I’m Still Testing The New Razer Blade 16 And I Have Mixed Feelings

The Razer Blade 16 is designed to beryllium nan gaming-focused replacement to nan MacBook Pro, and I’m ever present for that. I emotion a gaming laptop that still looks and feels for illustration a somewhat normal laptop, and nan caller Blade returns to a thinner and lighter chassis creation aft nan last-gen sewage a spot chunky. The top-end configuration besides adopts nan caller flagship Nvidia RTX 5090 laptop GPU and an moreover heftier value of $4,499.99 ($200 much than nan 4090 model).

I’ve spent immoderate clip pinch nan caller Razer Blade 16, but my first reappraisal portion had noticeable hardware issues and was replaced by Nvidia, which provided nan Blades for RTX 5090 testing. I’ve only had nan replacement portion for a fewer days, and while it doesn’t grounds immoderate of nan aforesaid capacity issues aliases buzzy speakers, it’s had a mates of random bluescreens of its own. I’m successful troubleshooting talks pinch Razer, but while that’s ongoing, I’m still testing this laptop and sizing up my feelings astir it. Consider this maine posting done it — a small glimpse into my soul dialog. (You’re welcome. But also, I’m sorry?)

I emotion astir of nan hardware connected nan caller Blade — most. Its 16-inch, 2560 x 1600 OLED show pinch a 240Hz refresh complaint remains a beautiful sheet to activity and play on, conscionable for illustration its predecessor. And nan keyboard and trackpad are wide very good. My biggest gripe pinch nan keyboard is nan caller file of macro keys connected nan right, which often causes maine to shut up nan microphone erstwhile I mean to deed nan correct arrow. It’s yet different problem that could person been avoided by utilizing nan modular inverted-T arrow cardinal statement that’s easier to find by feel. Are Windows laptop makers ever going to learn?

The thinner and lighter chassis is simply a invited alteration (it shaves disconnected a full 7mm and 0.8 pounds), though I request to do much thermal testing to spot if it’s arsenic bully astatine cooling arsenic nan past model. There’s besides Razer’s Laptop Cooling Pad, which tin springiness nan Blade 16’s GPU and CPU up to 25W much powerfulness each. I person it here, truthful I’ll spot if HyperBoost is worthy nan added sound and other $150. I besides wonderment whether thicker gaming laptops mightiness eke retired much juice from nan RTX 5090.

As I’ve already written, nan RTX 5090 GPU successful nan Blade 16 is simply a good upgrade if you bask DLSS and framework generation. I’m going to proceed testing it, including much gaming while connected artillery power. Nvidia’s made immoderate big claims astir really powerful yet power-efficient nan 50-series laptop cards are, and successful my early testing, nan 5090 is astir 20 percent much businesslike than nan 4090, truthful I’m intrigued.

But I’m skeptical, because erstwhile I’m not gaming, nan Blade 16 struggles to get done a basal activity time connected battery, moreover while utilizing productivity apps for illustration Slack, Chrome, and Google Docs connected nan integrated graphics. Its AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 “Strix Point” CPU tin easy agelong beyond 8 hours of activity successful different gaming laptops, for illustration nan 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G16, but I can’t get 5 and a half hours pinch nan Blade, contempt enabling Advanced Optimus and triple-checking nan graphics settings successful Nvidia Control Panel, Windows Settings, and Synapse. (Maybe there’s thing misconfigured somewhere, truthful I’ll proceed testing this too.)

This laptop is expected to beryllium awesome for productivity, imaginative apps, and gaming. It costs four-and-a-half thousand dollars. Part of maine really likes what it has to offer, and I’m downright impressed pinch really cool it tin tally nether load, but different portion of maine thinks nan value is outlandish if things are randomly crashing nether ray loads and you person to complaint aggregate times a day. For that money, you tin bargain a $2,000 MacBook Pro that tin grip imaginative workflows and past good complete a full time (if you don’t mind MacOS, of course). And you’d person different $2,500 to walk connected a respectable gaming laptop, aliases moreover a much powerful desktop.

However, I’ll concede that having 1 instrumentality to do it each is simply a slick proposition. I support coming backmost to really bully this laptop looks and feels. And boy does it make games look beautiful and tally them smoothly, either connected its superb OLED aliases connected an outer 4K monitor. It is, aft all, meant for games.

I tin still spot myself loving nan Blade 16. But we’ll person to spot successful nan afloat review, aft a full bunch much testing that’s hopefully (fingers crossed) devoid of immoderate further method hangups.

What do you think? Does immoderate laptop really make consciousness for astir 5 grand? Let maine cognize successful nan comments, and if there’s thing successful peculiar you’d for illustration to spot tested connected nan Blade 16 for nan afloat review.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge