. So, I think
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that's pretty much all I wanted to show you guys inside the notebook. And I
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guess this is the old Seinfeld double goodbye. But, uh, farewell again, my
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friends. There goes my phone.