The Rise of Ultra-portable Gaming Notebooks
Thanks to ever-improving processor technology, we are witnessing the birth of a new genre of ultra-slim and ultra-portable gaming notebooks. The MSI GE40 2OC Dragon Eyes was the first ultra-portable gaming netbook we have reviewed. Gaming notebooks used to bulky machines, but the MSI GE40 packed serious firepower under its hood - enough to crunch through Crysis 2 at full HD - and was just 29mm thick and weighed under 2kg. All in all, the MSI GE40 is a remarkable achievement by the people at MSI.
But if you think that the MSI GE40 was impressive, then prepare to have your socks blown off by the new Razer Blade. Our first encounter with the 14-inch Blade was at Computex 2013, and we were amazed at just how slim and light it was. To be exact, the Blade is just 16.8mm thick at its thickest point (nearly just half the thickness of the MSI GE40), which is quite unbelievable when you consider that that is equivalent to the MacBook Air - although the MacBook Air does taper to just 3mm. As for weight, the Blade tips the scales at just slightly under 1.9kg.
Gaming notebooks used to be clumsy and heavy things, but the new 14-inch Razer Blade shows that it doesn't have to be.
Despite the compact dimensions, the Razer Blade is a true gaming notebook with gaming-class components. The processor is Intel’s new fourth-generation Intel Core i7-4702HQ (2.2GHz) and that is complemented by 8GB of DDR3 RAM and NVIDIA’s new GeForce GTX 765M discrete GPU. The GeForce GTX 765M is identical to the GeForce GTX 760M (768 CUDA cores), but has higher clock speeds - 850MHz vs. 657MHz. The Blade is also available only with flash storage and can be specced with either 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of flash storage. These components make for a very speedy system.
Design & Features
Razer has a very distinct design language that appeals to gamers and this is apparent on the new Blade notebook too. The entire notebook is finished in anodized black aluminum and there is a large Razer logo on the lid and USB ports with green accents. Thanks to the aluminum chassis, the Blade also feels solidly-built and does not flex easily, even if it is thin.
While most notebooks have their exhaust vents located on either sides, Razer has also done a good job of hiding the vents, so that they are not immediately visible. The exhaust vents are hidden at the back, partially concealed by the display hinge. Speaking of which, the Blade does get warm during gaming, especially above the keyboard and around the speakers. The fans spin audibly too and can get quite loud, but this is nothing unusual for notebooks with high-end components such as the Blade.
The Razer Blade is really thin, and measures just 16.8mm thick - the same as a MacBook Air. Like the MacBook Air, the Razer Blade does not offer Ethernet connectivity, but it makes up for that with Killer Wireless-N technology. Speaking of connectivity, the Blade offers three USB 3.0 ports and a HDMI output, which is a little sparse in our opinion. The lone HDMI output means the Blade can only drive external displays of up to Full-HD (1080p) resolution @ 60hz - a pity considering it has a powerful GPU.
The weight, as we have mentioned earlier, is just 1.88kg - not featherlight when compared to true Ultrabooks, but certainly manageable for most people. To make sure the Blade is really portable, Razer has also ensured that its 150W power adapter is not cumbersome too. It is easily one of the most compact power adapters we have seen.
The speakers are located on either side of the keyboard. They are loud and offer surprisingly clear distinction between left and right channels. However, they do sound harsh and cannot hope to compete with proper standalone speakers.
The 150W adapter is really compact. Next to it is an iPhone 5 for comparison.
Like the MSI GE40, the Blade has a 14-inch matte TN display with a resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. The decision to go with such a display has been widely criticized, and perhaps rightly so considering that the Blade is positioned as a premium product and is built with enthusiasts with mind. However, after chatting with Razer’s Director of Global Product Marketing, Heathcliff Hatcher, at Computex 2013, we learnt that there are two key reasons behind this.
Firstly, Heathcliff said that an IPS panel would have made the Blade thicker, which would mean it would be impossible to achieve its current thickness of just 16.8mm. Secondly, by sacrificing slightly on resolution, it would allow the Blade to hit even higher frame rates on games. 1600 x 900 as compared to Full-HD resolution is about 30% less pixels to fill.
The Blade's display does not match up to the rest of the machine. Colors looked washed out and lacks vibrancy.
While these are certainly valid reasons, we cannot help but feel that there is a mismatch between the display and the rest of the notebook. The MacBook Air’s TN display is one of the best around and shows that you do not necessarily need an IPS display to have good visuals. However, the Razer Blade’s TN display is no where as good as the MacBook Air’s. It looks washed out and colors are a tad lifeless.
Beyond the display, the Blade has a chiclet keyboard that glows with green backlights. It is a unique color combination that says very clearly that this is a Razer product. Also, it is hard to look at the Blade in a dark or dimly lit room with the green backlights on and not think, “Wow. That looks cool.”
