Alongside the announcements of new high-power mobile CPUs from Intel and new mobile Nvidia 16-series GPUs, Razer has launched its own new products. These come in the form of new Razer Blade Pro 17 and a mid-2019 refresh to its Razer Blade 15 line. The update to the Razer Blade Pro 17 has been some time coming, and the new model enjoys some considerable changes. The bezels around the screen are trimmed down dramatically, allowing for a smaller overall chassis size while keeping the large screen. The trackpad has also been moved to sit below the keyboard instead of to the side of it. Read more: Razer Blade Pro 17 Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan says the new Blade Pro 17 is "the perfect laptop for gamers who demand a large display, an insane amount of connectivity options and excellent performance with no room for compromise." The speeds and feeds The new Razer Blade Pro 17 comes powered by the new Intel Core i7-9750H six-core processor (CPU) paired with the choice of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, RTX 2070 Max-Q, or RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics processor (GPU). The laptop boasts 16GB of DDR4-2,667MHz memory, though users can swap in Intel XMP-compatible DIMMs with speeds up to 3,200MHz. In terms of storage, every model comes with 512GB of PCIe SSD storage and an empty M.2 slot for extra storage by default. Each drive slot can support up to 2TB of storage. For ports and wireless, the Razer Blade Pro 17 includes a 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI 2.0b, a UHS-III SD card reader and five USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports with three using Type-A connections and two using Type-C connections. One of the Type-C ports also supports Thunderbolt 3. Beyond the Ethernet, the laptop also supports the new Wi-Fi 6 standard. The 17.3-inch display on the Razer Blade Pro uses a Full HD matte panel with a 144Hz refresh rate and 100% coverage of the sRGB color space. The Razer Blade Pro 17 starts at $2,499 (about £1,920, AU$3,520) and will go on sale starting May 2019 in the US, Canada, UK and other markets. Upgrading to the model with an RTX 2080 bumps the price up to $3,199 (about £2,450, AU$4,510). The Pro isn't all Alongside the 17.3-inch Pro are some updated models of the Razer Blade 15. The new Razer Blade 15 comes packing a 9th-Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor with six cores and is paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 to power the now-standard 144Hz ,1080p display. And, that's just for the 'Base' model. The advanced model has the option of a 240Hz display with 100% coverage of the sRGB color space, or a 4K OLED with 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space – and an RTX 2080 to power it. The Razer Blade 15 Base starts at $1,999 (about £1,530, AU$2,820), while the Advanced models start at $2,399 (about £1,840, AU$3,380). Both launch April 24 in the US and Canada with additional markets to follow in May. Given what these new models are packing, particularly the color-rich OLED display, they actually offer considerable competition to the new Razer Blade Pro 17 for creative workloads. They're offering the same CPU and GPU options, equivalent RAM (with the Advanced model able to offer the same upgrades as the Pro), and displays that are the same or better if only slightly smaller.<doc-sep>Razer Blade Pro 17 Score Details DT Recommended Product “The Razer Blade Pro 17 is a big laptop for serious gamers.” Fantastic cooling Great gaming performance Lots of ports Good speakers Delightful keyboard and touchpad No Core i9 option Lacks portability MSRP $2,800.00 A 17-inch laptop is not for the faint of heart. 15-inch options are where most people start, especially if they want to take their gaming laptop to work occasionally. The smaller chassis, though, can result in some performance limitations. In theory, a beefier gaming laptop like the Razer Blade Pro 17 can make up for those shortcomings. Our review unit came with a six-core processor, an Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics chip, and 16GB of RAM. That’s a lot of hardware, but $2,800 is a lot of money, even for a gaming laptop. Is this Razer Blade worthy of its “Pro” pricing? Less interesting, more practical Razer is determined to streamline its design language across its lineup of laptops. It started with the Razer Blade Stealth earlier this year, which looks like a miniature version of its 15-inch sibling. Now, the Razer Blade Pro has stretched that design out to a 17-inch screen. Unlike the Stealth, the updates to the Blade Pro are a drastic change from what came before. The shape of the 2017 Razer Blade Pro was rounded, but that’s now ditched for a boxier look. The Pro also comes in