OUR VERDICT
Read the full comprehensive review of Razer Blade 15, the world’s smallest gaming laptop. In Razer Blade 15 Review, we will give you all the information about this laptop, so that you can easily choose the best gaming laptop.
Razer Blade 15 Review: World's Smallest Gaming Laptop
- 8th Gen Intel Core i7 6 Core processor
- 15.6” 144Hz Full HD Display
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (8GB) Graphics
- 512GB SSD (PCIe) Storage
- 16GB Dual-Channel (2667MHz) RAM
- Up to 6 hours (80Wh) of battery life
- 2.10 kg weight
Pros
- World's Smallest Gaming Laptop
- Super fast and powerful laptop
- Customizable RGB individual key lighting
- webcam and IR sensor
Cons
- Ganerate heat while playing highend games
Razer’s new Blade 15 gaming laptop is a refresh both inside and out, with powerful new specs from Intel and Nvidia, as well as a few small and long-awaited adjustments to the chassis design. The latest Blade 15 revision brings just minor year-over-year upgrades. Users can expect slight keyboard changes, slight port changes, some storage differences, and a few new configurable options here and there. Otherwise, overall gaming performance remains about the same as the 2019 Blade 15 series. visit here
Razer Blade 15 Review: World’s Smallest Gaming Laptop
As we head towards what looks like the most visually stunning holiday gaming season to date, it’s also time to see the launch of a whole new class of laptops. More than a refresh of gear, the newest line of ultra-slim laptops are absolute monsters. From the Intel Core i7 10th Gen 6-core processors to the RTX 2080 Super video cards, this fresh crop of laptops represents a generational leap over its predecessors. I’ve recently gotten the opportunity to put Razer’s newest iteration of the Razer Blade 15 to the test.
The first thing I noticed when I unboxed the device is the anodized aluminum case, which not only covers the outside but the inside as well — there’s no plastic here. Putting hands on it, the aluminum makes the whole device cold to the touch and downright tiny.
At just 4.7lbs and 0.7” in thickness, the 15” laptop is easily half the weight and dimensions of any laptop I’ve ever owned. As you can see in the video, the power supply was put on the same diet, weighing in at just 1 pound, 3oz. My previous generation laptop was nearly 9lbs, plus a 3-pound brick, so my shoulder is already happy. With the device unboxed, let’s take a trip around the edge and talk about connectivity. visit here
This laptop uses an extremely densely populated fan, with 44 blades in it to push maximum air with minimum noise. Thankfully the additional heat dissipation doesn’t come with a high pitched whine like I would have expected. The massive copper plate pulls heat away from the components, shoving it towards the heat exchangers and rear/bottom vents.
The heat coming out of the rear vents of the device at idle is 94 degrees, coming up to 114 degrees at max load after 15 minutes of solid stress tests. Before boot the aluminum is just 77 degrees, coming up to 89 while I’m typing this review. A true testament to the vapor chamber cooling, even while at max load, the air coming out of the bottom fans was only 87 degrees. I’m not sure I would want it on my lap while gaming, but it is quite comfortable for general computing and movie watching.
GAME BENCHMARKS:
To best test the Razer Blade 15 (2020), I put it through a battery of tests, both synthetic and game benchmarks. I also ran a number of stress tests that should give you an idea of how the system will perform for everyday use. I can tell you upfront that all of the videos above were encoded and uploaded from this laptop, and it hauls all sorts of ass with Adobe applications — something I never imagined I’d say as Adobe typically runs like molasses in winter on a mobile device. It’s nice to be proven wrong on that point. On to the benchmarks!