The keyboard also features anti-ghosting technologies, which ensures that all your commands are recognized, great for Starcraft players with high APMs. The keys are a joy to use and offers a satisfying "click" sound when they are depressed. That said, if we could nitpick, we would like the keys to have a little more travel so that they will be more tactile.
The keyboard is good and the green back-light is cool. Unfortunately, the trackpad has much room for improvement.
The Razer Blade is preloaded with Synapse 2.0, which lets users rebind keys and assign macros.
Sadly, the trackpad pales in comparison with the keyboard. The trackpad is spacious but it is not clickable and instead relies on two separate buttons located below it, which we found to be too thin to be used comfortably, for left and right click functions. Additionally, we found its tracking to be a bit erratic and - it could be hypersensitive one moment and irresponsive the next.
Finally, the Razer Blade comes preloaded with Razer’s own Synapse 2.0 unified configuration software, which lets you rebind keys or assign macros on both the Blade and any other Razer peripheral; and also Razer Comms, Razer’s own communication software which lets you and your team-mates chat via voice or text. You can read more about the Razer Comms software here and here.
Test Setup
To test the Razer Blade, we will be putting it through our usual benchmarks. You will find the full list below. As for comparison, the Razer Blade will be pitted against the recently reviewed MSI GE40 and other gaming notebooks that we have tested recently, namely the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500, Alienware M17X R4 and MSI GT70 0NE and the old 17-inch Razer Blade from last year.
This is the full list of benchmarks used:
- PCMark 7
- PCMark 8
- 3DMark 11
- 3DMark 2013
- Far Cry 2
- Crysis 2
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PCMark 8
PCMark 8 is the latest benchmarking utility from Futuremark and was designed to measure the performance of Windows 8 systems. We will be testing the system using four different scenarios, Home, Creative, Work and Storage, which simulates different workloads that a user might subject the system to.
Scores on the “Home”, “Work” and “Creative” scenarios were all pretty comparable with the Lenovo taking the lead for “Home”; Razer coming in tops for “Creative”; and the MSI GE40 claiming first prize for “Work”.
Coming to the “Storage” scenario, the Razer and MSI notebooks left the Lenovo for dead thanks to their fast flash storage. Interestingly, despite having two mSATA SSDs in RAID 0, the Razer Blade outscored the MSI GE40 by around 9% on “Storage”.
We also included benchmarking scores determined based on real-world tasks involving Adobe CS6 applications and Microsoft Office 2010. Here, the Razer Blade outscored the MSI GE40 by around 15%.
PCMark 7
The Razer Blade was our top performer on PCMark 7, recorded a score of 5893 - 16% more than the second-placed MSI GE40. Looking at the results breakdown, we saw that it was the top performer for nearly every workload. Specifically, its scores on the “Creativity” and “Computation” workloads were the highest we have ever seen.
3DMark 11
Since 3DMark 11’s Extreme Preset runs in full-HD 1920 x 1080p resolution, we hooked both the Razer and MSI machines up to an external display to ensure they were tested fairly. The Razer Blade’s GeForce GTX 765M GPU is almost identical to the GeForce GTX 760M found in the MSI GE40, with the exception of higher core clock speeds. Hence, it was not surprising to see that the Razer Blade garnered around 13% higher scores on 3DMark 11. It also comfortably saw off last year’s Razer Blade model, which is powered by the GeForce GTX 660M, and also Dell’s Alienware M17X R4. The MSI GT70 0NE has a top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 680M and is still the reigning champ amongst our comparisons on this particular benchmark.
3DMark 2013
3DMark 2013 is the latest graphics benchmarking utility from FutureMark and we will be gauging the systems’ performance using the Cloud Gate and the more intensive Fire Strike benchmark.
On the new 3DMark 2013 benchmark, the Razer Blade managed to outscore the MSI GE40 by around 10%. It also comfortably saw off the Lenovo Ideapad Y500 (SLI wasn't cooperating on this test unfortunately). Needless to say, integrated graphics solutions such as the Intel HD Graphics 5000 from the latest MacBook Air and the AMD Radeon HD 8330 from the reference Kabini notebook were no match.
Far Cry 2
Moving on to real-world gaming benchmarks, the Razer Blade comfortably saw off the MSI GE40 thanks to its more powerful GeForce GTX 765M GPU. It was also significantly quicker than the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 and last year’s 17-inch Razer Blade model.
As for its performance on its native resolution of 1600 x 900, we saw a 11% and 20% increase in frame rates on “Medium” and “Very High” settings respectively.
Crysis 2
The Razer Blade’s performance on Crysis 2 was rather impressive. At Full-HD resolution, it was able to run comfortably on "Very High" settings, recording an average frame rate of 43.45 fps. However, turning the settings up to “Ultra” had a detrimental effect on frame rates as we saw it dip to just 23.3 fps. Nevertheless, these numbers were still better than the MSI GE40, and markedly more so when compared to last year’s Razer Blade model. The new Razer Blade was also almost on a par with the Dell Alienware M17X R4, a full-fledged desktop replacement notebook with a GeForce GTX 675M GPU.
