Razer Blade 15 Review - The Luxury Laptop?

[@obj279e3]

Very thorough review once again! I love how you covered all the real world situations/ usage of the device and all the pros and cons that comes with it and give examples of what people the device might be suitable for rather then just reading the spec sheet like other reviewers, keep up with the good work 👍

[@chester0608ye]

It's nice to have a review for the released model one year later, because after newer models are released, the older ones have a lot of discount and could completely change the opinion on if it worth the price.

[@JoshCravesTech]

Very true!

[@chester0608ye]

@@JoshCravesTech Just got this exact model from bestbuy at $2499 pretax, which is around 2/3 of the original price. With the potential expanding RAM and SSD I'm pretty sure it can hold a long time.

[@justguany9700]

I love the way you did this review, I can tell you put a lot of work into it. I’m trying to decide what gaming laptop I go with so I’ll be watching more of your videos.

[@therealbilaal8758]

the only youtuber that id watch a review of a laptop that i 1. cant afford 2. have no interest in and 3. review is 1 yr late. videos are just straight up enjoyable

[@JoshCravesTech]

Hahaha 🤣 appreciate it

[@shoelacedonkey]

Fantastic review! Especialy great that you've ran & tested with Ableton and Adobe software, you don't see that very often. I've not seen your channel before but I've subscribed and hope to see a lot more of your content. Thanks a bunch! 😀

[@sias.2569]

I bought this exact spec of Razer laptop last year for $2100 brand new. Playing RE4 on near max settings uses 11GB of my VRAM. I bought the 3080Ti model with the 1440p screen hoping to be somewhat future proofed and i’m glad I went with this model over the 3070ti for that specific reason. If I need more power from the gpu in the future, then I will flash a different vbios onto the gpu so it uses more wattage. But considering I was a console gamer before I bought this laptop, I probably will not need it. I only play single player games and experiencing above 60fps with high settings is like magic to me. I played Elden ring on my ps4 and playing on this Razer is a completely different experience. Edit: I also wanted the Gsync plus vsync option and that is only available on the 1440p screen. I played DOS2 on console and I was not a fan of the screen tearing. I am glad that will never be an issue again.

[@JoshCravesTech]

Exactly, it’s dope for that reason! The vram is a big deal and it’s sad to see that even the 4070 still only has 8GB. But yeah it’s a really nice laptop overall

[@miansaudkhaliq9990]

Have you faced any Issues using this Laptop , because i have heard very negative remarks regarding the laptop's temperature during heavy gaming???

[@sias.2569]

@@miansaudkhaliq9990 The laptop gets hot because of the aluminum case. However, the GPU and CPU temps are within their spec range during heavy gaming sessions. I also play with a laptop stand to increase air intake which may differ from typical use. The WASD keys do not get uncomfortable for me, but do not play with it on your lap. Actually, don’t do that with any gaming laptop in general. If you are worried about damaging the components through regular use, then I would say that there is not much to worry about. If you are worried about the keys being uncomfortably hot, I would say look elsewhere for your gaming laptop needs. There are laptops that can run games well that are cooler to the touch.

[@sias.2569]

@@miansaudkhaliq9990 It gets warm because of the aluminum case. The cpu and gpu don’t overheat. I have never once experienced throttling. However, I also use a laptop stand and I keep gpu and cpu on high settings always. It will feel hot to the touch because of the metal. If worried about it feeling to warm to the touch, there are other laptops that run cooler.

[@Thebiggrease]

i bought a 2020 blade 15 advanced 2 years ago ,the 4k oled screen looks great and the 2080 max still pumps out great performance

[@treack143]

Hey, thanks for the review. Looking for a new laptop for school primarily, as my current one doesn't hold up anymore. I'm currently in school for graphic design, mainly adobe programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, ...), photo editing and a little (light) video editing. Might do some gaming now and then but i have a desktop at home. Right now i'm looking at mainly 3 laptops: Asus ROG Flow X16, Asus Rog Zephyrus G15 and the Razer Blade 15. They're all around the same pricing, between 2000-2200€. Here are the main differences: The X16 has: I9-13900H (14 cores), RTX 4060, 16 GB ram, 240ghz and touchscreen. Zephyrus G15: Ryzen 9-6900HS (8 cores), rtx 3080, 32 GB ram, 240ghz. Razer Blade 15: I7-12800H (14 cores), RTX 3060, 16GB ram, 240ghz. The X16 having touchscreen is getting more useful for design the more i think of it. E.g. when zooming in or out, showing some designs (using it as a tablet), ... . While the Zephyrus G15 has 'only' 8 cores, it has a 3080 and 32 gigs of ram. The Razer looks best IMO but some quick research shows a lot of people don't recommend it as it it notorious for lots of problems. I'm having a tough time choosing, advice would be greatly appreciated!

