Razer Blade 16 (2024) review

You actually really feel such as you’ve spent your cash properly once you first get the Razer Blade 16 (2024) out of its field and into your palms. Its anodized black aluminum chassis feels pleasingly chilly beneath your fingers, whereas its construct high quality, slim dimensions, and glowing Razer brand within the lid make it feel and appear like a very luxurious product. It feels crass to make use of the phrase “horny” to explain a pc, however it works right here. You’d anticipate that, although, when this laptop computer lineup begins at $2,999. The query is whether or not it’s really value all that cash.

It’s that base $2,999 model that I’m reviewing right here and, on paper, it undoubtedly has the makings of among the best gaming laptops I’ve ever used. Not like the 2023 mannequin of the Blade 16, the brand new 2024 mannequin has an OLED display screen as normal, and it comes with a 24-core Intel CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU as effectively. To see how effectively this new Razer machine fares, I’ve been utilizing it as my fundamental gaming PC for per week, in addition to taking it out and about to lodge rooms, cafes, and the workplace, to get to know its pluses and pitfalls.

Specs

In case you’re questioning simply the place all that cash goes, the CPU contained in the Razer Blade 16 (2024) actually accounts for lots of it. The Intel Core i9 14900HX is a significantly highly effective gaming CPU, with eight of Intel’s Raptor Lake P-Cores, which may nominally enhance to as much as 5.8GHz, and an enormous depend of 16 power-efficient E-Cores. Intel costs this CPU alone at $679, so that you’re getting some hefty processing energy on this rig.

Nonetheless, keep in mind that this CPU relies on Intel’s now growing older Raptor Lake structure, fairly than its newer, and extra power-efficient, Meteor Lake structure. It’s nonetheless a very highly effective gaming GPU, however it will get scorching, and in all honesty, these 16 E-Cores are largely wasted in gaming – you’re solely going to make use of them in closely multi-threaded software program, maybe for rendering or video encoding.

In the meantime, graphics processing energy comes from an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 laptop computer GPU, with Razer opening the faucets to permit it to attract 140W (115W base, and as much as 25W with Nvidia Dynamic Increase). This GPU has 4,608 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR5 VRAM, and GPU-Z detects it as operating at a lift clock of 1,605MHz, which is in the midst of this chip’s frequency vary.

This GPU relies on Nvidia’s newest Ada Lovelace structure, which not solely has strong ray tracing efficiency, but additionally has the advantages of help for the newest Nvidia DLSS 3 suite of AI applied sciences, together with body technology and upscaling, to massively enhance body charges. For comparability with desktop graphics playing cards, we’d anticipate this GPU to carry out largely according to a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB.

There are a few sore factors within the specs record. For a begin, in the event you’re paying three grand for a laptop computer, it ought to include 32GB of RAM as normal, fairly than 16GB. At the very least the equipped 5600MHz SK Hynix DDR5 RAM is upgradable at a later date, approaching a pair of SODIMMs, not like the fastened reminiscence within the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16.

In fact, 16GB continues to be superb for gaming, however it’s a disappointment in a machine at this worth, particularly when RAM is so cheap proper now. Likewise, you solely get a 1TB SSD with the bottom spec, and whereas that’s superb for putting in just a few video games, it looks like a miserly cost-cutting measure in a premium machine comparable to this one.

Design

Design is the Razer Blade 16 (2024)’s key promoting level, as this laptop computer is just the stuff of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ once you carry it out of its packaging. The construct high quality is great, with the T6 CNC aluminum chassis feeling robust and stylish with its easy curves across the corners.

There’s not one of the low-cost, angled plastic that always plagues gaming laptops right here. The glowing Razer snake brand on the lid provides additional to this impression, as does the RGB lighting on the keyboard that greets you once you begin it up.

There’s an honest choice of connections as effectively, and I used to be glad to see a beneficiant array of ordinary Sort-A USB ports included, with Razer eschewing the USB-C and a number of dongles pattern seen on Apple and Dell’s newest machines.