RTX Gaming on the Go — Razer Blade 15 (2020) laptop review
As we head towards what looks like the most visually stunning holiday gaming season to date, it’s also time to see the launch of a whole new class of laptops. More than a refresh of gear, the newest line of ultra-slim laptops are absolute monsters. From the Intel Core i7 10th Gen 16-core processors to the RTX 2080 Super video cards, this fresh crop of laptops represents a generational leap over its predecessors. I’ve recently gotten the opportunity to put Razer’s newest iteration of the Razer Blade 15 to the test. First things first, let’s unbox it —
The first thing I noticed when I unboxed the device is the anodized aluminum case, which not only covers the outside but the inside as well — there’s no plastic here. Putting hands on it, the aluminum makes the whole device cold to the touch and downright tiny. At just 4.7lbs and 0.7” in thickness, the 15” laptop is easily half the weight and dimensions of any laptop I’ve ever owned.
As you can see in the video, the power supply was put on the same diet, weighing in at just 1 pound, 3oz. My previous generation laptop was nearly 9lbs, plus a 3-pound brick, so my shoulder is already happy. With the device unboxed, let’s take a trip around the edge and talk about connectivity.
As this is the advanced model, the laptop comes with an array of modern port choices. On the left side lies two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, with a third one on the right side. Back on the left are a USB Type C port and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. On the right edge lies an HDMI 2.0b port, a Kensington lock port, a UHS-III SD Card Reader, and a very welcome Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port to round it out.
Heading inside, this advanced model comes with a 10th Gen Intel Core (i7-10875 8-Core — 2.3GHz when throttled to a max of 5.1GHz at full power), an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super (Max-Q, 8GB DDR6 VRAM), 16GB Dual-Channel (8GB x 2) DDR4-2933MHz (with capacity for up to 64GB), 1TB SSD (M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4, swappable), and an 80Wh battery. All of this power drives a 15.6” display running 300Hz. There is an optional OLED 4K option, but having seen what higher refresh rates can do for gameplay, I acquiesced to the 1080p option.
One of the ports you might have noticed is conspicuously absent is an Ethernet port. At a time when Gigabit Ethernet is fairly ubiquitous on a gaming laptop, it was a surprise to see it missing here. The device sports the most bleeding edge Intel wireless card (Intel AX201, which supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and the currency unratified ax standard, as well as Bluetooth 5), but as I downloaded several terabytes of data over the wireless, I found that I didn’t miss the Ethernet connection that much. This new Intel chip kept up with my transfer needs easily.
Rounding out the spec sheet is a keyboard with full sized keys, sporting a per-key RGB lighting engine that ties into Razer’s Chroma software. Having typed this entire review on said keyboard, I can honestly say that it feels a lot like my previous laptop which sported an excellent SteelSeries board in it — high praise indeed. Atop the screen lies an infrared capable 1MP webcam, capable of 720p. That isn’t going to win any awards, and I’m certainly I’ll be using my Kiyo for any streaming I do, but the baked in one should do fine for things like facial recognition for Hello Windows sign-in.
One of the things I immediately found myself missing is either a physical button or a function key to disable the touchpad. This generously large pad is fantastic, at least as far as touchpads go, but once you plug in a mouse it becomes a great way to accidentally skip around in your document. It’s not a huge deal, but if you frequently bounce between a mouse and the pad, you’ll need to tackle that flip with Windows control.
As you can see from within this document, I ran a metric ton of synthetic and game benchmarks. One would expect that this device, given the power, would sound like a jet engine and reach temperatures about as high. Shockingly, neither of those things are true. Even running benchmarks designed to bring any device to its knees barely raised the temperature (Unpowered temp is 77 degrees Fahrenheit) in any significant way.
Similarly, the additional noise was almost imperceptible. Flipping the device over, I could see two fans that I’d need a better look at to see how either of these feats are possible. As you can see, this laptop uses an extremely densely populated fan, with 44 blades in it to push maximum air with minimum noise. Thankfully the additional heat dissipation doesn’t come with a high pitched whine like I would have expected.
The massive copper plate pulls heat away from the components, shoving it towards the heat exchangers and rear/bottom vents. Heat coming out of the rear vents of the device at idle is 94 degrees, coming up to 114 degrees at max load after 15 minutes of solid stress tests. Before boot the aluminum is just 77 degrees, coming up to 89 while I’m typing this review. A true testament to the vapor chamber cooling, even while at max load, the air coming out of the bottom fans was only 87 degrees. I’m not sure I would want it on my lap while gaming, but it is quite comfortable for general computing and movie watching.
