Coming to CES 2023, Razer announced a duo of Blade 16 and Blade 18 gaming laptops with impressive configurations and many attractive features.
Renowned as the flagship gaming lineup, Razer's new Blade models come with improvements in processor and GPU specifications. The screen also has a 16:10 aspect ratio that helps users get more display area, plus a significantly smaller chin. Increasing the screen size to 16 inches and 18 inches also allows the machine to come with a larger battery than last year's Blade 15 and 17.
The standard configuration of these products all come with Intel's 13th generation Core i9-13950HX 65W CPU, combined with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 mobile GPU. The starting price for the Blade 16 is $2,700, while the price for the 18-inch model will be $2,900. All will start hitting shelves in the first quarter of the year.
The Blade 16 has a miniLED display that can switch between 4K and Full HD resolutions, offering different refresh rates depending on the resolution. Razer intends the 4K mode to be used by creators, with a peak rate of 120 Hz, while the Full HD resolution offers a refresh rate of up to 240 Hz. Razer claims that this mini LED display can boost brightness up to 1,000 nits when displaying HDR content, or up to 600 nits when displaying SDR content. However, pricing details for these high-end configurations remain a mystery.
Even if users don't opt for the mini LED model, they have a choice of a QHD resolution IPS panel with a 240 Hz refresh rate and 500 nits peak brightness, which is bright enough for most use cases. . Each supports Nvidia G-Sync variable refresh rate technology that has a 3ms response time and supports 100% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum.
In terms of design, the new Blade 16 and 18 are not much different from other Blade laptop models. However, thanks to the large screen, the product has more subtleties, including the large touchpad. Both of these laptops come in a starting configuration with 16 GB of DDR5-5600 MHz RAM and up to 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs, and both have internal memory and swappable RAM. position. Users can upgrade to 64 GB RAM with their two slots, while internal storage can go up to 4 TB (Blade 16) or 8 GB (Blade 18). Both laptops have a webcam that supports Windows Hello, but the higher-end Blade 18 comes with a 5 MP QHD webcam.
The duo does not have many changes in ports, including USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, one Thunderbolt 4 port (supports 100W charging), three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.1, headphone jack and UHS-II SD card reader. Both USB-C ports can output video signals to the display, but the new Thunderbolt 4 port can output video via the discrete Nvidia GPU, while the USB-C port can output video from the integrated graphics. The larger Blade 18 adds an extra 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port. The Blade 16's battery is 91.7Wh, while the Blade 18 has a 95.2Wh battery.