T
he Razer Blade 2019 is eerily
similar to the 2018 model, but
has ample updates to the
hardware inside to make the price
increase worth it..
The biggest upgrade is the novel
Nvidia Turing graphics now inside,
and these are undeniably much
more powerful than the Pascal
predecessors. This gaming laptop
also has radically increased battery
life as well as an added infrared
camera, finally permitting for
Windows Hello login.
For a 15-inch Razer Blade with
Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics inside,
Razer wants a monstrous £2,199 to
start. That gets you a model
rocking RTX 2060 graphics, a 144Hz
1080p display and a 512GB SSD. You
can compromise with a GTX 1060
Max-Q, which will slash a few
hundred quid off the price tag
to £1,399.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080
Max-Q graphics option (our review
configuration) comes with 512GB of
SSD storage for £2,849, and drives
the very same 1080p display. 4K
display models are also on hand
for the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080
configurations in the US and the
UK, which of course come at an
even higher price.Design and display
Inside the usual all-black, unibody
aluminium case, the Razer Blade
keeps the exact same angular
shape for 2019 as last year’s model.
At 17.8mm thin, this year’s Blade
is slightly thicker than before,
though only just as heavy at 2.10kg.
This, too, is a laptop just 14 inches
wide with a 15-inch display, owing
to those slimmer screen bezels.
Par for the course, the Blade
retains the webcam in its ideal
position above the screen while
employing narrow bezels. However,
at just 720p, the image it yields is
awful. It’s functional for video calls,
but don’t try to broadcast yourself
while gaming with this webcam.The new keyboard feels
comfortable and satisfying to use,
and it continues to offer quite
forceful feedback for an island-style
unit. There’s a keyboard layout
issue inherited from earlier models,
however – with the ‘up’ arrow key
set between the ‘Shift’ and ‘?’ keys.
This makes typing questions a bit of
a pain, inadvertently pressing the
up arrow and adding a question
mark to the line above where we
are typing – all the time. We would
undoubtedly have favoured smaller
arrow keys if it meant a more
workable layout.
The trackpad feels similarly
excellent. However, it’s still held
back by one tiny weakness. In
this case, the tracking surface is
a little too close to the laptop’s
edge, causing mild palm
rejection problems when
navigating the operating system.
We haven’t noticed this issue
while typing specifically on this
year’s model, which is a plus. Still,Razer Blade 2019
From £1,399 | $1,599 http://www.razer.com
The sharpest Blade, if you’ve got the money
Images : Razer80 |^ |^ November 2019