New Razer Blade & Razer Blade Pro

No x 3. Ram modules are non removable on the 14. DDR4 wont be compatible with current motherboards. Will not see any performance increase.........anywhere outside of benchmarks.

I dont know of any consumer applications thats bottle necked by DDR3 1600 ram.

Plus i remember reading the DDR4 rams are going to be only for the intel 2011 socket performance platforms and not for mainstream. At least when it's first launched.

 

the gpus are soldered.

I dont what type of connector, but a panel with similar dimensions and the same connector is indeed possible. that screen has a bezel, so its going to need a fairly medium to high complexity disassembly, if you are up to it, I would like to see this done

 

Hi,
New to the thread and just wanted to post some comments/review of the blade 14. First off i wanted to say that the device was great while I had it for the most part. I found a small manufacturing defect (bezel was popped out in the lower left hand corner and couldn't resolve myself) so currently mine is being shipped overnight back to Razer at their cost, so at least that leads me to believe they will likely have good warranty support if need be. My only other negative comment before the positives is that I have at this point without much tweaking been unable to figure out how they go to their 6 hour battery figure. The only way I could imagine that possible based on the use I had with it is if you put the screen on the lowest brightness, and read some long pdf file for 6 hours. I would guess the realistic number is more like 4 hours for surfing (similar to what johnnobts said) no comment on gaming battery life yet but i assume it would be significantly less.

Now on to the positives. The built quality minus the defect of course was amazing. Everything felt very solid and well constructed, even the hinge mechanism and the way the screen closes seemed to be engineered exceedingly well. I think the thing that bothers me a little bit is in reading this forum many seem to miss the key fact that designing something thin and light is not as simple as saying, "lets make a thin laptop" and then it magically appearing on paper in front of you. It requires a large amount of R&D and likely more expensive materials in construction. So although the alienware I'm sure is great from a gaming standpoint which is ultimately important, it's not really comparable on a design and quality level regarding the chassis in either a weight or quality of construction standpoint. Is 2 lbs going to break my arm walking around, of course not, but its far less comfortable to carry around. The funny thing i always imagine with regards to weight is going to the store and buying whatever the weight equivalent difference is in ground beef, put in perspective putting 2 lbs of beef on top of the razer seems like a massive difference to me personally. That brings me to my next point the thermal engineering on this laptop is very impressive. I would say that the bottom does get very warm and I would be surprised if you could game with it on your lap in a game that was maxing the cpu/gpu, however overall for how thin and light it is, its unbelievable that they were able to route heat so efficiently away from the most important area the keyboard, additionally the fans as already stated are impressively quiet. I did notice the keyboard getting a little warm in some benchmarks but nothing remotely close to uncomfortable. The touch pad is great (has a really smooth feel to it, and buttons click well) but I do suffer a similar issue someone else posted where I'm struggling not to accidentally pinch/zoom when surfing the net, thinking about trying to find if i can disable that gesture or turn the sensitivity down a bit on the touch pad. As far as the screen goes to me it is adequate. Most of us i assume use 1080p 23" inch monitors. So when you actually step back and think about it if you shrink the screen to 14" and maintain a resolution of 1600x900 you are actually getting a higher ppi than what you currently use for gaming. That being said it was a little jarring using a matte monitor vs glossy. I think matte is the way to go for a laptop since you have a less likely chance to control ambient light around you, but still the monitor just tends to look worse to me after using glossy for so long. As far as viewing angles go I don't personally really understand the concern, the laptop screen has a hinge, viewing angle is controllable. The only crappy part is people can't watch you game on your laptop well. Keyboard seemed functional to me, nothing amazing to me but nothing bad either. One last little slight annoyance I had was i couldn't figure out a way to turn off the razer logo led on the back of the lcd, i would prefer not to advertise or more so waste battery life (if anyone has found a way through the software that I missed please let me know). I will add more detail if I have anything i find interesting with the new one i assume i will get next week. Let me know if anyone has any direct questions.

 

I'm quite concerned that when I get my Blade Pro all the way here in SEA, that it'll have a defect =/

I extremely hope not, but a lot of the reviews seem to say they have even a slight one. Fingers crossed, shipping back and forth is going to be an extreme bother.

