The Razer Blade 14 Is the Goldilocks of Gaming Laptops

any person who has ever tried to purchase a really compact gaming computer has doubtless faced this catch 22 situation: Do you decide upon a much bigger gadget for multiplied efficiency, or sacrifice fps and go together with something smaller that's slightly easier to raise around? Even Razer, a company that's been making gaming laptops for a decade, has struggled with discovering that stability. however with the introduction of the new Blade 14, Razer now has a really compact gaming computer with guide for the most powerful cellular GPUs that you would be able to get nowadays (and an AMD CPU to boot), which ultimately eliminates the should make a choice from dimension and performance. It's not too big and it's not too small, it's simply appropriate.

usual Design in a brand new Dimension

featuring a unibody aluminum chassis with clear minimalist strains, the Blade 14 comes with the equal incredible build and design you get from Razer's other gaming notebooks. That potential the Blade 14 comes with stuff like a per-key RGB backlit keyboard, a webcam with aid for windows howdy face login, upward facing stereo audio system, and a match volume of connectivity for a equipment this measurement, including a considerable HDMI 2.1 port, two USB three.2 category-A ports, two USB three.2 classification-C ports, and a headphone jack. besides the fact that children, it's essential to note that since the Blade 14 is the lone gaming desktop in Razer's portfolio featuring an AMD CPU (Ryzen 9 5900HZ), you don't get support for Thunderbolt 4.

Razer Blade 14 what is it?

A 14-inch gaming computer with massive performance

rate

starts at $1,800 ($2,200 as reviewed)

Like

supports up to an RTX 3080, fantastic build high-quality, 144Hz or 165Hz price shows, potent performance

do not like

expensive, no Thunderbolt 4, can run sizzling, mediocre battery lifestyles

counting on the config, Razer offers a 144Hz 1080p or a 165Hz 2560 x 1440 14-inch display. On our 165Hz overview model, the Blade 14's screen produced an excellent but not principally awesome brightness of 346 nits, and while shades looked bright and colourful, as a result of Razer uses a matte non-touch monitor, the Blade 14's colours aren't quite as vivid as you what you may see on a computing device with a glossy reveal.

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Now i do know some individuals can also take challenge with the Blade 14's just a little cramped keyboard layout, which features smaller than average keycaps for issues like Backspace, again decrease, and its arrows keys, however given Razer's size constraints, I'm no longer too afflicted. happily, typing feels crisp and bouncy, while Razer makes use of every ultimate millimeter on the Blade 14's deck to deliver a big (and quite responsive) glass touchpad.

It's type of the identical thing when it comes to the Blade 14's a bit of significant chin. It's not dangerous enough to make the Blade 14 seem or believe out of date, notwithstanding I do wish Razer had discovered a method to decrease that bezel just a little via including a sixteen:10 aspect ratio screen as a substitute of a sixteen:9 display, which might give you a bit additional room for both gaming and productiveness.

And with the Blade 14 measuring in at 12.fifty nine x eight.sixty six x 0.66 inches, you're getting all this in a computer that's barely greater than Razer's 13-inch Blade Stealth (12 x eight.27 x 0.6 inches).

huge efficiency, Compact kit

here's what you came for: no longer only is the Blade 14 Razer's handiest computer to feature a Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU from AMD (or any AMD CPUs for that count number), the Blade 14 also has 16GB of RAM and can be configured with any one of Nvidia's RTX 30-series GPUs—RTX 3060, RTX 3070, and even the RTX 3080 in case you're so inclined. That's a lot of efficiency to cram into a gadget this dimension, and a marked improvement over what you'd get in the 13-inch Blade Stealth, which tops out with a GTX 1650 TI images card. And it's this aggregate of efficiency that makes all the change.

compared to the Blade Stealth I reviewed last yr, the Blade 14 (a hundred fps) performed twice in addition to Blade Stealth (forty eight fps) in some distance Cry 5 at full HD and ultra pics, which shouldn't be a huge surprise given the difference in GPUs. however still, this comparison indicates a lot extra vigor you're getting through relocating up in measurement simply a splash.

