Razer Blade 14 review: "A tremendous little gaming machine" - courtoisbittly

Our Finding of fact

A tremendous undersize play machine, that punches well above its diminutive stature - from power to toll track.

Pros

Great ingredient configuration
Tangible benefits of Ryzen CPU
Bright compact, and quality Razer design and build...

Cons

...but almost too small
Gets near
Razer tax

GamesRadar+ Verdict

A tremendous slender play machine, that punches cured above its small stature - from tycoo to toll tag.

Pros

+
Great component configuration
+
Concrete benefits of Ryzen Central processor
+
Brightly packed, and timber Razer design and soma...

Cons

-
...but almost too small
-
Gets hot
-
Razer tax
-

The Razer Blade 14 looks to ride and extend the wave of popularity and demand for 14-in, powerful gaming laptops. There's something about combining documented gaming artistry and compact laptop computer design that a more 'unconstipated' 15.6-inch laptop computer just can't quite nail.

And with a new multiplication of the best graphics card and the Best CPUs for gaming now firmly hither, the Razer Blade 14 steps forward to embrace the latest components in that smaller 14-inch chassis. At firstly, this just feels like a decreased Razer laptop - not dissimilar to the Blade 13, rightful something you can fling about with one hand - but it's more than than that, and is definitely one of the smallest best gaming laptop contenders. And it's the first Razer laptop computer to mix gear mechanism from both Team Green and Team Blood-red. It all sounds genuinely special, but at that place are a couple of caveats.

Project & features

Specs

These are the spectacles of the laptop computer sent into GamesRadar+ for review.

C.P.U.:

AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
Memory: 16GB DDR4 RAM
Display: 14-inch, 165Hz
Resolution: 2160 x 1440
Storage: 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD
Ports: 2 x USB 3.2 Type-A USBs; 2 x USB 3.2 Type-C USB (charging and Presentation Port); 1 x power port; 1 x HDMI 2.1; 1 x 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone combo jack
Connectivity: Badger State-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.2
OS: Windows 10 Home
Dimensions: 0.66" x 8.66" x 12.59" (16.8mm x 220mm x 319.7mm)
Weight: 3.92 lbs (1.78 kg)

As I say, the Razer Blade 14 is so a bonafide, acquainted-looking Razer laptop computer - just smol. And while the dilute, insufficient and chic matte black Razer design throne't enshroud the sheer size of a 17-inch motorcar like the Razer Blade Pro 17, it somehow makes the Blade 14 flavour even smaller than 14 inches in the men.

It's incredible to recall that there's much oomph and beastly major power in that little matter. On the chassis, there are compromises in the most basic of features - a want of ethernet and display ports is a bit cripple, for example, but a spin-off of the super little and thin plan language.

The USB-C port will, naturally, intervene for the lack of a show interface, and thither are three steady USB ports to tide over you over too, which is just now about right. As are the usual Razer-quality touchpad and keyboard - though I'm destined the post would be the front to say that the Blade 14 will only be better when teamed with a Razer keyboard OR Razer creep (the touchpad and keyboard are good for when you're using IT for process the move though, of course).

The final 'exterior' feature of note is the Razer Blade 14's screen. So, IT's non an OLED covert, or touchscreen operating theater anything, but information technology is a 14-edge in, 1440p 165Hz panel. The former makes slap-up use of the small chassis, really filling it out, spell the latter two factors make for an excellently balanced display.

The 1440p resolution is one that can propose more than bog-standard Full HD, and has long been the sweet spot for PC gaming. This specification can really play nice with the components under the hood (more on them shortly), while the refresh rate is speedy without being too undignified. Razer (and plenty of other brands) often pack 300Hz panels which simply aren't required for the majority of gaming utilize and are also, inevitably, more expensive.

Dismission the games to it display is a quality lay out of components that are poised beautifully to bring exterior the best out in each other. AMD's CPU and Nvidia's graphics work together with the screen to give a brilliant gaming experience. In the redness corner, we have an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX central processor, and in the green corner, an Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card, both supported by a 1TB SSD, and 16GB of RAM.

The entrepot and RAM are au fon Razer's default option choices for their agio laptops but the combining of an AMD CPU and an Nvidia GPU - a 3080 no less - is a tempting prospect. More happening the results later, merely it does finally nod to a way that the price of such Razer Blades might be able to embody held down, without compromising on performance wildly.

With more and more folk building the best gaming PCs out of a range of components from some sides of the divide, this move does seem to finally drag high-profile Blade laptops in line with that trend and the 2021 PC gaming industry.

Performance

Benchmarking

How does the Razer Blade 14 (2021) fare on some manufacture tests?

Firestrike: 21130
Firestrike Extreme: 11573
Timespy: 9432
Port Royal: 5918
PCMark 10: 6792
PC Stigmatise 10 Gaming Battery Test: 54 transactions
PC Stigma 10 Battery Test: 6 hrs 2 mins, 6116
Cinebench CPU: Multi-core: 11,570cb; Single-core: 1,460cb
CrystalDiskMark: 3,570 MB/s read; 2,949 MB/s spell
Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Ultra: 56 fps; High: 71 fps
Metro Hegira: RTX (radiate-tracing on Ultra): 48 FPS; High: 66 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Spoiler: Highest: 78 Federal Protective Service; High: 85 fps
Total War: Three Kingdoms: Immoderate: 49 fps; High: 67 fps

If you're looking for a active snapshot of how it performs, then that's easy; IT runs like a dream, feels good to use, and chews through anything that's thrown at it.