 

Hello, was wondering if anyone had info on release date for the Razer blade pro on amazon orders? I'm sure someone has already asked the question but I was unable to find it. Thank you!

 

No one knows at this point. I expect Razer will fulfill orders on their site first, and ship to Amazon when they are no longer back ordered.

 

@elly I am sure you will be the only one in manila with this laptop though, at least for awhile.

@evnt horizon glad to hear your evaluation of the build quality, very eloquently put.

And regarding the screen, I recently changed to 1080p matte on my desktop, from apple cinema 1200p, and it is jarring. I suspect many issues are arising from that, but one of the things that killed me on my r4 was the glossy screen just unusable in many normal lighting conditions. Thanks for the impressions!

 

@EvntHorizon - thanks for posting your impressions.

 

@aaronjb You're welcome
I also just remembered one thing that impressed me and perhaps this is common for windows 8, i know they improved load times. But i timed it multiple times and from completely off the laptop is fully at the login screen and ready for use in 5 seconds. Also thanks to Haswell i think basically every time I came back form standby it was within 1 second, felt the same as any tablet i have ever used, sometimes even faster. Really I'm just trying to say that the SSD/CPU for me at least seems to be more than adequate in speed. Although write times could be better read times are more important to gamers for our load times in games which this SSD does reasonably well.

 

My Razer Blade 14 arrived and I'll share my initial impressions for those on the fence or waiting for theirs.

The Good -
It's well made, no flexing, creaks or worry spots ( except the one mentioned below ).

It looks really good, even the logo isn't as cheesy as I thought it would be.

Its comfortable. Unlike my MacBook Air the edges dont dig in to my wrists when using it.

The keyboard is exceptional. Good travel, solid feel, well made with good feedback and nice spacing. It's a small form factor keyboard of course though so no PgUp,PgDown, etc... but ive gotten used to the with the MBA.

Track pad is great, very responsive, perhaps the first ive ever experienced that I could actually game on. The buttons on the other hand worry me a bit. If there is an area on the machine I am worried might break, it's the buttons. They just seem... loose or inprecise, especially compared to the rest of the laptop.

Screen resolution is about perfect for the form factor, big enough screen I can program, do 3D art, game, etc... but not so tiny I have to constantly squint. Viewing angles are exceptional... I was using it outside on a patio on a sunny day and had someone viewing from a 45 degree angle without effort.

It's fast enough to play everything I've thrown at it. The GPU only rated a 6.8 on Windows Perfromance Index, which seemed rather low. The rest of the machine was more like 8. In real world tests though ( MechWarrior Online, Crysis, XCom ) the machine did excellent maxed out. Mass Effect 2 told me the video card wasn't to spec, but I think its looking at the integrated Intel GPU and getting confused. Actually playing the game it's fine.

Heat is well handled, pretty much exactly as they described. The top surface gets no heat at all, the fans are mute for the most part but the strip in front of the keyboard heats up but not scaldingly so.

No bloatware. Generally the very first thing I have to do is uninstall the OS to get rid of all the crap. Razer shipped with pretty much nothing on it, exactly the way it should be. The stuff that loads, is what should load and nothing more. Other than Razers config software and communication software, it's pretty much just stock windows 8.

Windows 8. I'm not a big fan, especially of the UI previously known as Metro, but paired with this machine, it just sings. Nearly instant boot times, its much faster to connect to networks, something about Win7 that drove me to drink.

Networking. I don't know why but this thing works really really really well. Where other devices/laptops have trouble picking up a signal this things doesn't. It's fast, works well and has connected to my phones, home network and away network without issue. Networking is my bane, this is the area I always have trouble with, but in this case, it just worked, and worked well.


The Bad -
The screen... it's got good viewing angles, descent brightness and works well enough outside and isn't overly glossy. But the matte... I dont know how to put this, its distracting. It makes the pixel density seem much worse than it actually is. Once you are gaming it goes away, but looking at a static screen it just looks... bad. My 1000$ MacBook Air screen is certainly superior, which is a shame.