a matte black finish, which is as prone to picking up fingerprints as ever. The new Blade Pro 17 trims some fat, too. It’s cut down from 0.88 inches to 0.78 inches, which now matches the base model 15-inch Razer Blade. It is, however, a bit heavier. The difference of 6.1 pounds to the Razer Blade’s 4.5 pounds is noticeable, and even the MSI GS75 Stealth beats it, coming in at five pounds. As a gaming laptop, it feels manageable enough, but there’s no guarantee it’ll fit into your standard backpack, and you’ll feel the weight when commuting. Unlike the Razer Blade 15, the Pro 17 will have a hard time blending in at a meeting. The port selection is similar to the Razer Blade Base Model, including just about every important port you could imagine. There’s HDMI, three USB-A, a Thunderbolt 3 port, a standard USB-C port, a full-size SD card slot, and even an RJ-45 Ethernet port. The standard Razer Blade 15 doesn’t include the extra USB-C port and RJ-45, both of which are nice additions to the larger model. Go ahead, type away! I love typing on this keyboard. Razer has nailed the balance of click actuation, without the hollow feel of the MacBook Pro’s keyboard. Though key travel is short, typing still feels precise. The RGB lighting, of course, is top of the line, illuminating each of the letters evenly in the dark. It has fifteen levels of brightness sensitivity, far more than the three levels found on most laptops. The RGB lighting is beautiful and lights each letter evenly. My only gripe with the Razer Blade Pro’s keyboard is the position of the shift key. To squeeze in full-size arrow keys, the up-arrow key lands right between the Shift and question mark key. For someone who spends a lot of typing on his laptop, regardless of whether it’s intended for gaming, it’s an inconvenience. The full-size arrow keys, though, are great for gaming, which makes the compromise in typing understandable. The Razer Blade Stealth uses the same layout, but because it’s not a dedicated gaming laptop, it’s harder to forgive. The previous iteration of the Razer Blade Pro 17 featured a touchpad shifted to be horizontal with the keyboard. But that and the corresponding scroll wheel have been uprooted and put in a more conventional location below the keyboard. The touchpad is fantastic. It’s wide, responsive, and supports Windows Precision drivers. I did notice the palm rejection wasn’t perfect, but the placement is nowhere near as awkward as the MSI GS75 Stealth, which puts the touchpad right where your palms should rest. Also new to the Razer Blade Pro 17 is an IR camera up top with Windows Hello support. Most gaming laptops leave out the feature, so I was happy to see Razer bring it not only to the 15-inch Razer Blade, but also the Pro model. Sticking with 1080p Unlike the Razer Blade 15, the Razer Blade Pro 17 comes in just one display option: 1080p at 144Hz. Though lacking a 4K option, the Razer Blade Pro 17 does have a beautiful IPS matte screen that’s bright enough to avoid reflections. I was happy to see the Pro 17 takes a step up from the 15-inch Razer Blade in terms of contrast, landing at 800:1 at full brightness. That’s not as high as something like a Dell XPS 15 or the OLED Alienware m15, but it produces satisfying black levels in an atmospheric game like Battlefield V. The same is true of the colors the screen can show. They’re reasonably accurate and cover a wide gamut, though it may not be enough for professional photographers or videographers. That’s the reason Razer, Dell, and HP offer 4K solutions in their 15-inch laptops. Still, watching a movie on the Pro isn’t half bad thanks to its large screen size and bright, vivid colors. The Razer Blade Pro 17 features a better set of speakers than you’ll find on most laptops. They’re upward-firing, provide ample volume, and you can even eke out a hint of bass. Where’s the Core i9? Ultimately, a “Pro” device should have something extra to justify the name. With the Razer Blade Pro, it’s not the design or the screen, nor is it the keyboard or speakers. All of that is just on par with the 15-inch Razer Blade (or, in the case of the screen, slightly less impressive). The trump card, you’d hope, is performance. But instead of opting for an extreme processor, Razer has played it safe, sticking to the six-core Core i7-9750H and the usual 16GB of RAM. I was disappointed to hear that, since even the super-thin MacBook Pro 15 features an option for the new 9th-gen eight-core Core i9 from Intel. The Razer Blade Pro seemed like a natural fit for this powerful processor, especially with the interest some content creators might have for it. Still, the Razer Blade Pro isn’t slow. As you can see from the graph, this 9th-gen Core i7 isn’t a huge leap up from its 8th-gen predecessor. That’s a trend