I simply appreciated the truth that I may plug my Razer Mamba Event Version mouse straight into the laptop computer with out having to faff round with dongles or adapters. Likewise, I appreciated with the ability to plug my wired analog headphones straight into the mini jack port, and there’s a helpful SD card reader that saves you from having to attach your DSLR digital camera to the machine as effectively.

You get three Sort-A ports, which are perfect for plugging in your individual keyboard and mouse, in addition to a USB thumb drive. Additionally they all help the USB 3.2 Gen 2 normal, so that you get 10Gbps of bandwidth, in comparison with simply 5Gbps on a typical USB 3.0 port. There’s additionally a pair of Sort-C ports, each of which may present as much as 100W of energy for charging, and considered one of them additionally helps Thunderbolt 4 with USB-C.

You need to use the latter for all types of duties, together with show output to a number of displays, wired networking, and even hooking up an exterior GPU field if you would like extra graphics energy sooner or later. Once more, I used to be additionally pleased to see a full-size HDMI 2.1 output on the sting, which you’ll plug straight right into a 4K monitor.

Flip the laptop computer over and also you’ll see two giant cooling followers sitting instantly above the vents, and there are additionally a variety of vents on the again fringe of the machine, that are discreetly coated by the underside of the display screen once you open up the lid.

All of it gives the look of a laptop computer that’s been designed by a group of people that like high quality package – Razer is making an announcement right here, fairly than simply packing high-end {hardware} into an inexpensive plastic chassis. That provides to the load, although – at 2.5kg (5.4lb) it’s heavier than the 1.95kg Asus ROG Zephyrus G16, and whereas the Razer is mild sufficient to hold an honest distance with out hurting your shoulders, it does begin to weigh you down in the event you’ve been strolling round with it in your again for some time.

There are some irritating hiccups with the design, although. I’ll get the large one out of the way in which first, which is that the fan noise made by this machine is horrendous. All gaming laptops make a good bit of fan noise when gaming or beneath different heavy hundreds, however that is like sitting subsequent to a completely boiling tea kettle. Sure, you possibly can put a 24-core Raptor Lake CPU right into a slim and light-weight laptop computer chassis, however the result’s a very horrible noise. It largely disappears in the event you placed on a headset, however the noise continues to be prone to irritate anybody sitting close to you.

Fortunately, you possibly can alter the fan speeds in Razer’s Synapse software program, which may massively scale back the quantity of noise, however this comes at the price of clock speeds and reduces efficiency. Even with the followers operating on the default velocity, although, we nonetheless didn’t see the CPU clock velocity enhance past 5.6GHz in video games, which is 200MHz behind its ostensible prime velocity, and it dropped all the way in which down to three.8GHz when maxing out all its cores in Cinebench. It’s not simply warmth right here, in fact, but additionally the ability equipped to the CPU – both method, you possibly can’t get essentially the most out of this CPU with this laptop computer.

Secondly, the display screen has a very reflective shiny floor, which could be distracting in use, notably in the event you’re in a room with brilliant lights, or subsequent to a window in a restaurant. Some OLED gaming displays can get away with this as you possibly can management the lighting in your room however for a cellular machine reflections are a giant downside.

Thirdly, and eventually, that metallic chassis actually attracts consideration to fingerprints. If you wish to maintain this laptop computer wanting elegant, you’ll have to recurrently wipe these prints away with a fabric.

Options

The massive characteristic of this machine is undoubtedly the 240Hz OLED display screen, which Razer claimed was a world first for a 16-inch laptop computer when it initially launched the Blade 16 (2024). This OLED display screen can be one of many fundamental benefits of this new mannequin over its predecessor, the Razer Blade 16 (2023).