Heat. This is a minor quibble, but one you should be aware of. The machine used on a table in front of you is nearly perfect. You will not notice the fans or heat while gaming. That said, last night I tried playing on my couch with it on my lap and you DO NOT want to do this. It vents out the back and gets uncomfortable within a few minutes. Granted, my Asus G53 laptop ( which is about the same size as the Raptor jet it is modelled after... ) puts out even more heat, but it angles it upward so you dont really feel it. With the Razer, its vented straight back, so you will feel it. SImply put, if you actually game as a "lap top", it will get uncomfortable. Fortunately it's your leg/knee that takes the heat as opposed to more... important areas.

The Trackpad. It's good, well made and works very well, but the buttons... they just don't fill me with confidence. I imagine the single biggest point of failure on this machine is going to be the buttons. On top of that, the trackpad is set to reverse scrolling, just like Mac OS has done, which is STUPID. This isn't Razer, it's Microsoft. That said, there is a bug. If you go into the trackpad options, you can turn reversed scrolling off. Problem is, it only applies to the first scrolling mode enabled. In my case, I have two finger touch for scrolling, but it also shipped with the right region of the trackpad as a scrolling area. Turning off inverted scrolling only turns it off for the virtual track pad area, the two finger touch scrolling was still flipped. I had to turn off the virtual scrolling section of the trackpad, then it applied the change to two finger scroll. That said, I turn that off anyway, so it didn't effect me. In your case however, if you want both, and want both to scroll the "correct way", you are out of luck.

Battery. 6 hours... yeah right, no #$@#$ing way. Maybe on low battery setting, with the screen completely dimmed with wifi disconnected. I took it out with me the other night and after about 2 hours of surfing/writing on balanced the battery was down about 50%. I then played a single match of MechWarrior Online ( which for some stupid reason tends to leave your CPU at 100% even when idle ) and after a 10 minute match, my battery dropped by 15%. From my initial experience, I think depending on the game you will get between 1 and 2 hours of gaming in on battery. For casual usage, I think you can expect maybe 4 hours on battery. In performance mode, with screen fully on but GPU not engaged, I imagine you could get maybe 3 hours out of the battery.

On the bright side, the power brick is uber light.

The Odd -
So, as I mentioned above, I also own a 2012 Macbook Air and their clams about being thinner at the thickest edge... ... I dont know, my eye seems to think this is a lie. The weight is also a lot higher than I expected, probably double the weight of the Air. Still though, compared to other gaming laptops, it weights NOTHING.



Summary -
It's early, but I am happy with the machine. It feels like a premium machine, it works well, its fast. I am a little bit disappointed by the screen, I cant put into words why. It's functional, easy to see, bright outside and not overly glossy. But it also doesn't wow me. For 2 grand, it should. I dont miss touch, but I would expect a slightly more vibrant screen on this thing.

At the end of the day though, the Razer 14 is EXACTLY what I expected. A well made, portable, premium, fast laptop. It fits into my backpack without effort and I can carry it and my Macbook around and still way substantially less than my Asus 15" gaming laptop... which coincidentally this runs circles around. I wish the screen was a bit better and the battery life a bit longer; but over all I am quite happy.

Let's put it simply, if I had a time machine... would I go back in time and use my 2 grand on a different laptop? Good god no!

 

can you believe razer has only been making laptops for a couple of years? and they're already teaching the likes of dell and others a thing or two...

 

Both Amazon and Razer are being tight lipped about any info regarding Amazon availability. I've emailed both. I emailed Frys and they gave me an estimate of 7/16/13 as far as being available to ship. They made it very clear though that this is just an estimate and may change. Hopefully this means Amazon will receive units to ship the middle of July. I wish it was sooner.

 

Well Amazon still isn't shipping so my guess it that when the ship time on Razer's site drops from 5-7 days to 1, that they'll start sending stock to Amazon to ship to their preorders and newly placed orders as well...

