And it is announced - Razer Blade 2016

check out the razerzone site or http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/15/razer-reveals-its-latest-14-inch-blade-gaming-laptop-at-gdc/


"With the 6th Gen quad-core Intel® Core™ i7 processor, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M graphics, Thunderbolt™ 3 (USB-C), and groundbreaking PCIe solid state storage performance, the Razer Blade has more power per cubic inch than any ultraportable or gaming notebook in its class. Combined with the visually stunning 14" QHD+ Display, Chroma anti-ghosting keyboard, and Killer™ Wireless-AC, the Razer Blade is the world's most advanced gaming notebook."

Also 16GB (wish it was more?)

drop in price too!
512 GB SSD (more?) is $2,199.00 (US)

 

Looks like the major changes are:
>> Update to Skylake platform (Intel Skylake CPU, DDR4 memory, M.2 NVMe support)
>> Support for Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C
>> 1800p screen only (no option for 1080p FHD)
>> $400 price drop for 256GB & 512GB models


On a related note, I think the bigger story is that the Razer Blade 14 FHD can be bought for $1600. 14" 1080p matte non-touch display.
http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-fullhd-2015

If you ever wanted a Razer Blade, THAT is the system configuration to buy, while it's still available.

 

This sounds like a quick spec refresh with another one to follow later this year once Nvidia has new parts ready. From what I recall Razer has done this before, 2 updates in the same year. What I'm slightly disappointed by is the fact that they still only support HDMI 1.4b instead of 2.0. I believe alienware offers HDMI 2.0 on their higher end nvidia chips, so should be something the razer blade could have supported to get some nice dual 4k 60hz display action going.

 

Yeah, I seem to recall once they had two updates in the same year but I think that was an oddity? Anyway, they seem to get right up to the edge of the latest of things and then things get stale fairly soon after that. I guess all the other game laptop makers have the same problems as well. New intel chip here, new graphics card there, new ports, etc. Having said that, one would have thought the HDMI 2.0 would have been there as well as maybe option for more memory.

 

I think I'm going to consider continuing to hang on to my 2014 Blade until Pascal parts are released. I'm still happy with the performance of the 2014 for the most demanding games I'm playing right now (FO4, Witcher 3).

The one thing I am somewhat interested in is just getting it to be able to just use it on my lapdesk normally and get a Core to connect to the TV and plug it into that in order to play games on the TV sometimes. But then I realize that my wife is pretty much the only one of us that plays games on the TV these days (XB One). I've been sneaking finishing off Mass Effect 3 on the 360 that I got as a gift so long ago when she's not around watching TV or playing FO4 on the XBOne.

Usually I'm in the recliner playing something on the blade and she's either watching TV or playing FO4.

Yeah.. I'm talking myself out of spending money. I really am interested in having the faster storage and Skylake if it's lower wattage than my current i7.

970M would be nice except I don't have a huge issue with the 870M right now. 16GB isn't going to change much, games play great with 8GB still. Chroma keyboard I don't really care about, don't mind the original green one at all. If they actually made the cooling solution noticeably quieter I would jump on it immediately. Reviews will tell there.

Hmm... I have the budget for it, I just don't see it as a huge upgrade in experience right now. Maybe I need a few beers first.

 

The chance of this thing doing 4K at 60FPS with a 970M is extremely unlikely in any but the least demanding games. Unless you wanted it to watch media, but there's probably much cheaper ways of doing that than the Blade.

 

From the pictures, the keyboard is identical to the RB Stealth. I really hope it isn't the exact same model. I certainly can use it just fine but the travel on the RB 2014 and 2015 is much better.

 

If you can live with it, wait for the GPU refresh. From what I've been testing, the i7-6700HQ is not that much better than the i7-4710HQ I've been using. The 970M is nice enough but it's not such a huge jump in performance to spend all that money - especially if you say you don't need it. Thunderbolt 3 is nice too but there are no docks released for it yet and who knows what they'll cost and how buggy they will be at first. It's cool they are offering $200 credit for future purchase though. That would pay for part of the Core, if anyone was interested in it.

 

You know, I pretty much feel the same way. The games I play (Fallout 4, Skyrim and others like these) perform pretty well for me on my 2014 blade. Oddly enough the only game I play that I could use the updated specs is Galactic Civilizations 3 which could actually use the 16gb memory when playing on the largest maps. But we will see, time and envy has a way of working on me ;-)

 

Of course as new games come out I might find that the ole' 2014 Blade no longer cuts it.

 

As a 2015 Blade owner the ONLY thing that interests me about this is USB 3.1 for Core support, as trying to port games out to my 34" 21:9 via the onboard HDMI is hit and miss. MAYBE Skylake will run a few C cooler, but will it be "cooler" enough that I can set max power back to 100%? Somehow given "quiet vs cool" fan profiles, I think not. Don't get me wrong, it looks good, and if I was using an older OEM branded machine it definitely looks to be a solid performer. . . but real world usage you're not going to see much if any difference in performance between this and last year's model, and I doubt it'll lengthen the gap between the performance of the 2014 vs 2015 by any noticeable margin either.

