2014 Razer Blade with GTX 870M Review

Razer’s new Blade is a beautiful and powerful gaming laptop. Its aluminum, unibody design is alluring and a definite step above the competition. At less than five pounds in weight, and only 0.7 inches thick, it’s as portable as you could hope for a gaming laptop to be. It’s decked out with a new, high-res, QHD+ multi-touch screen, and an Nvidia GTX 870M GPU, but these improvements aren’t without consequence: the introductory price of the new Blade is $400 more than the 2013 model was at launch.

For a product that’s already pricier than the competition, the price increase raises some alarms. As you’d expect, the GTX 870M is a notably stronger GPU than last year’s GTX 765M, and the new display is extremely sharp, doubling as a touch panel, but does an expected GPU upgrade and an over-the-top display justify the lofty asking price? Let’s take a look.

Design

If you put the new Blade next to last year’s model, you might have a hard time telling the two apart. Superficially, the only difference is that the new Blade is slightly thicker at 0.7 inches compared to 0.66 inches, which is so minor that you’d never notice unless someone told you. At 4.7 pounds, it’s also light, and in the world of gaming laptops, remarkably portable. Razer’s bright green accents and the logo on the lid stand out, but the Blade’s understated and sleek in every other way. In other words, it won’t make you feel like a kid with an overpriced, oversized toy when using it in public. For what it’s worth, there is a downside to the aluminum chassis: it transfers heat so well that it’s impossible to keep the Blade on your lap while gaming or watching (decoding) HD videos. Is it a tradeoff? Sure, but it’s not a deal breaker.

There’s nothing worse than a laptop with a poorly designed keyboard and a finicky touchpad, but you’d never say either of those things about the Blade. The keyboard’s chiclet-style keys feel great, and they’re perfectly spaced. It’s easy to draw comparisons to the keys on a MacBook Pro, which is a good thing. The touchpad is also worthy of praise, with a smooth and responsive surface that works well with Windows 8’s multi-touch gestures, presenting no issues whatsoever during our tests. The buttons below the trackpad aren’t as pleasing, being narrow and mushy, but they still get the job done.

Looking at the inputs on the side of the Blade, nothing’s changed since last year. On the left side, there’s a power-supply connection, two USB 3.0 ports, a 3.5mm microphone/headphone combo port, and on the other, an HDMI port and one more USB 3.0 connection. It’s a shame that there isn’t an ethernet port, but there is a built in 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-fi radio, at least, and support for Bluetooth 4.0.

Specs

Apart from the GPU, this year’s Blade is nearly identical on the inside to last year’s model. It has the same processor, a quad-core Intel Core i7-4702HQ at 2.2 GHz (3.2 GHz turbo), and the same RAM configuration, with 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory. Given the added cost of the new Blade, and the fact that the display goes above and beyond the call of duty, it would have been great to see more RAM and a faster CPU next to the GPU. As it stands, the current arrangement is strong enough given modern specification requirements for games, but a laptop this expensive is a long term investment for a lot of people, and it’s worth considering the limitations you might face in the years to come.

For the new GPU, Razer’s gone for the fresh Nvidia 870M with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM on board. It’s a decent step up from last year’s 765M, which sported 2GB of GDDR5 memory, and slower clock speeds all around.

The 870M outperforms the 765M in every case, but this added performance comes at a cost. The 870M draws 100w of power, where last year’s 765M only needed 75W, and given that Razer’s using the same battery as last year, the new Blade won’t last as long on the go. When you push the GPU to its limits, the Blade will typically last just over an hour in our experience, although this can be extended a bit with conservative graphic settings. Otherwise, expect three to four hours of battery life during non-gaming sessions.

Display

The display on last year’s Blade had a maximum resolution of 1600×900. Given the physical dimensions, it was adequate, but not impressive. This time around, the opposite is true. Razer went all out, and opted for a 3200×1800 QHD+ display with ten-point multi-touch capabilities. It’s a magnificent screen that produces vibrant colors in any light, and it’s contents remain visible from every angle shy of 90 degrees.

The Blade’s screen is impressive on many levels, but it’s also a tad superfluous. Yes, the pixel density and resolution are admirable, and the multi-touch capabilities potentially useful, but are these specs necessary for a gaming laptop? Considering that the new Blade costs 20% more than the last year’s did at launch, and the display is undoubtedly a major contributor, the answer must be “no.” A 1080p or 1440p display would have been perfectly acceptable, and it’s not clear why a gaming laptop needs a touch panel. It’s a display that’s easy to appreciate, but it’s over-the-top features come at a cost.

There’s also the fact that you won’t likely play any of your game’s at the Blade’s native resolution, given that it would be far too taxing on any gaming PC if you’re aiming for decent graphics settings and frame rates, let alone on the Blade. As such, that means you’ll have to deal with some minor inconveniences. For one, some applications, including EA’s Origin, don’t scale correctly, but more importantly, when you try to play a game at 1080p, you’re treated to a small in-game display in the middle of a black screen. The solution is simple; set the desktop resolution to match the game you’re going to play. You could always leave your desktop resolution at 1920×1080 to avoid this hassle, but then everything in Windows is slightly larger than it should be.

Performance

For a thin gaming laptop, the Blade handles demanding games, including Watch Dogs, admirably. You’re best off aiming for high or very high graphics presets, but that’s if you’re chasing 60 frames per second. If you’re OK with 30 frames per second, you can eek a few more graphical flourishes out of the Blade’s hardware. You can find other laptops that offer better performance for less money, but you ultimately sacrifice portability and build quality, the importance of which shouldn’t be underestimated. That aside, you won’t be disappointed by the Blade’s general performance. You won’t be able to play every game with ultra settings, but you can get close in most cases.

Verdict

The Blade that Razer supplied for our review is the 256GB model, which costs $2,399 before taxes. The base model, with a 128GB solid state drive, gets off the ground at $2,199, and the high-end model, with 512GB, costs $2,699. The Blade is definitely a premium, high-end laptop. It’s easy to balk at its price tag, but when the Blade’s in your hands, it’s hard not to fall in love with it. It’s sleek, portable, and powerful enough to keep any PC gamer on-the-go in a good mood.

If you can’t afford the power of this year’s Blade, you can still fetch the previous model, at a discount, for $1,700 on Razer’s site. But, if you’ve got money to spend, there’s no gaming laptop that I would recommend more than the new Blade. It’s not going to win price/performance comparisons, but it has the competition beat when it comes to design, and even though the screen is a luxury feature that hardly anyone asked for, it’s technically one of the best screens that you can find on a laptop.

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