It actually does look superb in use, with a excessive distinction ratio providing you with deep blacks in video games. I discovered this notably noticeable in video games with darkish dungeons, comparable to Diablo 4 and Baldur’s Gate 3, because the display screen can create a darkish and moody ambiance, however you possibly can nonetheless see what’s happening with out having to whack up the brightness and make all of the blacks flip mild grey. In the meantime, colours are brilliant and vibrant, whereas not wanting over-saturated.

Due to the quick response instances of OLED panels, video games look good operating at excessive body charges on this show as effectively. Nonetheless, as we’ll come to later, you’ll battle to get many video games operating at a excessive sufficient body price to sync with the 240Hz refresh price of this panel, notably at this show’s 2,560 x 1,600 decision. Nonetheless, that decision is right for the 16-inch display screen.

The pixel density is sharp, and it’s primarily based on Samsung’s QD-OLED tech, so that you get a barely sharper picture with even bolder, brighter colours than with LG’s WOLED panels. At this pixel density, you additionally don’t get the issues with fuzzy textual content that we’ve discovered with some OLED gaming displays. Once I was working, I additionally actually appreciated having the additional peak from the 1600p display screen over a 2,560 x 1,440 mannequin, which gave me a bit extra vertical headroom for just a few additional strains of textual content.

To prime all of it off, the display screen even helps Nvidia’s G-Sync tech, which means you possibly can synchronize the refresh price with the body price output of your graphics card, even (and notably) when it’s not at 240Hz. This makes for easy movement in video games, with no horrible tearing artifacts ripping throughout shifting objects on the display screen.

I additionally love the RGB lighting on the Razer Blade 16 (2024), notably on the keyboard (although the glowing snake on the lid can be actually cool). You may management it by way of Razer’s Synapse software program, and set your individual lighting for every key, however it additionally robotically picks up some video games once you’re taking part in them and adjusts the lighting accordingly.

In case you hearth up Baldur’s Gate 3, for instance, a pink wave passes throughout the keyboard because it’s loading, after which the lights change based on what’s on display screen. Get to a degree the place that you must roll a cube, and the keyboard creates a polygon D20-esque form in yellow lighting in the midst of the keyboard, with a pink H key within the center. Move the roll, and the keyboard lights flip mild blue. Fail the roll and so they go pink. It’s fully pointless for gaming, it’s completely superfluous to necessities, and I find it irresistible.

In motion, the keyboard is ok. The keycaps are an honest measurement, and whereas the motion is a bit shallow in comparison with some mechanical laptop computer keyboards, I discovered it superb for typing and gaming.

Nonetheless, there’s no numpad right here, and whereas I do know there’s a pattern for eradicating these on gaming keyboards, I nonetheless discover them extremely helpful for shortly inputting numbers in spreadsheets. A numpad may not have a lot use in most video games now, however there’s clearly room for it on this chassis, and it appears a disgrace to not have it. In the meantime, the big, precision glass touchpad is responsive, and provides you loads of room to get the place you need when working.

It’s additionally good to see all the newest connection requirements supported on the brand new Blade, together with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, to not point out Thunderbolt 4. You may not want all these new options now (I, for one, am nonetheless utilizing Wi-Fi 5 802.11ac in my home), however a laptop computer at this worth ought to final a very long time, and help for the newest requirements allows you to get essentially the most out of your laptop computer for an extended time period.

Lastly, the sound is surprisingly good for a laptop computer that’s simply 2.2cm tall, with the Blade 16 (2024) containing two sub models and a pair of tweeters. The bar is low for laptop computer sound, in fact, and it’s no match for a separate set of respectable audio system or a headset, notably in the case of bass, however you get a surprisingly full and loud sound from this slim laptop computer that’s superb for gaming.

Benchmarks

As we suspected, the cellular GeForce RTX 4070 GPU within the Blade 16 (2024) struggled to play the newest video games at excessive settings utilizing the display screen’s native 2,560 x 1,440 decision. With none assist from DLSS, the Blade 16 solely averaged 23fps in Cyberpunk 2077 on the Extremely ray tracing preset, and its common of 42fps in F1 23 at Extremely Excessive settings was equally disappointing.