Am I the only one that's become so spoiled by "good" displays [IE UHD/QHD glass displays] that the thought of a 1080 IPS panel causes shudders of revulsion? I gave my wife the old 2014 17" Blade Pro when I got the Blade, and every time I have to update it/take care of something on it for her. . it gives me a headache because the picture seems so . . FUZZY.

 

Agreed. At this point hidpi support for desktop apps is excellent. I think there might be one or two edge cases for me still, but they are inconsequential. As far as games are concerned, 900p and 1080p both look great on the 1800p display.

I had my desktop set to 900p at first, but then most apps caught up and I could never go back.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

Nope, you're not the only one. I could never go back to FHD. 4k on the 12.5" screen is a little much, but QHD on the 12.5" and QHD+ on the 14" are perfect in my opinion. I'm currently looking at 4k on a 17" panel and it's phenomenal. Sure, there's no gaming at these resolutions, but the interpolation to 1080p for gaming is not noticeable and the day to day use with high dpi is just so nice to look at.

My only hang up is color gamut now. If you asked me two weeks ago, I couldn't care less, but now that I see what 100% aRGB looks like, I'm kind of hooked. I was actually kind of expecting Razer to improve the screen considering they did it with the Stealth... It's still a great screen though.

 

If it helps, the only "upgrade" you'd notice from your current 2014 Razer Blade 14 is going from a GeForce 870M --> 970M GPU.

Going Intel Core i7 4720HQ --> 6700HQ CPU will not yield real-world performance gains.
Going DDR3 --> DDR4 memory will not yield real-world performance gains.
Going M.2 SATA SSD --> M.2 NVMe SSD will not yield real-world performance gains (unless the only thing you do with your laptop is run storage benchmarks, or just copy large sequential files all day long).

I'd say that sticking with your 2014 Razer Blade 14 is a pretty good idea. Upgrading just won't give you enough benefit to be worth the cost or hassle.

 

I love high DPI as much as the next guy. I fully understand that high-DPI on desktop applications is great, and gaming at non-native resolutions isn't a big deal at all.

My big gripe against 1800p touchscreen displays is that they are glossy. I use that laptop for work, and I frequently use it in environments where I can't control the ambient lighting. I'm also anal-retentive about keeping my computer gear clean, so the fact that glossy screens attract fingerprints and smudges is annoying.

That's why I prefer 1080p FHD screens on both my Razer Blade 14, and my Dell XPS 13. If they had 1440p, 1800p, or 4K matte displays for those laptops, I'd definitely buy that option.

 

Especially if they use the same NVMe drives they used in the stealth. I'd rather have the sata drive.

 

I was curious about the work environment at Razer and checked out the employee reviews on Glassdoor, man the sting from reading that stuff makes me want to stay far far away from Razer

 

They had me at Chroma. Ordered a 512GB model to replace my aging 2014 system.

I'm good waiting a year for Pascal to shake out.

 

I am still wondering if it's worth the switch from my faithful 2014. I think that getting the 2015 FHD is the best route in terms of ROI. I am not a big fan of this UHD glossy-ass screen. I can't really max out any games on it, and applications such as Photoshop and such looks ridiculously small. Also, the icons on your desktop keeps getting refreshed in alignment when playing games because of the shift in resolution. I don't think I've also EVER used the touchscreen feature.

Hmmm... decisions.... decisions...

 

Yikes! I'll stick with my Asus for the time being. Reviews are consistently terrible from employees.

 

I'm sorry, but how is this relevant? iPhone breaks records sales every year on child slavery and nobody gives a poop.

 

just ordered mine, I love new toys.

 

I'm not an idealist or anything, but having been in a terrible work situation or two, how a company treats its employees factors in to my decision.

So, yeah - if it's relevant to me in my purchasing decision, then it's relevant to me. I'm not trying to project that on others, and I think it's OK to have an opinion.

With that said, I'd grab up a 1080P 2015 blade on discount if not for those reviews.

 

I'm leaning towards that as well. I think I can still get $1K for my 2014, so the investment for thee 2015 isn't that bad. I am just so over this QHD screen. I never liked it from the beginning.

 

Knowing that pascal gpu is coming soon, is it worth purchasing this product? Why did razer even release this now knowing that the latest gpu for both nvidia and amd is coming maybe within a couple of months? Opinion guys.

 

oops double post, moderators please delete this one

 

Is it coming in a couple months? Afaik they are announcing "more details" next month. Their launch date has been reported to be Summer and later 2016. I would assume Razer wants a few months sales rather than not take advantage of Skylake and Thunderbolt 3.

Their launch schedule has never been in line with Nvidia in the past. They were 4-6 months past the 970M launch with the 2015 version too. I'd be willing to bet you won't see a Pascal Razer Blade till this time next year.