Kojaku

 

I think I found the connector I need to make use of the 2.5" bay that is empty. It's designed for HP laptops but they look the same and their both SATA III. I ordered it and will post an update when it comes in the mail on of it worked or not. See the attached photos of the underside of the Blade Pro. Also this confirms the Ram on the Blade Pro is upgradable. [/URL][/IMG] [/URL] [/URL][/IMG][/IMG]

 

upgradeable RAM!!! nice because i was worried about 8GB becoming short for the next 4 years. Specially for all of us who will be working, programming, and using lots of memory.

 

Nah not really concerned if I'll be the only one, but more of when I do receive it, something will be wrong with it which would call for a replacement. The shipping distance and waiting time again.. Oh boy.

 

@Serapth, EvntHorizn

Thanks for the input guys, do you guys mind running HWMonitor in the background and play a video game? I want to see idle and load temps on the CPU/GPU. You can even run benchmarks if you'd like but gameplay is what I'm more interested in.
Serapth, you mentioned Razer configs and communication software, can you elaborate more on that?
Serapth, so basically if you want to game, game on a hard surface and you should be fine?
Does the system come with a recovery disk?

Thanks again!

 

Dang, kind of makes me want to cancel my order with amazon and go for fry's since they where able to give at least SOME kind of estimate. Waiting is killing me, my sager got fried in a thunderstorm couple nights ago and I kind of saw it as providence to buy the blade pro....I suppose I can tough out a few weeks hah. Thank you for the info though!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

 

For those that are wondering about the 14" Blade dimensions, I've taken a few shots relative to my other laptops:


Macbook Air on the Razer 14 on a Dell Studio 17 on an Asus G53SX:



Side shot, same stack:



Macbook Air on Razer



Front edge comparison:


Back edge comparison:



I am really having trouble with the "thinner than a Macbook Air at it's thickest point" claim. Except if you count the little feet added to the bottom of each. Chasis-wise, no way it's thinner.


Finally, top shot of a 15" Asus, under 14" Razer under 13" Mac.

 

After running 3DMark and a couple MWO matches, which always maxes the CPU even when it's doing nothing...

 

Hello, I'm interested to know more about the Trackpad buttons, I don't quite understand what you mean by "Loose or imprecise"

 

I chatted with an Amazon CSA and when pressed they said to expect shipments on the 14" within a month, "...This is the maximum time period however it will be in stock before a month" - this was a couple days ago. Kind of interesting insight into how the pre-order process works - it looks like Amazon accepted pre-orders on their site, but the orders weren't pass-through to Razer's own pre-ordering queue (probably makes sense). The strange part for me is that the units are still listed as pre-order / not yet released on Amazon's site; probably just a quirk of their PLM and sourcing process(es). I travel quite a bit for work, so it's becoming a little bit of a game to see when the unit will ship - hoping it comes this coming week in time for the long weekend, but hard to say.

Glad to hear other folks' orders are coming through, and appreciate people taking the time to share their initial impressions!

 

He didn't lie if you remember the new Razer Blade and Razer Blade Pro were announced May 30th (I believe) and the Alienware 14 was not announced till June 11th, How would he know exactly what screen the Alienware 14 would have if he announced his product before they did? At the time of launch his info was correct then Alienware proved him that's all.

 

I've compiled together a lot of what I've said/post above into a full blown quasi-review. I know when I was waiting for it to arrive I kept looking for more detailed information and didn't find it, so I tried to be thorough and give all the information I could. If there is something more specific that any of you want to know, let me know and I will see what I can do.



As to my comment about the trackpad, it's a very minor point, but if there is going to be a point of failure, this is it. For example, my left button is slightly higher than the right one and compared to keyboard keys they just seem sorta... loose? Like if I were to catch the edge on something like say... my watch band, it might rip right out, kinda like cheap keys on a keyboard.

Again, its perception only, there is nothing wrong with it, it functions perfectly well, but of all the components on the machine, its the only potential problem point. Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

 

The dimension of the MacBook Air is including the feet on the bottom, what they are talking about is if you line up the back of the MacBook Air to the Razer Blade 14 the Air is slightly thicker then the Blade. You are showing pictures of the laptop on top of each other rather then lined up with each other like in this photo



It's easier to see when there back to back but the only thing I can say about it is that it's not as thin as they make it out to be, they were they market it you would think it would be thinner all around over the Air.