[@JoshCravesTech]

From the three I’d easily choose the Flow X16! Better battery life than the blade, newer, more peace of mind (yes Razer can suffer from battery bloat), and more powerful than all of them. The G15’s 3080 is great don’t get me wrong, but the 4060 is pretty close plus you have the advantage of frame generation in games. And the Flow’s display is amazing!

[@treack143]

@@JoshCravesTech Hey, thanks for the answer! I ended up actually buying a different one: i stumbled upon the Asus X13 which is basically the X16 just with less power. It looked really good but i doubted it would hold up in time and it might be a little underpowered. Looking some more i found Asus rereleased the X13 in 2023, with up-to-date specs. Tbh i was sold immediatly: R9 7940HS with 8 cores 5.2Ghz, RTX 4060, 16GB Ram, 1TB SSD, 165hz QHD ROG nebula display and touchscreen aswell. Asus' pricing is 2500€ here, i ended up getting it at a deal for 1650€. Looks like an absolute killer deal to me. I had some worries with the X16 as it might be a bit too much for my needs, so i think this is Just perfect. It's also 13.6", which is perfect for portability as i'll bring it to school daily and only weighs 1.3kg. There were only 3 left to buy, so i just made the decision as it really looks perfect for me, all the reviews are being really positive, looking forwzrd to this one.

[@course619]

would you recommend this computer for heavy music production? Great video Btw

[@JoshCravesTech]

Yeah it handles music software very well! It’ll do great for that

[@willygrags4367]

Just picked up one of these with 4060 and 16gb ram for under $1300. Definitely worth it.

[@TheTyrynir]

They need to replace the plastic hinge with aluminum.

[@tech-4096]

T H E W A L L E T S C A N T T A K E T H I S A B U S E A N Y M O R E

[@bradcampbell261]

I have 3 Razer Laptops, 15, 16, and 17 inch models. Love them all. RAZER is the KING!!!

[@hlgb2014]

The edges on razer laptops are brutal. It seems like a small thing, but after dailying one for two years, they are basically the main reason I'll be switcing back to Asus or another brand.

[@JoshCravesTech]

Yeah NO ONE talks about this!! Which surprises me cause it really is a major disadvantage since my wrists look like they were tied up or something after a long gaming session, lol

[@pianpain1588]

Maybe that’s the reason razer called this series blade…

[@EnzoFoove]

Yessss best reviewer on YT strikes again 😎

[@therealbilaal8758]

do you have any plans on getting the g16? found your channel through the first two g15 videos and would be interested to what you think, i feel like its a pretty good deal $1.4k for a rtx 4060 and heard the battery can get to about 8 hrs despite using intel, but still waiting for reviews to release for benchmarks and battery tests (esp since the rx6700s g14 is $1.1k but im worried how itll perform esp since it has a qhd screen)

[@JoshCravesTech]

Yeah the G16 is interesting. Idk how an Intel laptop could hit 8 hours, like that just doesn’t seem possible but it’s piqued my interest for sure!

[@Petrosmurf9]

Great video man. Looking at the razer blade 15 2023 model now. Want a nice MacBook slim look. Feel like I won’t be disappointed if I go all out on a laptop like this. For me it’s definitely the fan noise I hope is low, and I don’t even play too much games besides wow. Still want a gaming laptop over a MacBook, even with the M3 chip.

[@JoshCravesTech]

I agree, I’d take a gaming laptop over a MacBook any day! Just like being able to game if I want, having good compatibility, and just personally I’m not a fan of MacOS

[@Lazy_Lion1122]

this or 2023 15 with 4060 qhd240 for 400 less.. IDK what to do

[@JoshCravesTech]

There’s no major difference. The 3080 Ti will have a slight performance advantage and 16GB VRAM instead of 8, so you’ll be able to obtain higher settings in newer games, but the 4060 also has the advantage of DLSS Frame Generation. I think people may have found a way for that to work on the 30 series too but I haven’t read into it

[@Lazy_Lion1122]

@@JoshCravesTech Thanks for such detailed reply man.