 

While more information about the Pascal GPUs is expected, typically Vvidia staggers their releases so I'd bet the earliest launch is for Summer 2016 for the high end desktop GPU flagship. I don't know if the equivalent high-end mobile GPU will be coming out necessarily before the end of the year based on the pascal architecture. It's possible, and why I guessed there might be a mid-cycle refresh later in Fall 2016. No way to really say until Nvidia says more about their release calendar.

 

cool. you selling your alienware 15R2 then ?

 

Guys, I see razors dont have gsync. You guys who own already... please comment on if you get tearing and lag issues because of this ?

 

Used to be the EXACT same way. . . but on the blade the screen is unbelievably bright, and I hardly notice light smudging anymore. I *DO*, however, keep a sunglass cleaning kit in my bag for my repsective glossy touch-enabled devices. In all honesty I'd rather have a glossy reflective screen than a screen with a cheap fuzzy anti-glare coating... I highly suspect that's the cause of my headaches on the 17 when I have to work on it.

Lag, no. Screen tearing yes. . depending on the game and what the GPU is rendering. In WoW Tirisfal Glades *ALWAYS* tears. Fortunately, I only go back for about a day every 3 months (Costs me $15.00 every time I forgot why I left the last time, and I remember 5 minutes after I login ; )

 

Every computer without gsync will always have screen tearing with vsync off, and input lag when on. All of them.

 

I can't tell... is the new Razer Blade thinner than the previous models? Or is it the exact same form factor?

 

Same form factor, the New Blade is just slightly lighter

 

So how bad is it ?

 

Bad if it's bad for you.

 

Lol, that doesn't help me as I'm new to gaming (or WILL be when I get a gaming laptop). Currently I've not gamed, either on a console, DT or laptop.

 

All computers are the same. If it's not vsynced, it will tear.

 

I understand that. Im trying to establish if its that big of a deal ! IE Is it worth spending the extra for a GSYNC laptop.

 

No, it isn't a big deal. Play vsynced for everything that's not competitive FPS.

 

If you're new to gaming, why are you worried about tearing? I've been gaming for years and it barely bothers me.

 

Well, Gsync is a relatively "new" technology - it's been... two years or so since it came out. Before that, we all had tearing. I've been gaming since... well, since I was a wee lad, and it never bothered me much unless the tearing was excesive. The only remedy was - and is, still today - to use V-Sync, which tries to sync the rendering on the screen with the refresh rate of the monitor. Sometimes V-Sync brings its own problems, tho. I never used it, and got used to the tearing.

Now, I have the Blade 14 (2014) and it also does not have Gsync, and tearing doesn't bother me. It is there, sure, but it is not a deal breaker by any means. I could activate V-Sync - and since the panel is 60Hz if I remember correctly, probably most games I play can easily put 60fps - or 30 in the worst case.

To be fair, on my desktop I have a ROG Swift monitor with Gsync, and yes, it is great. Once you try it, it is very noticeable when you are using a non-Gsync display and you will think "God... I miss Gsync" for a second and then continue playing without worrying about it.

I guess what I am saying is, Gsync is a Quality-of-Life feature that is nice to have, but in the end it has little to no significance when you're enjoying a good game.

Hope this helps.

 

cheers, what does competitive fps mean ?

 

because I've read about it ! it sounds like a negative aspect to the experience. thats why i am asking how much of an issue it is, and find out if its a big enough issue to make a gsync laptop essential.

 

definitely helps. it gives a good perspective, thanks.

 

QHD is a battery hog, and the panels are generally glossy and don't have enough backlighting. I'd like to see a fully spec'd 2016 Blade with 16GB RAM and a 1080P matte display. I'd even settle for 3GB of VRAM, since that's sufficient on a 1080P display with a 970m.

And if they can put out a Blade with g-sync, I'm all in.

 

Seems like you want the 2015 FHD version. The improvements on the CPU and GPU should be minuscule on the 2016 in terms of benchmarks. It's $1600 now, so it's not a bad deal. I might bite on it myself, but looking at the few pictures, I don't know how I feel about that aluminum bezel around the screen. Wish they went with the whole panel covering the screen like on the QHD version.

 

I got over my self-righteousness and did just that - ordered the 2015 FHD. Free shipping, free mouse.

These companies have got us right where they want us!

 

Well... it seems like I bit the bullet and pre-ordered the Blade 2016 Damn me and my liking of being an early adopter of things. I've always thought that something like the Core would be awesome; and if it is, I can see myself getting rid of my desktop.

Though I'm still not sure I will actually get the Core itself, at least I want a laptop that is ready for something like that. And while there might be other options from other companies with the TB3 port, I must confess that Razer spoiled me with the design quality of the Blade. Sure, there are cheaper laptops that might have similar or more performance, but none have the sexy design of the Blade, imho. The Aorus is a close second, to be fair, but not quite there for me.

I will let you know how things go!

 

This might be a good spot to ask... Can the you output to the core and run it right back to the razor to display? I've never used an external monitor, where I'm thinking of doing so the razer would have to sit on my desk in front of the external so I would need to close the lid to see the external monitor, can I do that? Thanks.