 

Ah I see, so you're saying the trackpad buttons are loose to the point where they slightly wiggle around instead of solidly attached like the keyboard?

 

About the low Windows Index Score for the 765M - I bet it's using the integrated graphics by default to get that number. Try changing the option in the NVidia control panel to run on the 765m all the time, then run the benchmark.

EDIT: Thanks for posting up your review!

 

Does anyone know if we'll be hooked into drivers baked by Razer? The stock NV drivers (mobile beta 320.49) don't detect any supported hardware.

 

Been struggling with this. All the benchmarks I run appears to default to the integrated graphics. I tried to set the prefered graphics to nvidia and profiles to pick the nvidia card but the result always appears to always default to intel gpu.

If you can school me in how to fix this, it would be much appreciated.

And yes running games on battery is wielding me about 1 hour'ish.

 

Right click an application, e.g. a media player, and choose 'run using high performance discrete GPU'. Start a movie, then pause it so it won't hog resources. Now try running the benchmark.

 

Can somebody who already has the 14" version confirm, that it is upgradable with a 2nd SSD and a 2nd Ram?

 

I'm planning on getting the Razer Blade / Blade Pro, just got a couple of question.
1. Are the difference between i7-4702HQ, i7-4700HQ and i7-4900MQ (used by other manufacturer) really significant on day-to-day use and on gaming use?
2. Does the Blade Pro have the option to upgrade its memory? Will it void the guarantee?
3. What components can I upgrade on Blade and Blade Pro? Will it void the guarantee?
4. Does the Razer Blade Pro perform in silence? I don't want my laptop to disturb any other student in class by loud sound of cooling fan and heat. My previous MBP did great on sound but got really hot when I ran Windows.
5. Is there any battery life improvement between Blade and Blade Pro?
6. How long can I use the Blade / Blade Pro if I'm just using it for typing stuff, doing assignments, and coding (I'm doing a computer science course this september) before the battery run out?
7. Also does razer blade has a built-in microphone? I know pro version does, but what about the normal version?

 

I'll try to answer what I can.

1. I personally don't think so, not extreme differences at least. From what I understand, other than the slight speed difference, it's the wattage that separates them? Could be wrong, please correct me.

2. SSD upgrade, yes through Razer from 128 to 256 to 512. On your own, I think some people have slowly determined that you actually can, but at your own risk. Opening the unit voids your warranty automatically.

3. From the past few pages, it seems the RAM and HDDs or SSDs can be altered if you know what you're doing.

4. Apparently the Blade really does, so I'd like to assume that the Blade Pro also does. Hopefully.

5. From what I can see, they use the same battery. So a bigger machine with a bigger screen and more overall wattage would definitely consume more battery, so doing the same things, Blade > Blade Pro battery life.

6. Estimates show the Blade to have a roughly 4 hour lifespan of doing those things. I would honestly like to say the same for the Pro, but because of number 5, maybe 3 hours?

7. I'm pretty sure it does and it's standard within these laptops. If there isn't, I'd be very very surprised.

I'm expecting my Pro within the next week, so hopefully I can post some observations here soon.

 

Actually, I read in a hands-on (I forget which one) that the Blade Pro is very loud and hasn't changed from its predecessor in that aspect.

 

1. Check notebookcheck.net for exact info. Not a big difference in windows and games. Maybe in MatLab or other processor intensive tasks.
2/3. There is an empty mSata on the blade 14, and an empty bay on the 17. It is rumored that an extra mSATA ssd will work on the 14. The 2.5 inch bay on the 17/pro would hold a drive and appears to have a SATA connector, but you need a special cable and it is unclear if it is operational. It appears that you can upgrade the ram on the 17/pro, but not the 14. Opening the innards of the laptop voids your warranty.
4. From the reviews, the 14 is silent when not gaming, and pretty quiet when gaming. I imagine the 17 is silent when not gaming as well.
5/6. Blade 14 ~4 hrs, Pro ~3 hrs from what I have read.
7. It has a built in webcam so not including a mic would be criminal. I'm sure it is there. Edit: Check the tech specs on the website: Array microphone. So yes it has one.