Nonetheless, in the event you allow DLSS, you may get far more out of this laptop computer. In F1 23, you solely have to allow DLSS Tremendous Decision to extend the common body price to 66fps, with a 50fps minimal. That’s a solidly playable consequence at these graphics settings. Simply to recap, DLSS Tremendous Decision nonetheless renders textual content, menus, and your heads-up show (HUD) on the full decision, however it drops the sport rendering decision beneath, utilizing Nvidia’s Tensor cores to upscale the picture utilizing AI. F1 23 nonetheless seems nice at these settings, in order that’s a win.

In the meantime, enabling DLSS Tremendous Decision wasn’t sufficient to push Cyberpunk 2077 previous 60fps, however this GPU additionally helps Nvidia’s AI body technology tech, utilizing DLSS 3, which makes use of AI to generate additional frames between the “actual” frames and make the sport run smoother. Enabling this noticed the common hit 74fps, with a 45fps minimal – a strong consequence.

In case you’re ready to drop the decision, you may get even higher outcomes, in fact. Operating Cyberpunk 2077 at 1,920 x 1,200 on the Extremely ray tracing preset, together with DLSS Tremendous Decision and body technology, noticed this laptop computer averaging an enormous 110fps, and solely dropping to a minimal of 56fps. Principally, so long as you’re ready to allow DLSS, or drop the decision, you possibly can play the newest video games at actually excessive graphics settings on this laptop computer.

In the case of video games with out ray tracing, our Complete Conflict: Warhammer 3 benchmark averaged 56fps with a 40fps minimal on the native 2,560 x 1,600 decision, which is a playable consequence for this sport – you’ll solely have to tweak just a few graphics settings to get it operating at a better body price.

Additionally, whereas the Razer Blade 16 (2024) may make a variety of noise when it’s cooling its mighty Core i9 14900HX CPU, this chip offers you an infinite quantity of CPU energy. This was demonstrated in Cinebench R24, the place the 24-core chip produced a multi-threaded results of 1,473.

To place that in context, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16, which makes use of Intel’s new Meteor Lake-based Core 9 Extremely 185H (16 cores complete, with solely six P-Cores), solely scores 1,049 on this check, which means the Razer machine is 40% sooner. If you wish to use your machine for closely multi-threaded content material creation software program, whether or not that’s video modifying, 3D rendering, or one thing else, this can be a actually fast, moveable machine.

Lastly, we additionally ran some storage benchmarks on the included 1TB SSSTC CA6-8D1024 SSD, which makes use of the PCIe 4.0 interface. In CrystalDiskMark, it clocked up sequential learn and write speeds of 4,130MB/s and 4,123MB/s respectively, that are faster than any PCIe 3.0 drive, however on the backside finish of outcomes for a PCIe 4.0 SSD. It’s a lot fast sufficient for video games, nevertheless, and also you’ll solely discover that comparatively decrease velocity in the event you shift a variety of recordsdata between drives regularly.

Battery

The Razer Blade 16 (2024) comes with a hefty 95.2WHrs battery to maintain all these highly effective parts going whilst you’re on the transfer, which supplies it an extended life than the 90WHrs battery equipped with the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16. It holds up surprisingly effectively when gaming too.

We’re used to seeing gaming laptops run dry after simply over an hour of gaming time, however the Razer lasted for almost an hour and a half in our gaming check, topping out at 85 minutes. That’s half hour longer than the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 machine we examined, although the Asus did have a way more power-hungry RTX 4090 GPU inside it.

In case you’re simply planning to make use of the battery to get some work carried out on the practice, or in a restaurant away from the mains, then you possibly can anticipate to get no less than three and a half hours out of it. The Razer shut down after operating the PCMark10 fashionable workplace battery life check for 211 minutes with the display screen at medium brightness, and also you’ll get extra in the event you drop the brightness additional.

