Key findings from ZDNET
- The Razer Blade 14 (2025) is on sale now beginning at $2,000.
- It is a beautiful laptop computer that redefines portability for gaming machines.
- Nevertheless, the ultraportable kind issue ends in tradeoffs on the subject of efficiency and upgradability.
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The Blade 16 has been Razer’s flagship gaming laptop computer for years, however the Blade’s thinner, sleeker design Blade 14, 2025 (the thinnest Blade mannequin but) makes a formidable first impression.
The brand new mannequin is 11% thinner and 11% lighter than its predecessor, weighing simply 3.5 kilos and 0.6 inches thick, with a smooth matte black end that feels premium. The shape issue challenges the model’s personal aesthetic with a tool that appears extra like a Dell XPS 14 or MacBook Professional than a gaming laptop computer.
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The bodily building is actually among the best options of this laptop computer. Regardless of its skinny and light-weight body, it feels extraordinarily sturdy, with minimal display screen flex or wobble. I additionally love the big rubber posts on the underside of the system, which preserve it from sliding round and permit for extra airflow.
By highlighting this new and improved kind issue, Razer is aiming to compete with 14-inch gaming laptops, particularly the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which reigns supreme as among the best 14-inch gaming laptops in the marketplace (one in every of our favorites, too).
There are some variations between these two laptops, nevertheless, with the Blade 14 buying and selling a few of that energy for its svelte kind issue, opening up a use case as a tool that is equally succesful on the Steam dashboard and within the workplace.
The 3K, 120Hz OLED show is gorgeous, going all the way in which to the sting with ultra-thin bezels only a few millimeters thick. Likewise, the trackpad is giant (however not ridiculously so), going so far as attainable, exuding a exact and expertly crafted bodily aesthetic.
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There are tradeoffs to this design, nevertheless. The thinner form means much less sturdy cooling and limits {hardware}, which the Blade 14 opts for in change for the additional portability. You’ve got received an AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 processor paired with Nvidia’s new Blackwell structure within the GeForce RTX 50 sequence, as much as 5070, and as much as 32GB of soldered RAM.
Certain, it isn’t the highly effective charging you will get in a gaming laptop computer, however that is not the purpose right here. Razer has scaled issues again with the Blade 14 for a succesful machine that errs on the facet of battery effectivity, quite than making an attempt to beef up efficiency with heavy {hardware}.
For instance, the Blade 14 helps 100W of whole graphics energy, going as much as 115W with Dynamic Enhance enabled, so technically this laptop computer has greater than sufficient energy to assist a high-end GPU just like the RTX 5080. Nevertheless, Razer doubtless opted for the 5070 to regulate warmth and energy consumption.
To check, the 14-inch Asus Zephyrus G14 has the 5080, and that factor will get scorching. Even with the followers working (which are not silent), the truth of gaming on a 14-inch monitor means taking these elements into consideration, which the Blade 14 mitigates with this {hardware}.
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Gaming efficiency whereas related is implausible, with clean, lag-free visuals in “Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered”, “Diablo IV” and “Cyberpunk 2077”. The latter, with 3K decision, takes issues excessive, with a mean of round 40 FPS and a few slight visible glitches, however nothing that appears problematic. Switching to a extra manageable 1200p decision dramatically improved efficiency.
When it comes to benchmarking, the Blade 14 compares to 2 highly effective 16-inch gaming laptops we have examined this 12 months, the MSI Stealth 16 AI and the Lenovo Legion Professional 7i, however exhibits a slight drop in uncooked {hardware} energy on these (a lot bigger) methods.
The Blade 14 additionally has good I/O protection. You get two USB4 Kind-C ports with Show Port 2.1 and energy supply assist on each side, two USB-A ports on either side, an HDMI port (on the appropriate facet), and a MicroSD card reader.
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On the left facet, you even have the proprietary charging port for the 200W energy provide. That is essentially the most environment friendly type of energy supply, however it should cost by way of USB-C so long as you have got enough energy. Simply do not anticipate plugged-in efficiency for those who’re gaming with a 65W charger.
The RGB lighting results on the keyboard do not disappoint both. Razer does an important job of maximizing the depth and influence of every particular person key, with minimal mild bleed into the corners of the keys for dramatic impact.
In the event you like per-key customization, the keyboard right here has all the results you possibly can ask for within the accompaniment. Razer Croma utility. If you wish to spruce issues up with a extra delicate, office-ready aesthetic, you are able to do so simply as simply.
The keyboard itself is sweet, with silent activation until you are actually hammering away. Nevertheless, I can see that some players aren’t fully glad with the journey distance, as though it seems premium, it is extra geared toward a MacBook or enterprise laptop computer quite than an express gaming card. However, the audio system are high-quality. They’re higher than common, however lack a little bit of bass or richness.
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The Razer Synapse app acts because the system’s dashboard for controlling all the things from efficiency modes to overclocking and fast metrics like working temperature and CPU utilization. Nevertheless, the app itself feels a bit of unfinished and have become unresponsive just a few instances throughout my testing. Nevertheless, it’s helpful sufficient to handle settings.
Be aware that whenever you’re on battery energy, the laptop computer forces you into Balanced mode – with no choice to exit it. Clearly that is the popular setup for whenever you’re unplugged, however eliminating the choice for brief battery-powered efficiency sprints is not my favourite factor.
Nevertheless, going into Balanced mode goes a great distance towards maximizing battery life. Reducing the refresh fee to 60Hz and halving the brightness resulted in simply over 9 hours of battery life throughout our battery assessments – superb for a gaming laptop computer.
For sustained battery gaming, you’ll be able to anticipate two to a few hours, which is kind of commonplace, though much less demanding video games will undoubtedly exceed that determine to 4 to 5. The underside line right here is that the Blade 14 can keep lively in low-demand classes or idle for for much longer than most gaming laptops, which are typically a lot thirstier.
ZDNET Shopping for Recommendation
THE Razer Blade 14 it is a gaming laptop computer, however it’s not restricted to that use case. You’ll be able to take it to the workplace or throw it in a journey bag simply as simply as you’ll be able to take headshots of the most recent top-tier sport titles on Steam.
It is a beautiful laptop computer, and I personally establish as a “mature” gamer, whose all-day gaming classes are (principally) a factor of the previous, however I nonetheless take pleasure in a daily portfolio of video games to log into.
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I might suggest this laptop computer to anybody on the lookout for a succesful gaming laptop computer however is not all for a 16-inch or 18-inch behemoth. On this sense, the Blade 14 speaks to the patron who’s comfy with the tradeoffs mentioned and appreciates the light-weight kind issue.
The Blade 14 is available in a number of totally different configurations, with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of soldered RAM and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 or 5070 GPU. The upper-end loadout frequently retails for $2,999, which is not precisely low cost and requires compromise with its area of interest use case. Nevertheless, it is presently on sale for $2,599 – a way more palatable value.
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