SYNTHETIC BENCHMARKS:
With the game benchmarks behind me, I figured I’d turn my attention to some of the synthetic tests. These tend to be designed to absolutely melt every scrap of hardware in a desktop, so it tends to really put the screws to a laptop. UL has a whole suite of software for benchmarking that fits the bill nicely, including 3DMark, PCMark, and VRMark.
As such I’ve run all of them, focusing hardest on Fire Strike, Port Royal, and Time Spy, as well as the DLSS and VRS tests which emphasize adjustments in shading in favor of framerate without damaging quality (VRS), and DLSS which uses AI-driven supersampling to improve image quality.
VRS test #1 provides the baseline, with VRS disabled, and VRS test #2 varies the camera distance without reducing visual image quality in the foreground and background. DLSS does a similar demonstration with the first test with DLSS disabled for a baseline, with the second run rendering the test at a lower resolution and then punching the image quality back up with AI to a higher resolution. With both, if you can notice the image quality difference between them, it’s marginal at best, but the framerate improvement is massive.
As we head towards what looks like the most visually stunning holiday gaming season to date, it’s also time to see the launch of a whole new class of laptops. More than a refresh of gear, the newest line of ultra slim laptops are absolute monsters. From the Intel Core i7 10th Gen 16-core processors to the RTX 2080 Super video cards, this fresh crop of laptops represent a generational leap over its predecessors. I’ve recently gotten the opportunity to put Razer’s newest iteration of the Razer Blade 15 to the test. First things first, let’s unbox it —
The first thing I noticed when I unboxed the device is the anodized aluminum case, which not only covers the outside but the inside as well — there’s no plastic here. Putting hands on it, the aluminum makes the whole device cold to the touch and downright tiny. At just 4.7lbs and 0.7” in thickness, the 15” laptop is easily half the weight and dimensions of any laptop I’ve ever owned.
As you can see in the video, the power supply was put on the same diet, weighing in at just 1 pound, 3oz. My previous generation laptop was nearly 9lbs, plus a 3-pound brick, so my shoulder is already happy. With the device unboxed, let’s take a trip around the edge and talk about connectivity.
As this is the advanced model, the laptop comes with an array of modern port choices. On the left side lies two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, with a third one on the right side. Back on the left is a USB Type C port and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. On the right edge lies a HDMI 2.0b port, a Kensington lock port, a UHS-III SD Card Reader, and a very welcome Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port to round it out.
Heading inside, this advanced model comes with a 10th Gen Intel Core (i7-10875 8-Core — 2.3GHz when throttled to a max of 5.1GHz at full power), an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super (Max-Q, 8GB DDR6 VRAM), 16GB Dual-Channel (8GB x 2) DDR4-2933MHz (with capacity for up to 64GB), 1TB SSD (M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4, swappable), and an 80Wh battery.
All of this power drives a 15.6” display running 300Hz. There is an optional OLED 4K option, but having seen what higher refresh rates can do for gameplay, I acquiesced to the 1080p option.
One of the ports you might have noticed is conspicuously absent is an Ethernet port. At a time when Gigabit Ethernet is fairly ubiquitous on a gaming laptop, it was a surprise to see it missing here. The device sports the most bleeding-edge Intel wireless card (Intel AX201, which supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and the currency unratified ax standard, as well as Bluetooth 5), but as I downloaded several terabytes of data over the wireless, I found that I didn’t miss the Ethernet connection that much. This new Intel chip kept up with my transfer needs easily.
Rounding out the spec sheet is a keyboard with full-sized keys, sporting a per-key RGB lighting engine that ties into Razer’s Chroma software. Having typed this entire review on the said keyboard, I can honestly say that it feels a lot like my previous laptop which sported an excellent SteelSeries board in it — high praise indeed.