Value

The largest downside for the Razer Blade 16 (2024) is its immense worth of $2,999, and that solely will get you the bottom spec with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a GeForce RTX 4070. If you would like a machine with a GeForce RTX 4080 and 32GB of RAM, then you definitely’ll have to pay $3,599, and you continue to solely get a 1TB SSD. You’ll have to cough up an enormous $4,199 if you would like a Blade 16 with an RTX 4090, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD.

There’s additionally an choice to improve to a dual-mode display screen, which has a mini-LED backlight and allows you to change between a 3,840 x 1,200 decision operating at 120Hz, or a 1,920 x 1,080 display screen operating at 240Hz.

It allows you to get one of the best of each worlds – a high-speed display screen for gaming at a decision the GPU can deal with, and a high-resolution display screen for work the place sharpness is necessary. This provides one other astronomical layer of value to the Blade 16, although. If you would like this display screen, you additionally want the RTX 4090, 96GB of RAM, and an 8TB SSD, all for an enormous worth of $5,499.

It’s a disgrace there isn’t extra granularity obtainable within the specs right here, and there’s no getting round the truth that this can be a premium, luxurious laptop computer. As some extent of comparability, you should buy an Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 with a 240Hz OLED display screen, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a GeForce RTX 4070 for simply $1,999 from Greatest Purchase on the time of writing. It may need soldered RAM, and a barely slower CPU, however it prices an entire $1,000 much less, and it’s hardly an unpleasant, badly made machine both.

Verdict

The Razer Blade 16 (2024) is a well-built, highly effective gaming laptop computer, and it has a completely beautiful display screen as effectively. It felt like an actual pleasure to open the sturdy lid and gaze on the OLED display screen and RGB keyboard each time I opened the lid. The entire unit seems and appears like a very luxurious product, from the cool aluminum materials to the glowing snake brand on the lid.

Even the bottom GeForce RTX 4070 mannequin has sufficient energy to play video games at respectable settings, together with on the display screen’s 2,560 x 1,600 decision in the event you allow DLSS. Additionally, whereas the CPU may be very overpowered for video games, and desires some severe cooling, it could ship the products in closely multi-threaded software program. This actually is a laptop computer that does all of it.

Nonetheless, it comes at a worth, and we’re not simply speaking about a few hundred {dollars} right here. The bottom spec prices three grand, and nonetheless solely comes with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. That’s unfathomable when you should buy a similarly-specified Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 for $1,000 much less.

It’s additionally unjustifiable when you think about how a lot noise is made by the Blade 16 at its default fan settings, in addition to the annoying reflectiveness of the display screen (see the image under for a surprising image of yours really reflecting again at you). It additionally doesn’t assist that there isn’t sufficient granularity within the pricing construction so that you can construct the machine on the actual spec you need.

I’d look previous these points if the Blade 16 had been cheaper, however at this worth it must be good, and that’s not the case. In case you have all the cash on the earth, and also you’re in search of an incredible, luxurious gaming laptop computer with all of the frills, then the Razer Blade 16 (2024) is certainly a very beautiful piece of design. For everybody else, I’d suggest saving some cash and shopping for a less expensive, similarly-specified laptop computer elsewhere.

Alternate options

If the Razer Blade 16 (2024) isn’t the proper laptop computer for you, take a look at this various:

Asus ROG Strix Zephyrus G16 (2024)

In case you’re in search of an important gaming laptop computer with an OLED display screen, however can’t run to the price of the Razer Blade 16 (2024), then Asus’ newest ROG Strix Zephyrus G16 is right. There’s a large alternative of GPUs obtainable on this laptop computer, from the RTX 4060 to the 4090, and it solely prices $1,999 to spec up a G16 with an RTX 4070, 16GB of RAM, and a Core i9 Extremely 185H CPU. The one fundamental downer is that it makes use of soldered RAM, so you possibly can’t improve it at a later date, however it’s in any other case a improbable machine for the cash.

Learn our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024) evaluation for extra data.