I’ve had a review unit of the Razer Blade Late 2016 since launch.
In fact, I BOUGHT a dozen of the first ones off the production line back in October so
I could box them up and give them out at my staff Christmas party..so why did it take
so long for me to do this review?
Because I was waiting for a very special Blade..A one-of-a-kind, signed LTT edition Blade that
will soon be in the hands of a very lucky winner who graciously agreed to let me showcase
his beautiful prize in my review before sending it along.
Here we go.
[intro]
[pre roll]
The unboxing experience really hasn’t changed a lot since the original Razer Blade 14.
You get a laptop, Razer’s characteristically compact 165W power adapter, and some papers
to accidentally throw away before you remember about the earth and sh*t..
In fact, not much has changed outwardly about the machine in general aside from the textured
LTT design by Ed… which you won’t find on the one YOU buy at the store…
It still rocks a normal, NON-MAGNETIC power cord – HINT HINT, RAZER!
(F***in’ magnets!) to go with its 3 USB 3 ports, audio jack, Thunderbolt 3 port, and
HDMI port, but like..
This looks like the same damn computer.
Still with the black.
Still with the rubber feet.
Still with the dime thickness, and still with the bright green Razer logo that causes gamers
to rush the stands and professionals to refuse to go to meetings with their laptops because
they’re too embarrassed..
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
Even most of the key specs are the same!
CPU- SAME, RAM – SAME, BATTERY - SAME..Though the maximum NVMe SSD size got doubled to 1TB
and the GTX 970m from last gen has been bumped to a GTX 1060 which means the Newest Blade
is a VERY capable little VR machine, and that BOTH the Thunderbolt and HDMI port can handle
4K 60Hz now,
Not that a 1060 will run most games at 4K 60 frames per second anyway.. which is where
my favorite difference from last gen comes in.
The Blade is now available with a glass-topped 3200x1800 touchscreen OR a matte 1920x1080
non-touchscreen that’s cheaper, saves a little battery, avoids any issues with poor
resolution scaling in Windows, and translates to up to double the framerate in games.
Obviously you CAN turn down the touchscreen model to 1080p, but then you’re dealing
with interpolation instead of a crisp native resolution image.
And for me personally, the difference in sharpness has a much much smaller impact on my gaming
experience than the massive difference in framerates that make animations on the 1080p
Late 2016 2-3x faster than other Blades.I mean SURE a Razer Core upgrade would boost
performance, but that thing’s like 500 bucks PLUS a video card..
So it got some upgrades, but many of the complaints from previous Blades DO still exist.
They run hot – interestingly the higher framerates of the 1080p model puts more strain
on the CPU while gaming -, they are loud when you’re pushing them hard, and the input
lag on the mere 60Hz display is FAR from the best I’ve seen on what is purportedly a
“gaming notebook”
With that said, the webcam is still pretty good even though it hasn’t improved much
if at all, the trackpad took a major leap forward in responsiveness and acceleration
curve tuning in both 2016 models, and the keyboard thankfully bears no resemblance whatsoever
to the one on the higher end Blade Pro.
It’s one of my favorite laptop keyboards ever in spite of the lack of illumination
of the secondary functions – a downgrade from the 2015 model that seems to have been
borne from a desire for RGB backlighting that bothers me pretty much daily.
So on the surface not a lot has changed even going back a few generations.. but when you
look closelier, Razer has been absolutely refining the experience withthe improvement
to the surface temperatures of the device during use being among the most noticeable
day-to-day..and while the Blade has been good enough for a while for me to use as a daily
driver for some time as a “work first, game second” kind of person, it wasn’t until
this generation that it was good enough for me to spend money on it, dropping over 25
thousand US dollars on these machines for my entire staff.
So do I think the Blade Late 2016 is the best Blade yet?
You’re damn right I do..
Let’s just hope they don’t trash the 2017 model by putting that awful keyboard from
the Blade Pro on it or the next time my employees get new computers they might be from Apple!
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Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next,
so click that little button in the top right corner to check out my review of the The Razer
Blade Pro – the bigger, badder brother.