Atop the screen lies an infrared capable 1MP webcam, capable of 720p. That isn’t going to win any awards, and I’m certainly I’ll be using my Kiyo for any streaming I do, but the baked-in one should do fine for things like facial recognition for Hello Windows sign-in.
One of the things I immediately found myself missing is either a physical button or a function key to disable the touchpad. This generously large pad is fantastic, at least as far as touchpads go, but once you plug in a mouse it becomes a great way to accidentally skip around in your document. It’s not a huge deal, but if you frequently bounce between a mouse and the pad, you’ll need to tackle that flip with Windows control. visit here
As you can see from within this document, I ran a metric ton of synthetic and game benchmarks. One would expect that this device, given the power, would sound like a jet engine and reach temperatures about as high. Shockingly, neither of those things are true. Even running benchmarks designed to bring any device to its knees barely raised the temperature (Unpowered temp is 77 degrees Fahrenheit) in any significant way. Similarly, the additional noise was almost imperceptible. Flipping the device over, I could see two fans that I’d need a better look at to see how either of these feats are possible.
COOLING TECHNOLOGY
There is a wealth of engineering on the cooling tech in the Razer Blade 15 (2020) this laptop uses an extremely densely populated fan, with 44 blades in it to push maximum air with minimum noise. Thankfully the additional heat dissipation doesn’t come with a high pitched whine like I would have expected.
The massive copper plate pulls heat away from the components, shoving it towards the heat exchangers and rear/bottom vents. Heat coming out of the rear vents of the device at idle is 94 degrees, coming up to 114 degrees at max load after 15 minutes of solid stress tests. Before boot the aluminum is just 77 degrees, coming up to 89 while I’m typing this review.
A true testament to the vapor chamber cooling, even while at max load, the air coming out of the bottom fans was only 87 degrees. I’m not sure I would want it on my lap while gaming, but it is quite comfortable for general computing and movie watching.
GAME BENCHMARKS:
To best test the Razer Blade 15 (2020), I put it through a battery of tests, both synthetic and game benchmarks. I also ran a number of stress tests that should give you an idea of how the system will perform for everyday use. I can tell you up front that all of the videos above were encoded and uploaded from this laptop, and it hauls all sorts of ass with Adobe applications — something I never imagined I’d say as Adobe typically runs like molasses in winter on a mobile device. It’s nice to be proven wrong on that point. On to the benchmarks!
Apex Legends
As the game is a Battle Royale, the team at Respawn and EA get itchy about tools being run during competitive play. As such, I ran my benchmarking during the training sequence just to stay off the “banned” list. Obviously framerate makes a world of difference in competitive games like this, and the Razer Blade 15 (2020) is up to the task, delivering between 150 and 200fps, and on this high-refresh display, it looks as smooth as silk. Take a look for yourself.
The first video is running the game at “Balanced” settings, with the second video showcasing maximum power on CPU and GPU.
Ubisoft’s open world game from late 2018 was a graphical powerhouse, delivering some gorgeous vistas, fantastic facial animation, and draw distances to die for. It also pushed every bit of hardware in the machine..
Control
One of the best looking games in terms of lighting and close up character models, Control, the strange physics-busting game from Remedy, will push any system to the limit. It’s easy to understand why when you see lighting as great as this quick puzzle demo. While it doesn’t have a dedicated benchmark built in, I was able to showcase some gameplay with the game, running between 37 and 39fps at max settings.
A few tweaks would push it to 60fps with imperceptible changes to the overall look of the game, but it was unplayable on the previous model of Razer without dropping a whole lot of settings. A marked improvement. The first video is running the game at “Balanced” settings, with the second video showcasing maximum power on CPU and GPU
Final Fantasy XV
Final Fantasy XV really got the royal treatment on PC, and NVIDIA pumped every trick in the book into the game to deliver an absolutely magnificent looking game. Ansel support, 8K resolution, NVIDIA HFTS (contactless shadows that makes for realistic light as it casts through items like fences), VXAO, crazy detail in the foliage thanks to NVIDIA Turf Effects, and absolutely magnificent hair for the guys courtesy of NVIDIA Hairworks. With this huge list of improvements cranked to Ultra at 1080p, the game delivers a silky smooth 101fps.
