Razer is lifting the veil on its latest and arguably most popular portable gaming machine: the all-new Razer Blade 15 Advanced. Offering improved performance and decked out touchscreen capabilities, the Blade 15 Advanced also touts itself as the thinnest 15-inch RTX gaming laptop available. And lest we forget the unprecedented 360Hz 1080p display, or 4K60 quality for those who favor a lifelike picture quality. We’ll be going in-depth on all this and more, so hit the jump to find out how you can cop this zenith of gaming machinery.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced is the dream portable gaming laptop
Today’s announcement brings with it a new level of portable gaming to the public stage. Fine-tuning older machines is a consistent way to bring in new revenue for the gaming giant, as we saw with the upgraded Blade Stealth 13 earlier this year. But with new models coming out so frequently, what makes the latest truly greatest?
Digging around under the hood, you’ll be looking at the latest and greatest from Intel. There are a few options of staggered price and ability, but the base model opts for an 11th generation Intel Core i7 processor for a quickfire 2.3GHz base clock, and up to 5.1GHz boost. The highest-grade model upgrades to the i9, for slightly higher starting speeds. Each is packed with integrated Nvidia RTX 3060, 3070, or 3080 integrated graphics, with up to 16GB vRAM.
What’s really special about the latest Razer Blade manifests in the one-of-a-kind displays. While usually 4K60 quality is nothing to scoff at, and is offered in every version of the laptop, the base model also offers 1080p quality at up to 360Hz. Far as I can search, this amongst the fastest frame rate you can find on a gaming display, portable or otherwise. You sacrifice some response time, but the 4K60 display keeps it tight at 1ms.
The keyboard is also getting an upgrade, though Razer appears to be holding steady to the original Blade 15’s linear red switches for quick gameplay. This time around, each individual key offers full RGB Chroma backlighting with tons of customization options. And with so much power on one of Razer’s thinnest bodies ever, you’ll also find upgraded vapor chamber cooling in the 15.8mm thick body.
Rounding out the hardware, we’ve got a host of new connectivity including Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, USB-C and A, HDMI, an SD card reader, and HDMI 2.1. This does come at the sacrifice of the base model’s Gigabit Ethernet port, but hopefully the stable Wi-Fi 6E connection can compensate.
Pricing and availability
It’s not cheap, we can tell you that much. Pricing starts at $2,299 for the 16GB base model and ramps up all the way to $3,399 for the premium 32GB 4K60 machine. Though, if you’re interested in the unmatched 360Hz display, that’ll bump the base price up to $2,699. Pre-order has already begun on the Razer website, with the laptops shipping and going on sale on June 21.
9to5Toys’ take:
Razer is putting out some truly powerful machines, so the question for me is how well they compare against existing Razer Blade 15 models. Because if you were as blow away as I was seeing 360Hz frame rate, which is about 15x faster than the human eye can really see, you can opt for the slightly older Blade 15 Advanced starting at $2,599. But if you’re already prepared to meet that price tag for a truly gaming laptop, the upgraded processor and graphics plus a slightly lighter design is likely worth the extra $100.
FTC: 9to5Toys is reader supported, we may earn income on affiliate links
Subscribe to the 9to5Toys YouTube Channel for all of the latest videos, reviews, and more!
