The 2015 Razer Blade Review
by Brett Howse on February 11, 2015 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Razer
- Razer Blade
- Notebooks
- GTX970M
Speakers
The Razer has two front facing stereo speakers. With laptops this thin, there generally is not a lot of room for good sounding speakers, but I am ready to be surprised at any time. As for overall volume, the new Razer Blade comes in at 83 dBA. The 2014 Razer Blade did not impress me with its speaker quaility, which was disappointing due to not only the cost of the device, but the front facing speakers, which should have an advantage over any system which fires the speakers down, were very poor. With laptops getting as thin and small as they are now, forward facing speakers are less common, so I was looking for more on the 2014 model.
The frequency response for the 2015 Razer Blade is very much improved over the last model. The 2014 model had a very poor curve, and almost no sound at all under 200 Hz. As soon as the first frequency was tested it was obvious that some changes have been made to the speakers. I reached out to Razer, and asked them about the speakers. Although the actual speakers are the same, various subsystems have been changed. Some tuning has certainly been done to improve the overall sound quality, and it has made a big difference. When gaming, headphones will still be necessary to get rid of the fan noise, but for watching movies or listening to music, the speakers are much more usable now.
Software
The only software installed on the system, is Razer’s Synapse software. This in and of itself is worth mentioning due to the huge amount of extra software normally installed on new PCs. On a premium device such as this, it is nice to see that there are no bundled extras to increase Razer's margins. The Synapse software is their in-house software to control the Blade and other Razer peripherals. Razer Synapse has continued to evolve since we last took a look at it. We will not go over what has not changed, so if you want to check that out, it is detailed on our last review here. What is new is a new Stats option on the Synapse software. Opening this goes to some interesting software which lets you keep track of what you are doing while gaming.
Stats, once enabled, will keep track of total keystrokes, distance, profile switches, and macro use, to let you know just what it is you are doing in the heat of battle. And speaking of heat, moving over to the Heatmaps section displays some very cool graphics of where your mouse clicks occur on the screen, where you tend to move your mouse to, and what keys you use the most while gaming. Some of us are certainly not good enough gamers to gain any sort of insight with this data, but it is interesting to look at. For those that want the extra edge, it is a nice addition to the software.
This is what is new on the software, but no software is perfect, nor is any hardware. In future versions of the Synapse software, it would be nice to see some extra features that are missing from the Razer Blade.
First, and previously mentioned, is the lack of any sort of customization of the lighting scheme for the Razer Blade. The green is nice, but there are those of us who like to really make it our own. Alienware has done this for years, and Razer now has some nice looking RGB keyboards which offer some great customization and effects.
The other addition to the software is likely more functional. Fan control should be part of the Synapse software suite on laptops. As much as we like how silent the Razer Blade is doing light duty tasks, almost nothing is more annoying to some people than a fan that ramps up and down, rather than just stay constant. A nice addition would be multiple fan settings, which could be automatically enabled when the GPU kicks in. As we saw in the GPU load graph, there was no throttling at all on the GPU, but the temperature would go up and down like a saw blade. Give me an option to just leave the fans on maximum in that scenario.
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Oxford_Guy - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
For me 14" is the perfect size, not too big, not too small. 15.6" laptops have become even more bloated these days, as everyone seems to add a pointless numpad to thempuppies - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Is "only" 8GB of RAM really a problem? What % of people that buy these machines ever get close to utilising anywhere near that amount? These are gaming machines, i'm sure the odd graphics designer buys one for 3d rendering but i'm sure that 99% of people that spec the 16GB haven't got a clue that it does nothing to speed up BF4 and facebook.sviola - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
Well, I was to buy a laptop a couple of weeks ago, and did not buy the Razer because it did not have a 16 GB option. Part of my decision was based on the price (at this price, 16 GB is a must) and, more important, due to my usage of the laptop (I'm always running at least one VM, a app server, ide and db server, so 16 GB do come in handy).MGSMiami - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
."...$2700 for 512 GB. It is a lot of money for a 14” gaming laptop. Luckily the quality of the components really are top notch. For the money, you get a great display," Personal preferences aside, I don't believe the kind of gaming experience for which this laptop is built can be savored on a 14" high-rez screen...So many people use their laptops as desktop replacements, I just can't imagine the experience of the game on an itsby-bitsy weeny-teeny screen with all those powerful components aside. I game on a 55" LG and the experience is thrilling. My notebook is 17.3" Asus ROG and that is about the limit for screen real estate, resolution issues aside. I'm not a fan of razer products, nor their marketing strategy...Now let's wait for a similar review for the new iteration coming in February of 2016.DanB1 - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
This laptop is obviously a niche product, and whilst you have selected a 17" as your choice, I'm sure there are others that this laptop would suit better. I've had a 17" gamin laptop, and it's hardly what you would call portable for a day to day role. Additionally the size of a 15" laptop can be a drawback also in terms of specific size requirements for carriage, in my example, I don't want to carry around a larger backpack just to facilitate the size of my laptop. The 14" size for me is great. In my view this laptop fits into what I would like in a laptop, the ability to casually play the latest AAA games at night whilst I'm on the road, combined with just enough battery to facilitate my work needs during the day. Combined with the build quality, tiny PSU and the fact it isn't a Mac makes this one of two laptops I am currently considering purchasing. I think I would prefer the 1080p version, especially it provides slightly longer battery life, although as with all gaming laptops I am not expecting to be able to game whilst unplugged... you can't even do that in a 17" example...GekkePrutser - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
One thing I really don't get: why didn't they go for Broadwell??Brett Howse - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
The quad-core Broadwell CPUs are not out yet. Just the dual-core 15w versions.Shadowmaster625 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
$2199.99 for 128GB QHD+ Model$2399.99 for 256GB QHD+ Model
WTF Why are companies still pulling this kind of crap in 2015? Two hundred dollars for 128GB?
Coldkilla - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
When can we expect to find this on Amazon? I have $200 in gift cards I'd like to apply to purchasing one of these but all I see is the 2014 model currently.colint13 - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Will there be a review of the Gigabyte P34W v3? Similar specs as the 1080p 2015 Blade but for $300 less.