Running Crysis 2 on the Razer Blade in its native resolution got us gains of around 30%, which means that we could achieve 30 fps even on the "Ultra" setting.
Battery Life & Power Consumption
A quick glance at the graphs and the question that is probably foremost on readers’ mind is, “Why does the Razer Blade have such terrible battery life in comparison to the MSI GE40?”
To begin, the MSI GE40 was not tested using our usual battery benchmark utility which is Powermark. If you recall, our test unit refused to run Powermark and we had to resort to our old testing methodology which was to loop a 720p video clip over and over until the battery run out of juice. And with new processor and graphics technologies, it is hard to say how the systems will react. Looking at this result, we are guessing that the latest Core processors and NVIDIA graphics are really well optimized for playing video, hence the discrepancy in timings. This was confirmed when we tried looping the same 720p video over and over on the Razer Blade and managed 450 minutes - 38 minutes more than the MSI GE40.
In the case of the Razer Blade, we managed to run Powermark and it ran for a reasonable 172 minutes from its 70Wh battery, which is just shy of three hours and significantly better than the old 17-inch Razer Blade and the giant Dell Alienware M17X R4 and MSI GT70 0NE.
Power consumption therefore comes in at around 24 watts, which is decent. This is much better the Dell Alienware M17X R4 and MSI GT70 0NE, and it improves slightly on last year’s Razer Blade. Of course these mentioned comparison notebooks are all much larger with larger displays and a more power draining platform. The only reason we're mentioned them is because the Razer is Blade 14-inch is able to deliver performance as good or better than these behemoths, but yet the new Razer Blade is available in a smaller and much more power efficient package. At the same time, take note that true Ultrabooks can deliver much more battery life and thus the Razer Blade is decent for its gaming-grade ultra portable.
Portability Index
Our Portability Index factors in battery life, weight and volume so you can see which notebook is the most worthwhile to carry around. Despite the shorter battery life, the Razer Blade still managed a respectable Portability Index ratio of 1.119, almost comparable the HP Envy 4 Ultrabook. This is thanks to its slim dimensions and low weight. Also, comparing it with other gaming notebooks, such as last year’s Razer Blade and giants such as the Alienware M17X R4 and Toshiba Qosmio X870, the new Razer Blade is practically a featherweight.
In real world usage we found the new Blade to be very portable. It will fit into bags easily and its modest weight will help ensure that your shoulders do not get sore even if you had to carry it for an entire day. Again, it doesn't really trump mainstream Ultrabooks, but for its category, it's really decent. Take note that the portability of the MSI GE40 is based on the video looping run which gives it a better footing (no thanks to its inability to run Powermark).
Portable but Powerful
Gaming notebooks used to be big and bulky machines, but notebooks like the new 14-inch Razer Blade and MSI GE40 are changing the way we think about them. The two are genuinely compact and portable machines, but yet pack enough horsepower under the hood to play the latest games - at moderate to high settings even!
Even though the Razer Blade and MSI GE40 share many similarities and are pioneers in this new category of notebooks, there have many differences too.
First and foremost, price. The MSI GE40 was targeted at bargain hunters and value seekers and therefore is attractively priced at S$2099. On the other hand, prices for the Razer Blade begin at S$2599 for the 128GB variant and top out at S$3299 if you want the one with a 512GB drive. The 256GB model which we reviewed costs $2799 - significantly more than the MSI GE40. A point to note is that unlike the MSI GE40, the Blade has no additional hard disk drive, so think carefully about how much storage you need.
However, the premium is well justified. For one, the Razer Blade is noticeably slimmer than its competitor, and it is better built. The anodized aluminum chassis is well-sculpted and solid, and the backlit keyboard is a joy to use and looks cool - pity that the trackpad’s performance was not up to par. Furthermore, in terms of specifications, it offers more flash storage, a slightly more powerful GPU and Killer Wireless-N connectivity.
Slim, portable and powerful. The Razer Blade is quite easily one of the best portable gaming notebooks around.
With the latest 14-inch Blade, Razer is signaling its intent on being a significant player in the PC hardware market, which is impressive if you remember that it has been less than two years since we saw the first Razer Blade notebook. The first generation Razer Blade was a bit of a letdown with its slightly dated specifications, but Razer has learned fast and its latest 14-inch Blade notebook is packed with the latest hardware and performance is really good for a notebook of its size.
All in all, the new 14-inch Razer Blade is a rather impressive offering and was clearly designed with gamers in mind. Honestly, there is much to like about this notebook. Now if only Razer could improve the dull-looking display, finicky trackpad and offer more connectivity options, it might have an unbeatable winner on its hands (provided that it doesn't cost even more).
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