Patc a lot has been aforementioned about dressing the highly-rated RTX 3080 GPU into a laptop and watching it tear the world up, the reality hasn't been quite so clear-cut. However, the Razer Brand 14 seems about the perfect mix of everything you can get in a gaming laptop computer: combining an RTX 3080, a 1440p screen, and a new Ryzen CPU really does hit the spot.

My sole important caution is that I do - in gaming more than than anything, predictably - find myself wanting a larger screen sometimes. The 14-column inch panel is a wonder, particularly therewith 2K res, just it does tread a all right line between 'around big enough', and 'not big decent in the least'. Though this will comprise tempered once you get utilized to it, and also being able to hook it up to a gambling monitor, of course.

As the benchmarks show in crude number terms, the Razer Steel 14, in this build, is a gaming beast. Being able to test Bloody Dead 2 on maximum settings and getting some 60 fps in a 1440p resolution? That's excellent and IT only takes some small adjustments to ensure you get over the 60 fps mark spell maintaining high levels of graphical fidelity too.

It falls a little shorter of the 60 fps mark on Subway system Exodus with everything turned capable 11, but just strain that to High, OR thereabouts, and you still beat a smooth, beautiful experience across Russia's post-apocalyptic wasteland expanses.

While I expected the Ryzen CPU to absolutely eat ahead more processor-hungry applications and games, like Unconditioned War, it wasn't a silver bullet. Bump the resolution down to 1080p, and the framerate returns to the safety of 'Frederick North of 60 fps'.

Some many tinkering in games like this is required to adjust the settings dead which was something that caused my eyebrow to rise a teeny. Maybe this actually highlights a good point for a 1440p laptop; it still offers flexibility and you can always bump it down to 1080p - depending on whatever happens to be under the hood.

All in, the Vane 14 comfortably outperforms other Razer Blade laptops we've proven like the Blade 15 Advanced and Razer Blade Pro 17, and I am, despite the smaller screen out, generally, as happy gaming on the Blade 14 as I am happening my ASUS ROG GA15 PC.

However, hardly to ensure each bases are white, there are a couple of compromises to take note of. The primary one being the fact that it does run hot and loudly, which is noticeable in every day habit and sometimes, when resting your hands on it to play and exercise, a great deal worthy of attention! That aforesaid, I do find myself writing this in intimately every gaming laptop revaluation these years. The vapor chamber cooling system scheme does its best - and works, of course - but it's still a noticeable agent during use up.

Also, while Razer claims the Blade 14 has up to 12-hours of battery life history, our PC Mark 10 battery tests didn't get anywhere near this. In that location power glucinium some to a greater extent life you can squeeze out of it, particularly when non gaming, merely this is a gaming beast so that's the way the majority of folks leave be victimisation IT. And exploitation it blocked in, at that.

The littler make factor and screen mean you do forfeit much of the immersion (as very much like you can baffle in laptops, I experience) as the 14-edge in display is, for lack of a better term, very small.

That existence said, the screen itself is of a great standard and caliber. The fast refresh rate is not ridiculous but high enough to give the 3080 whole sle of headway to boost the frame rates to super smooth and speedy levels, and the 2K resolution continues to be the sweet blemish for maintaining fantabulous image quality alongside that speed.

Pictures are crisp, open, and vibrant and the anti-glare surfacing genuinely whole caboodle when playing in glistening light next to a window or similar (handy to know for those WHO are taking the 14-inch laptop out and astir for work excessively).

Whole - should you buy it?

This is a tremendous little gaming machine, no doubt. It's got the right blend of components from the main players, the the right way blend of the right flat of components, and squeeze it into a 14-inch laptop with much success is impressive.

While the Blade 14 finds itself on the cusp of acceptability in terms of compact play laptops (this is a screen size that, in reality, is only sporting big enough to play on) it has married said screen with some excellent components that volition make it shine. Those looking for a premium gambling laptop that bequeath crunch through anything, while also offering a great machine for location and office apply, need look no further.

The one major qualm we have, predictably, is the price dog. It's the most prepossessing 14-inch gaming laptop software going only it is indeed expensive. Our simulation pushes the $3,000 mark ($2,800 strictly speaking), which sporting feels a bit too practically - even for Razer. While you grow the punch for your money, you power not get the true make love - in terms of screen size and blank. At this size, we'd be many tempted with the RTX 3070 manikin (around the $2,300 mark) or even the RTX 3060 model (around the $1,800 mark). It might even be worth looking at the Blade 15 range to assure you get a little more than screen real estate of the realm.

This is a machine that feels wish it's got the precise mix of everything, and that's where the Blade 14 proves itself. No matter of actual size, those looking a really well-put-together RTX 3080 laptop are credible to find that this is just the fine.

Razer Blade 14 review: "A tremendous little play machine"

A tremendous little gaming political machine, that punches healthy in a higher place its diminutive stature - from power to damage tag.

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I'm one of the Hardware Editors for GamesRadar+, and have been for nearly three years; I've also been a writer on games - freelancing and the wish - for four or soh old age for the likes of Eurogamer, RPS, PCGN, and more. Day to day, I take care of a whole emcee of gambling tech reviews, buying guides, and news and deals content that pops up across GamesRadar+. I'm also a eligible landscape and garden designer so do that in my free metre, and manipulation it to write about games' landscapes and environments too, including an upcoming Koran on the topic!