Razer Blade 15
Studio Edition
It’s time to get creative.
The Razer Blade laptops are all
pretty darn sweet-looking
machines. Sleek black laptops
with perfectly designed
keyboards and tiny screen
bezels, and powerful internal
hardware to boot. The Blade 15’s
new Studio Edition is no
exception: a ninth-gen Intel
Core i7 processor along with a
Quadro RTX 5000 GPU, crammed
into an impressively slender
chassis, carved from a single
block of aluminum. This laptop
ditches the usual black-and-
green aesthetics of the Blade
series, though, instead opting
for a more professional
silver finish.
This Blade feels like a staging
ground for turning a great
gaming laptop into a great
content-creation laptop. A
high-end graphics card and fully
addressable RGB-lit keyboard
can still scratch the gamer itch,
while plenty of RAM and a large
4K touch display mean that this
laptop is well situated to handle
video editing and graphic
design tasks.
Our review model of the Blade
15 Studio Edition comes with a
15.6-inch 4K display at a 60Hz
refresh rate. That refresh rate
might be rather unexciting, but
this OLED panel brings high
brightness and dazzlingly good
color that looks great even in
well-lit environments. Touch
control is a nice bonus for
creatives who enjoy quick
fingertip navigation, although
the potential for fingerprint-
related troubles is high, and the
Blade 15 SE doesn’t come with a
stylus of any sort to avoid
such woes.
Physical connectivity is a
winning aspect here – three
Awesome screen; great chassis
design; very solid performance.
Runs hot; expensive; CPU is a
little limited.
Christian Guyton$6,999, razer.com
standard USB ports are joined
by a Thunderbolt 3-enabled
USB-C port, Thunderbolt 2 port,
and an HDMI port, perfect for
connecting extra monitors for
workstation tasks. Using the
Blade 15 SE as a desktop
replacement is definitely viable,
as high-powered laptops like
this typically chew through
battery. However, the battery
life is impressive for a
workstation laptop; around four
to five hours of use,
depending on software
and brightness. The
lack of Gigabit Ethernet
is a shame, but not a
deal-breaker.
The main downside
of the Blade 15 SE isn’t
the battery or ports,
then, but the lack of a
Core i9 CPU. The
i7-9750H at the heart of
this is perfectly
competent, but it’s
not exactly
groundbreaking, and it
weakens the potential
of this system for
CPU-intensive tasks. This
laptop already has an upsetting
price point; Razer could have
sprung for a superior CPU.
In fairness, this system is
focused on creativity, not
number-crunching. The rest of
the internal components do the
job; a high-speed 1TB SSD and
32GB of memory are good to
see, with that Nvidia Quadro
GPU pulling its weight in a big
way. All that hardware
generates a lot of heat, though,
and the Blade 15 SE’s twin fans
clearly struggle to deal with it.
The laptop gets uncomfortably
hot after extended use, even
with adequate clearanceunderneath it for airflow.
The external design is, of
course, stunning. The trackpad
is large, central, and easy to use,
and that keyboard isn’t just
illuminated by customisable
RGB effects – it’s very satisfying
under your fingertips, with nice
large keys and reasonable travel
for such a slim laptop. It actually
looks a little small at first
glance, but that’s just because of
this 15-inch machine’s large
form factor and
flanking speakers,
which can pump out
music at an
impressive volume.
Lastly, we must
bring ourselves to
address that most
divisive of subjects:
pricing. The Blade 15
SE costs a tidy $6,999.
Yes, it’s expensive, but
the high-end studio
GPU and cutting-edge
design mean that it’s
certainly not bad
value for money.
Cheaper versions are
available, too, if you’re willing to
dial it back with the GPU – a GTX
1660 Ti model with a 1080p
screen is far less troubling to
your bank balance. Ultimately,
the Blade 15 Studio Edition is
pretty awesome; pricey, sure,
but still awesome. Now, if you’ll
excuse us, we’ve got to make
some phone calls to Razer PR to
explain why we deserve to
keep it.A high-end graphics card
and fully addressable
RGB-lit keyboard can still
scratch the gamer itch,
while plenty of RAM and a
large 4K touch display
mean that this laptop is
well situated to handle
video editing and graphic
design tasks.2020EDITOR’S
CHOICE