The benchmarking utility instead focuses on an arbitrary number that you have to cross-check with the Square Enix site, but this laptop delivers 9441. For the frame of reference, a 2080 Ti on a desktop will deliver just north of 12,000, placing the 2080 Super Max-Q at slightly better than a standard 2080 desktop card. The Coalition and Microsoft Game Studios gave us a fantastic and gorgeous update to the Gears formula.
Overwatch
Thrown in for fun, Overwatch is a high-framerate competitive multiplayer game where speed matters. On my PC I play on a 144Hz refresh monitor, and simply put, there’s no going back to anything less. Happily, it doesn’t look like I’ll have to. The game routinely ran somewhere between 150fps and all the way up to 172fps in interior areas, with all settings at Ultra.
Star Control Origins
The team at Stardock aren’t happy with conventional benchmarks, and games like Star Control Origins and Ashes of the Singularity are great indicators of that. With a dedicated benchmarking utility that runs on DirectX 11, DirectX 12, and Vulcan, there’s something for everyone here.
The benchmark features a ton of procedurally generated landscape and objects, particle effects galore, CPU-driven AI and physics objects, and multi-core support — CEO Brad Wardell and his team like to wring every frame out of every bit of your hardware, not just the GPU.
Running all three benchmarks, I was happy to see roughly 65fps on average, with spikes just over 100 for each, as you can see for yourself. The first video is running the game at “Balanced” settings, with the second video showcasing maximum power on CPU and GPU.
Heaven Benchmark:
Per reader request, we’ve ran the Heaven benchmark at Extreme settings. Rendering at 1600×900 (as is standard), the test easily gets 150+ fps. It’s pretty, but clearly this test isn’t pushing the GPU and CPU very hard in this system. This test was set to maximum power for GPU and CPU.
Fire Strike:
3DMark’s tests are usually multi-part, and Fire Strike is chief of the DirectX 11 tests, pushing modern graphics cards even now. The first test will push heavy tessellation and volumetric illumination, with the second test tackling complex smoke using compute shaders, with dynamic particle illumination.
The Physics Test runs 32 parallel simulations of soft and rigid body physics on the CPU, with the combined test tackling all of these simultaneously. The results are less about framerate and more about where a device lands in the grand scheme of things, with this one beating out 81% of all devices tested.
Port Royal:
There are SO many reflections in this test, so it serves as a great example of what’s possible with real-time ray tracing. Volumetric lighting, particle effects, and post-processing effects being handled in real-time make this look absolutely gorgeous with the Razer Blade 15 (2020) coming in just shy of what a desktop 2080 and an intel i9 9900K can deliver.
Time Spy:
While Fire Strike is meant to test DirectX 11, Time Spy is your DirectX 12 benchmark. Supporting newer APIs like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, rendering the results in 1440p. The first test features transparent content, particle shadows, and tessellation, with the second test pulling in ray-marched volumetric illumination with hundreds of light sources and a massive amount of small particles to illuminate.
Throw in the CPU test to push physics computations and you’ve got a solid test for any DX12 application. The first video is running the game at “Balanced” settings, with the second video showcasing maximum power on CPU and GPU
FAQS
Are Razer Blade laptops worth it?
Is the Razer Blade 15 reliable?
Do Razer laptops last long?
How long will the Razer Blade 15 last?
At five to six hours of uptime, the Razer Blade 15 has a solid battery life. It’s not the best when it comes to all laptops, but it’s a great result for a gaming laptop when you consider many gaming laptops fall short of four hours.
Are Razer laptops touch screen?
The Razer Blade Stealth, which we recently had the opportunity to test, has some unusual characteristics, including a QHD+ Touchscreen display, and a noticeable lack of a GPU. You can pick up the Razer Blade Stealth for $1,499.99.
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