in reality, the Blade 14 has tons extra in common with its greater sibling—the Blade 15—than it does with the Stealth, as both systems characteristic the identical latitude of GPU alternate options, along with an identical degrees of RAM and storage. That spoke of, as a result of the Blade 15's better chassis, it does have extra space to channel sizzling air away from its internals, which outcomes in the Blade 15 having fun with around a ten% performance potential in gaming compared to the Blade 15. That's no longer a trifling penalty, but for americans definitely attempting to min-max on portability, that alte rnate-off might be price it.

the use of the same settings as before in far Cry 5, the Blade 15 pumped out 109 fps versus one hundred fps for the Blade 14. And in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at full HD on maximum settings, it turned into an analogous story, with the Blade 15 averaging 112 fps compared to 99 fps for the Blade 14. That referred to, when we seem to be outside of Razer's camp at different noticeably compact gaming laptops, the Blade 14's performance still compares fairly favorably to techniques like Alienware m15 R5 and the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE, with the Blade 14 (which is actually greater expensive than its rivals) offering as good or greater efficiency across well-nigh all of our productiveness and gaming benchmarks.

Underwhelming Battery lifestyles

With a time of 6 hours and 49 minutes on our video rundown test, the Blade 14's battery life is relatively unremarkable, probably even bordering on a bit of disappointing. programs like MSI's Stealth 15M (7:59), the Alienware m15 R5 (7:27), and the Asus ROG Strix G15 advantage (eight:22) all posted longer runtimes, with Acer's Triton 300 SE (6:11) being some of the few rival programs to no longer out survive the Blade 14. but seeing that all these laptops are greater standard 15-inch methods, this in fact highlights the bounds of inserting all these energy-hungry components into a small chassis with less room for large battery packs.

some other important concerns aside from battery lifestyles are that once beneath full load, the Blade 14's exterior temps can rise quite quickly, to the element where it's not in reality at ease to use in your lap. And, in case you're trying to video game on battery, top efficiency takes a substantial hit too, though with how right away the Blade 14 runs via juice when faraway from an outlet, at that element you're better off dialing down pics settings to enrich battery existence anyhow. and eventually, whereas USB-PD likely can't deal with the vigor necessities the Blade 14 wants (as a minimum now not yet), I definitely hope Razer had found a method to make charging over USB-C the default choice, instead of counting on its proprietary vigour plug. That little trade on my own would practically definitely be a welcome improve and make the Blade 14 much more portable than it already is.

That cost Tag

while the Blade 14 has just a few small weak features and shortcomings, its greatest and most evident draw back is its fee. Now it's real that Razer's gaming laptops have not ever in reality been what any one would call within your budget, but with the Blade 14 beginning at $1,800 for a Ryzen 9 5900 HX CPU, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and an RTX 3060 GPU, it feels like you're paying an even larger top rate to place all these parts in a slightly more compact 14-inch chassis.

This means the greatest argument against the Blade 14 is a gadget just like the ROG Strix G15 potential, which begins at just $1,550 and lines the identical CPU and an equivalent AMD GPU thanks to its Radeon RX 6800 images card. bound, the G15 abilities's construct satisfactory isn't as nice as Razer's machines, it's bigger, and it doesn't even come with effortless aspects like a constructed-in webcam. but when it involves pure cost, the Blade 14 can't rather keep up.

power and Portability

As somebody who regularly has to debate in the event that they wish to deliver a customary 13-inch or 15-inch laptop with them while traveling, the real luxury of the Blade 14 is not truly having to compromise on vigour or portability—the Blade 14 offers you each in spades. It's handy to slip into very nearly any computer bag, and it's bought greater than sufficient oomph to play anything else which you could fairly need, both at home or on the highway. The Blade 14 is a compact but powerful do-every little thing computing device that's handy to lug round. besides the fact that it's now not quite as low in cost as a lot of its competitors, it's challenging not to recognize every little thing you get from one of these small equipment.