Razer is very popular for its Razer Blade series of gaming laptops. And the Razer Blade 15 shows why that is the case perfectly. Its excellent unibody design is unlike anything on the market, and gaming performance is top-notch too, with real-time ray tracing support. All in all, it is the best laptop with i7 processor and perhaps the best laptop for gaming below $1700.
Why We Like It – Razer Blade 15.6
Razer has a firm foothold in the gaming laptop market because of the Razer Blade series of laptops. Every year Razer launches multiple new laptops with newer, more upgraded specs to satisfy the needs of gamers. Gaming laptops are usually criticized for their big and bulky designs. But Razer Blade laptops have always been sleek and slim. But that doesn’t mean that the Razer Blade 15 compromises on the performance, not at all.
- 144Hz display
- Comes bloatware-free out of the box
- Customizable RGB lighting with Razer Chroma
- Horrible fan noise
Power & Performance
This laptop comes with high end specs inside, so obviously, it’s going to perform very well. Other than the i7-9750H, it also has a full-fat Nvidia RTX 2060 inside. The 512GB SSD helps with faster boot times, and the 16 GB RAM is plenty for games. Another laptop with similar specs that you can consider is the MSI P65 Creator.
Related: Also check out our Samsung Ativ 7 All In One Windows 8 PC review.
Battery
Just like almost all gaming laptops, battery life is not that great. You’d be lucky to get 2 hours while gaming on battery. But even with normal use, you won’t get above 6 hours out of the Razer Blade 15. So once again, if you need good battery life, get something like the Microsoft Surface Book 3 2-in-1 convertible laptop. Or, check out our Panasonic Toughbook review.
Ports & Expandability
The amount of ports you get is also extremely good, unlike something like the Apple MacBook Pro. There are three full-sized USB 3.1 Type-A ports, and the USB C ports support Thunderbolt 3. You get a mini display port (out) and a full-sized HDMI connector in terms of display output. And obviously, there’s the usual gigabit ethernet and headphone/mic combo jack too. If you really need an SD card slot, go for the HP Spectre x360 13t instead.
Build Quality
We talked a bit about the build quality earlier, but to reiterate, it is some of the best laptops you can find when it comes to the build quality, even better than the Asus ROG Zephyrus M. The aluminum unibody matte black design looks awesome. The tenkeyless RGB keyboard layout compliments the design perfectly. The trackpad is excellent. And it’s very durable too. You get RGB on the base model too, so that’s great.
Value
This model of Razer Blade 15 comes at a very interesting price point of almost $1700. You can’t really find anything better than it at this price when it comes to gaming performance, but then again, having just an RTX 2060 inside at this price makes this laptop look a tad bit overpriced. So it really depends on the games you play, whether or not the RTX 2060 is going to be enough for your gaming needs at 144 Hz.
Razer Blade 15.6 Wrap Up
The Razer Blade 15 is an excellent gaming laptop with zero bloatware to boot. Other than a few compromises, it’s a solid laptop overall.