we’ve seen in other gaming laptops in 2019. The Razer Blade Pro does shows some impressive single-core performance in Geekbench 4, beating systems like the MSI GS75 Stealth and the Lenovo Legion Y740. The multi-core performance, however, is where the dip can be found. Despite having the same number of cores, the Razer Blade Pro is a solid 21% behind the Lenovo Legion Y740. From that alone, you can tell this isn’t a laptop made with multi-threaded applications in mind. Content creators looking for a solid mobile workstation are better off with spending their money on either the 4K Razer Blade 15 or a laptop like the Dell XPS 15 or MacBook Pro 15, both of which come with an option for an eight-core Core i9 processor. That’s reinforced when you look at our video encoding results in Handbrake. Transcoding a two-minute 4K video clip from H.264 to H.265 took just over three minutes. A lot of competitors finished at least around 30 seconds faster, and some even had the same processor. What gives? Well, it’s all about cooling. Razer uses the same vapor chamber cooling as other laptops, but the larger chassis of the 17-inch model means airflow is significantly enhanced. There’s even a new set of vents along the hinge to help. The result is occasionally throttled processor performance, but in a laptop that stays relatively cool and quiet, even at peak loads. The Razer Blade Pro 17 also came with a 512GB SSD, and it performed well. I tested the storage speeds in a random access test in CrystalDisk Mark, and the Razer Blade Pro 17 produced quick speeds in both reads and writes. The Samsung SVM memory is fast for everything from file transfers to opening apps, though you’ll find more raw power in the SSD included in something like the Alienware Area-51m. A dedicated gaming machine It’d be easy to ding the Razer Blade Pro 17 for its less than stellar processor performance. One of the Razer Blade’s strong suits is how well it adapts to different situations, whether that’s gaming, content creation, or portability for general usage. The Razer Blade Pro 17? Not so much. Still, the Razer Blade Pro 17 is a tried-and-true gaming laptop, and its focus delivers impressive results. Our unit came with the RTX 2070 Max-Q inside, which is the mid-tier option between the 2080 Max-Q and 2060. Razer put all its eggs in its GPU performance, and that shows in gaming. You can make excellent use of the 144Hz refresh rate in games like Fortnite, where I averaged 129 FPS with Epic settings — gameplay feels fast, fluid, and responsive. Once I connected the Razer to a higher resolution display, the Pro 17 easily held framerates over 60 in 1440p in games like Battlefield V, and could even hold over 60 FPS in Civilization VI at 4K. Because our unit wasn’t the most powerful model available, it’s a little tricky to see just how it compares to other gaming laptops we’ve reviewed. Across most games and resolutions, it’s neck and neck with the MSI GS75 Stealth despite the MSI having a more powerful RTX 2080 Max-Q inside. More powerful laptops like the Acer Predator Triton 500 or the Asus Zephyrus S GX701 leap out ahead of the Razer Blade Pro 17, but again, those had Nvidia’s faster RTX 2080 Max-Q. The Blade Pro 17 does provide a small jump over the 15-inch Razer Blade. It only beat its little brother by 2% in the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, but as much as 10% in 1080p Battlefield V. Again, it’s the thermals where the 17-inch Razer really shows its strength. By throttling the processor, which isn’t tapped out as much in games, the graphics card is allowed to flex without overheating the chassis. Battery life doesn’t impress Razer’s Blade laptops have always offered impressive battery life. The company has never used G-Sync, and so has avoided the poor battery life results that other gaming laptops suffer from. The Razer Blade Pro 17, however, doesn’t follow that trend. The Razer Blade Pro doesn’t opt for G-Sync, but the large screen sucks a lot of juice out of the laptop. It’s nearly an hour and a half behind the 15-inch Razer Blade in light web browsing, and around 45 minutes behind in local video playback. In gaming, the Razer Blade Pro 17 won’t last more than an hour and a half or so. Its closest competitor, the MSI GS75 Stealth, seriously beats the Razer, lasting almost seven hours in video playback. There are worse options for battery life, such as the G-Sync-enabled Lenovo Legion Y740 17, or the Alienware Area-51m. Still, the Razer Blade Pro 17 can’t spend more than a few hours away from a power outlet. Our Take Despite its similar look, the Razer Blade Pro 17 doesn’t feel like it’s aimed at the same demographic as the Razer Blade 15. It’s not much of a content creation tool, and it’s not a MacBook alternative. That doesn’t take away from what it is — a powerful gaming laptop with excellent build quality and a great display. For most people looking for a 17-inch gaming laptop, that’s exactly what they want. Are there are any alternatives? The MSI GS75 Stealth is a close competitor to the Razer Blade Pro 17. It features similar options in terms of display, processor, and graphics, and comes in a few hundred dollars less expensive. The Razer Blade Pro 17 is built like a tank by comparison, with a better keyboard and touchpad. Razer also wins in game performance. You can find many less expensive 17-inch gaming laptops with similar (or better) gaming performance, like the Lenovo Legion Y740 17.<doc-sep>
