There was a time when people were buying Apple devices to stand out from the crowd. If you required a laptop which will go with your lifestyle and needs rather than a specification sheet, then you had to go for a Mac. But, nowadays every Tom, Dick, and Harry flaunts a MacBook. Wait. There is a monster alternative out there which trumps the MacBook Pro.
Razer has managed to offer the ridiculously powerful hardware specifications into a machine which is only 0.7-inches thick. The new Razer Blade features a GeForce GTX 1060 GPU which makes it a VR-ready, 14-inch monster which is ready to strike. The latest Blade laptop is priced at an aggressive $1,799 (roughly Rs 1,23,000) which seems to be a direct competition with likes of MSI and Alienware.
Design
The Razer Blade is 13.6×9.3×0.7inch in size and weighs 1.9kg. The Blade is fairly minimalistic in design. The otherworldly green tri-snake logo looks good. The interior of the laptop is featured with obsidian-colored metal, adorned by the backlit Chroma keyboard. The anti-ghosting keyboard shows multi-colored keys which appear like fireworks alongside a jet black sky. The slim chassis includes a USB 3.0 port, a full-HDMI port, and a Kensington lock slot. Also, there is a Thunderbolt 3 port and 3.5mm headphone/mic combo port. The laptop runs on a 64-bit Windows 10 OS.
Display
The Matte doesn’t always mean dull; Blade’s 1920×1080 display is undeniable proof. The details on display are crystal clear. The reproduction on Blade is 115 percent on sRGB color gamut. There is no OLED touch bar on the laptop but it easily outshines than the competitors.
Audio
The top-mounted speakers on Razer Blade are decent but not that loud as we hoped. The speakers might be sufficient for gaming but if the laptop is to use for music production, then you’ll probably require external monitor speakers. The laptop is offered with pre-installed Dolby Digital Plus software which enhances the sound for best music experience.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The Chroma keyboard on Razer Blade really looks gorgeous. The multicolored keys are well-arranged and well-spaced which looks like sparkling jewels. The back-lighting is really good if you are typing in darkened settings.
The 4.1×2.5-inch Synaptics touchpad allows you to use accurate gestures and smooth movements offering a two finger or three finger swipe and scroll. The Synapse software loaded on a laptop offers a bunch of features which could be used while playing games.
Gaming and VR
The Razer Blade is one of the slimmest VR-ready laptops which boasts a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU coupled with 6GB of VRAM. If you want to use HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, then you just have to plug in the headset into the appropriate ports. By doing this, the Blade is one of the most portable VR solution that is available in the market. The laptop has scored 6 points on SteamVR performance test. The graphics quality of the laptop is quite impressive, however, at some tests, lack of details are been observed.
Performance
The other specifications of the Razer Blade are similar to many other gaming laptops. It features a 2.6GHz 6th Gen Intel Core i7 6700HQ processor paired with 16GB of RAM. The CPU is powerful to handle the multitasking demands of gamers. On the synthetic Geekbench 3 test, the Blade has scored 13,262 points which are higher than the scores of most of the high-end laptops. The 256GB PCI-e SSD is comparatively faster and only takes 24 seconds to copy a multimedia file of around 5GB in size with 212.1 megabytes per seconds transfer rate.
Battery Life
The laptop can easily last over 6 hours on its battery life. The numbers are not that appealing when compared with other thin-and-light laptops, but the battery life is good even after heavy usage.
Conclusion
Razer is compelling the gamers to get their hands on its latest Blade laptop. The laptop is incredibly slim, powered by Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, and hence VR-ready. The massive power crave is managed by a powerful Intel Core i7 CPU.
Overall the Razer Blade is a best available portable VR-ready laptop with attractive price tag.