[@artilleryisbetter]

​@@JoshCravesTech the 4060 8GB max TGP of 125 Watts is enough. The i7 13800H is slightly more efficient than the 12th gen in the 2022 - approximately 15% performance gains and 45 minutes longer battery on lowest settings.

[@Karlhto]

Hello great video. Question, is it possible to manipulate with a way the re-write speeds of a laptop when a card is been inserted? Because if we put a card that’s worth $200 and it has the speed that we can think it’s good if the laptop doesn’t meet that speed how can we find a solution?

[@JoshCravesTech]

The read/write speeds will only be as fast as the laptop supports unfortunately. So for M.2 SSD’s that’s around 8000 MB/s max and for SD cards it’s around 100 MB/s

[@Karlhto]

@@JoshCravesTech I’m looking forward to switching from my MacBook Pro m1 to Razer cuz VSTs and plugins work better on windows

[@JoshCravesTech]

@@Karlhto that’s true! I love windows for recording music. I’m going to be testing the Blade 16 very soon

[@angelanguiano4338]

Great content, Pal. Yea I decided on getting the 2022 razer blade oled at 240hz 3070ti..I had to order new ssds because no way my 4tb ssd will fit they are sandwiched can only install one sided ssds. .. watching this video made me make my mind up. Was either razer blade or pro art studiobook 16..

[@simonuribe1417]

Thanks for the video, i just bought the laptop and you help me in the decision. I just wondering how you adjust max fans with costume power setting mode. Thanks great job.

[@JoshCravesTech]

There should be a checkbox under the GPU power option in Synapse. Both have to be set to Boost/High. Unless they removed it. They have been changing a lot of features lately in synapse

[@JahidulIslam-ev1zo]

Ohh been a while ❤

[@simonnagy1]

Yesss finally a new video:)

[@JoshCravesTech]

Yes, and more on the way very soon this time!

[@miansaudkhaliq9990]

Are the temperature fine , i am planning to buy a 2021 15 advance model. And have heard a lot of negative comments on the laptop's cooling system

[@JoshCravesTech]

It's people mostly overreacting about laptop temps. They are designed to handle higher temperatures, that's just how it is with gaming laptops. Some people just freak out when they see temps over even like 80C, but I will typically push temps to their max for long periods and have never had an issue with it.

[@adhilnoushadnn369]

Is it good for music production?

[@JoshCravesTech]

Yep! Does great

[@philippklemmer3286]

I would love to have a light laptop, that I can use to do video editing and gaming on the go, without carrying a rock. It would be great, if it would support Linux too. Does this Laptop fit? Are there good alternatives?

[@benjamincohen6878]

I have a msi gs66and I almost went with a razer I have had this laptop brand new 4 months ago and the keyborad feels very simlar to my gs66

[@andobreslin8735]

Why can't you just buy a 140w charger and pump more power into it? How is that any different than overclocking? It's all a matter of thermal heat management isn't it? Maybe apply some better quality thermal paste?

[@JoshCravesTech]

You could do vbios modding to push the GPU power limit higher, but then that has other risks. Overclocking doesn’t change voltage on laptops, only clock speed, so you’re essentially undervolting the GPU because there is no additional heat from it. Raising wattage does increase heat though of course, which can be mitigated by applying better thermal paste like Liquid Metal!

[@tinybit780]

There is really, a really gorgeous Oled panel available on this model but with a 3070 Ti. I was even way more impressed by this display compared to the Mini Led in Flow X16. Fingerprint resistance gets a bit better after regular use, there is something happening on the surface that it gets better with time. I don't need to clean it anymore or atleast not often anymore. I'm just not sooo happy with the gpu performance on the 3070 Ti. It's really annoying they don't offer the 4070 with the Oled panel from last years model.

[@JoshCravesTech]

Oh crap I forgot to mention that OLED model!! You're absolutely right, the OLED Blade 15 is one of the best offerings from last year. Sure it can't hit that peak brightness of mini-led and there's the risk of burn-in but it is a sight to behold still. There is nothing quite like OLED. I agree though, wish they carried that over for 2023.

[@tinybit780]

@@JoshCravesTech No problem, that’s what comments are for :) Yes, I reach a peak brightness of around 700 in HDR mode. In SDR mode it’s 400.

[@lukabosnjak3829]

I would be really happy if you could make that video about undervolting amd cpus (I can't figure it out with 6800hs g15). As for the Blade, its gorgeous but expensive...

