Technology
Razer Blade 15 Advanced Review; Powerful gaming machine, Bad laptop
Technology advancement has seen gaming laptops getting thinner, lighter and ridiculously more powerful. But while these advancements are pretty exciting to the gaming enthusiasts, most gaming laptops are still heavily aligned towards non-gaming activities; having bad keyboards and trackpads, short battery lifespan- too short to make them practical away from a power outlet. Not to mention the fact that most have poor lighting effects and suboptimal graphics.
Despite the negative talk on gaming laptops, the Razer Blade 15 may prove critics wrong. This powerful machine perhaps stands the best chance of bridging the gap between a powerful gaming machine and an everyday PC. To get the best out of both, perhaps you should consider getting yourself the most conservative looking model; an entry-level Blade 15 Advanced. Complete with Nvidia’s RTX graphix card and in the “Mercury white” color. This beautiful beast retails for $2,349.
This year’s design of the Blade 15 Advanced has been fitted with an aluminum chassis for a strong-sturdy frame and sharper edges with a more squared off- edges than its predecessors.
Weighing at 2.07 kg and only 0.7 inches, the Blade advanced is compact and light enough to carry around to the office and back.
The mercury white version, however, trades the traditional glowing three-headed snake logo on the laptop’s lid for an illuminated version, while the finish is far-less prone to picking fingerprints than the black model. Perhaps, this is among the few gaming laptops in the market that doesn’t scream “I’m a gamer”
Gamers, of course, are far more concerned with what’s in the chassis more than the ‘striking good looks’. The gaming chops fitted in the 15 Advanced is just impeccable. The model has six core i7 8th gen Intel processor, 16BG of RAM, a 512 GB SSD, and an RTX 2060 graphics card.
Its 15-inch matte display has a 144Hz refresh rate and covers 100 percent of the Srgb spectrum. The Blade 15 Advanced, therefore, can comfortably spur with other high-end gaming laptops without breaking a sweat. With all its graphics settings maxed, the 15 Advanced can push most modern games with less demanding titles to reach well over 100 fps.
If you are a sucker for power, this machine still covers you. The Blade 15 can be equipped with up to an RTX 2080 Max-Q card and a 9th Gen Core i7 processor.
For those who want to seamlessly switch to productivity or use it for web-based work, the Blade 15’s gaming level components might be an overkill. You can run as many tabs as you want and switch between them all without the machine ever skipping a beat.
The high refresh rate is similarly unnecessary but nevertheless an exciting feature. The powerful beast is also fitted with enough USB-A and video outputs to remove the need of carrying around dongles. The speakers are also loud and clear enough to allow someone to take calls from the laptop.
The Blade 15’s keyboard looks fine at first glance, with its per-key backlighting and spacious layout. But even with weeks of using it, you may never become accustomed to the shallow travel of the keys; a put off in this machine.
The Blade’s glass trackpad is smooth and spacious and supports multi-finger gestures, but it has poor palm rejection, which causes the cursor to jump around the screen erratically. This could be very annoying to the regular user.
Final verdict, while the looks of the Blade 15 Advanced are stunning, especially in the Mercury white finish, the power on tap and the buttery-smooth display is worth the dime. it’s however, not a computer recommended for anything other than gaming