 

Battery Video Drain Test.

I got about 6 Hours 27min

Airplane Mode
10% Brightness
Vlc Player using integrated GPU playing 720p Video.


EDIT***

New Test, bet better results not having cpuid run in the background and setting up my Logitech software from activating the discreet GPU

 

Thanks for that test ! Not bad, but not awesome too. I wish watching 2 movies straight was possible. Maybe with less brightess... Anyway, ±4 hours is still enough, I'm buying it !

 

I updated my review to included your video (with full credit to you), let me know if you want it removed. I also added an image by request that shows ( an exaggeration ) of the matte screen effect.

 

You could also eek out a bit more power savings I imagine without having to set the screen lower. If you throttle the processors a bit more and make your long battery settings optimized towards playing video, as well as turning power down from 7% to off, you could probably get it up to easily play two movies.

 

I've been looking everywhere on the new 14 and Pro and haven't seen anything about the fans being loud. According to this review, the fans are pretty quiet on the new Pro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA17lQBZDHg

 

So.... for international possible Razer Blade 14" buyers....

Razer Blade 14" 256GB in USA = 1999USD
Razer Blade 14" 256GB in Australia = 2499AUD = 2290USD
Razer Blade 14" 256GB in Singapore = 2999SGD = 2370USD
Razer Blade 14" 256GB in China = 14999Yuan = 2450USD
Razer Blade 14" 256GB in Malaysia = From RM6300 to possibly RM7700??? possibly rounded off to RM7999?

*Clap Clap Clap...*

 

Is processors throttling easy ? What do you mean by battery settings optimised towards playing video ?

Something perfect for me would be being able to take notes in Word for about 5 hours at the university. Would processor throttling help that way ?

 

It's very easy. You just click your battery icon in the tray, click More Power Options. Select Power Saver, then Change Plan Settings. Then Change Advanced Settings.
It's Processor Power Management that you went, then you can select the minimum and maximum processor usage as a percentage.


In that case though, the CPU wont be taxed anyways, so throttling wont affect you. An FYI though, I've been out and about using my laptop for various things ( posting here, creating a blog post, surfing ) connected over wifi with the processor set to performance and screen at 100% brightness. I've used the machine for about 2 hours now and still have 60+% battery remaining. It seems like battery life is getting a bit better as time goes buy, at least for casual usage. So unless you have a really weak wifi signal or something like that, you should be able to get 5 hours.

 

No problem. Going to a battery test to try to squeeze 6 hours of daily use (no movie) tonight. And maybe one while playing games, that should be a short test.

 

Blade Pro 17" arrived today at my friends house in USA.



What he said:
- Screen looks very high quality.
- Build quality: perfect.
- Disperfections: none.

 

Has anyone with the Blade 14 updated to windows 8.1?

Everything seems to work except bluetooth. I would love to hear if anyone has gotten this working. I think the new Blade Pro has the same bluetooth chip.

 

Torn between choosing the 14 or the Pro... Would prefer both but that's not in the cards.

My biggest question, they have the same gpu and the 14 seems to go thru games like butter, so how does the Pro handle? If comparable, cool...

And is the switchblade worth the extra bit?

 

To be honest, I dont really understand the price tag on the pro.

The 14" makes complete sense, you need to do some heavy duty engineering to pack that much into that little space.

But for the bigger brother to have nothing extra, other than a higher resolution/bigger display and a fancy touchpad... that just doesn't make sense. That it costs more and reportedly has worse fan noise... I just dont get it. If anything I would have expected the 17 to be cheaper, or at least, use the additional space for better internals ( perhaps a non SSD secondary drive, more RAM, better GPU and more heatsinks, etc...

 

Exactly! It at least should have a better RAM option since it's "Pro". And the real estate it takes up counters it's portability... Yeah, think i'm leaning towards the 14. Really wished that had switchblade -- cool concept with loads of untapped potential.

 

They always sell that keyboard with the switchblade on it. I just wish the RAM was upgradable on the 14.