[@JoshCravesTech]

I will have to do this soon! I'm waiting on some updates to happen to the software that are coming up, but it will be on the way! But just as a heads up, I'm thinking that only ryzen 6900/5900 models can take advantage of undervolting at this current time unfortunately. We will see if that changes in the future!

[@lukabosnjak3829]

@@JoshCravesTech Also, you might be interested, I created EQ for zephyrus g15. My goal was to make it as natural and as smooth sounding as possible with increased bass for lower volume with laptop sitting on the table. You should copy the values to be as close as possible and it should sound more open with wayy more detail retrieval: drive.google.com/file/d/1-SM3-lRNLAgGZDGyBXK4B4b95vdOaAPr/view?usp=sharing Curious to hear your experience...

[@JoshCravesTech]

@@lukabosnjak3829 oh that’s cool! Thanks for sending

[@lukabosnjak3829]

@@JoshCravesTech I actually sent you the wrong one lol, this is the eq for flat frequency response: drive.google.com/file/d/1E9RAX9mjC4NPmGMJChqT_G5878sRfLWO/view?usp=sharing

[@Che7u]

Do you recommend this laptop the 3080ti for 2,499 or the 3070ti for 1,999?

[@JoshCravesTech]

I think it’s good! At that price though, you might want to look into newer ones with the 40 series GPUs

[@bonn1771]

i like this, mightstill get this model at a good cost!!

[@JoshCravesTech]

It's still pretty nice!

[@lucidlagomorph5809]

wow we have become so spoilt for tech 135 FPS is insane if you compare that to the original Doom game from the 90s it kinda puts things in perspective. You only really need 30 FPS

[@angelanguiano4338]

Nice thinking on getting the blade 15 oled but only comes with 3070 not 3080, thats a bummer, hows battery life for normal usage like school work coding when not plugged in of course has to be plugged in when gaming or doing rendering or using maya and blender. thinking on this or asus pro art studiobook . but i think this would be more portable, like the asus because its oled touch screen.

[@JoshCravesTech]

I always thought the same thing for that one! You’ll probably get similar results to my KZbin playback test, maybe a little less battery life being OLED and maybe a little less too if you have a lot of programs/documents/tabs open. The ProArt is also beautiful, I wouldn’t blame you for going with that one either. Haven’t tested any of them but I do have a Zenbook Pro 16X OLED I’m testing and that one is super nice as well.

[@angelanguiano4338]

How's the battery life on the zenbook pro 16? Yea only thing is I'm not sure on the razer blade if I can put dual sided ssds I got 2 4tb they dual sided I know can't do it on razer blade 16. And on razer blade 16 they charge you an extra 1100 to get mercury option and can't get it with 4090..all year been trying to decide on laptop that's right for me. Choices

[@anmol3457]

"they have a lot of faults" Exactly, and that's not acceptable at the price point they demand. Great looking laptops, not much else.

[@JoshCravesTech]

Good point! Yeah I would never consider Razer to offer good value for the price unfortunately. You gotta be in it for the chassis or the name. Like buying a luxury car that you know is gonna cost another arm and leg in the repair shop

[@Dannylad98]

How good would this be for vr

[@JoshCravesTech]

It could definitely handle VR!

[@Dannylad98]

@JoshCravesTech thank you so much for the fast reply waiting for a refund for my old gaming laptop which had a Defected 3070 ti just wanted to make sure it would OK with my oculus quest 2

[@crearg8259]

Optimal chasis for a 100W voltage-throttled 4070 mobile😃

[@diegomontoya172]

All these companies have to do is copy Razer and charge less but for years they haven’t

[@JoshCravesTech]

The new 2024 Zephyrus G14 and G16 basically just did that!

[@Receptor91]

for me the 16" Razer is way better

[@martin_bolha]

Imo nothing this year featuring the 40 series GPUs is worth it. Feels like a scam with the frame generation and stuff

[@JoshCravesTech]

Yeah the 16” model is actually close to possibly offering decent value for the cost. Well maybe. It is super powerful. But that price is so painful though, could almost buy 3 or 4 3070Ti laptops for one of those 😭

[@حسیناشرفیان-س5ص]

سلام

[@dldeanlong77]

yes but what about the 16gb ram on the 3080 compared to the 8gb on the 3070?

[@JoshCravesTech]

Comes in handy for some things like games that are vram-heavy or video editing. 8gb is still good for now but I’d say in the next few years it’s not gonna be quite enough for newer games at ultra settings without turning something down