It’s been nearly two years since Razer released the last Blade Pro and for a second there, it looked like it was going the way of the dodo. But take heart Razer fans, the Blade Pro is back and has quite a few new tricks up its sleeve. Available in May, starting at $2,499, the 17-inch, now called the Blade Pro 17, is packing one of Intel’s new 9th Gen processors, a Nvidia RTX GPU and a 1920 x 1080 display with a 144-Hertz refresh rate. In short, it’s a lean, mean, multimedia gaming machine. Design Razer has brought the Blade Pro 17 into line with the rest of its machines, giving it that boxy retro-chic aesthetic. The entire chassis is still made from black CNC aluminum. It’s still as pretty as ever, but if you’re hoping for a Mercury White chassis or Quartz Pink, you’re out of luck as black is the only color available for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, Razer will launch a special edition hue somewhere down the road, but time will only tell. The notebook’s interior has undergone a serious makeover as well, ditching the large, right-mounted touchpad. Now the touchpad has been restored to its traditional position beneath the keyboard. That means the company also did away with the customizable scroll wheel which was polarizing among users. Measuring 15.5 x 10.2 x 0.8 inches, the 6.1-pound system is one of the slimmest, lightest 17-inch laptops out there. It’s significantly smaller than the 6.2-pound, 16.1 x 11.5 x 0.7~0.9-inch Alienware m17, but MSI might be the current titleholder with the 5-pound, 15.6 x 10.2 x 0.7-inch GS75 Stealth. Still, with the right bookbag, I could be persuaded into traveling with the Blade Pro 17. Display For the last few releases, Razer’s targeted the Blade Pro towards creative professionals. That’s why it was more than a little surprising to learn that the Blade Pro 17 will only have one display option –– a 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 panel with 144-Hz refresh rate. It’s good for gaming -- great, even. MORE: Which Razer Laptop Is Right for You? Blade vs Stealth vs Pro But I would imagine that game developers and video and photo editors, especially would want a 4K display. However, with Razer claiming 300 nits of brightness and 100 percent of the sRGB gamut, the new Blade Pro should help creative pros get work done. Also, Razer has significantly reduced the bezels to a mere 0.2 inches. I’ll withhold final judgement on the screen until we get our hands on the review unit. Razer Blade Pro 17 Specs At $2,499, the starting configuration of the Razer Blade Pro 17 costs a pretty penny. For the price you get a 9th Gen 2.6-GHz Intel Core i7-9750H processor with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU. The mid-tier system jumps to a Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU for $2,799 while the top-end laptop costs $3,199 and gives you a Nvidia RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU. Although each configuration come with 512GB of storage, it can be expanded to a spacious 2TB. Another spec to take note of lies in the wireless card. The Pro 17 will be among that first wave of systems sporting the highly anticipated Wi-Fi 6 technology. That should translate into faster downloads and less latency on online games. Razer’s also leading the charge on ports, being among the first to launch USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. The Blade Pro 17 has 3 USB 3.2 Type-A ports with a USB 3.2 Type-C port, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI 2.0, Ethernet, a power port and an SD reader, which is a nod to the laptop’s creative professional cred. Bottom Line Razer is toeing the line between gaming and content creation with the new Blade Pro 17. Packing high-end specs including an Intel 9th Gen CPU and Nvidia RTX GPU, the 17-incher is more than capable of running taxing AAA titles at great frame rates or doing some serious photo editing. However, if it’s truly a laptop designed for creative professionals, I’d expect to see a 4K panel. But maybe the panel’s better than expected, we’ll just have to wait until the review.