When looking for the best gaming laptops, it’s hard to not give Razer’s options a peek. The company consistently throws out some sleek designs that have more in common with MacBook Pros than the many aggressive gaming machines out there. Razer also charges a huge premium, with the new Razer Blade 16 topping the range of laptops that bring the RTX 4090 and 4080 to mobile. At $4,299 as tested, the Razer Blade 16 is a monster in a tuxedo, but it needs to be even better to justify its sky-high price.
Razer Blade 16 – Design and Features
Razer’s laptops have long been high-performance machines packed into the more elegant designs of ultrabooks. Short of their triple-snake logo and RGB backlighting on the keyboards, there’s little on the Blade laptops to indicate their gaming nature. That continues to be the case for this year’s Razer Blade 16. However, there’s one major hint at the nature of this machine: its thickness.
The heft of the Razer Blade 16 is immediately apparent. Even though it’s not as bulky as something like the Asus ROG Scar 18 I recently tested, the Blade 16 is still plenty thick and weighty. I had a Razer Blade 14 back in 2017, and this feels like a completely different beast. Surely, it is. This Blade is packing in a beefy Intel Core i9-13950HX processor and a mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 with a peak 175W TGP. The kind of cooling needed to tame those components means a considerable fin stack that both needs space to breathe, as well as simply amounts to a lot of extra metal pushing up the weight of the system. The system comes installed with 32GB of upgradable RAM and a 2TB SSD with an extra slot to install a second SSD. All this adds up to a machine weighing in at 5lbs 8.1oz and measuring 0.88 inches thick (unless you include the wide rubber feet, which push it to 1.05 inches). That’s actually somewhat impressive considering it’s not far from the weight of an RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card on its own.
Everything is built into an aluminum unibody that’s sleek and rigid, offering little in the way of keyboard deck flex or display wobble. The machine simply feels well built.
Despite all that the Razer Blade 16 is packing in, it still feels like a more everyday laptop thanks to the subtle design. It slides right into my backpack, though might not fit into every backpack’s laptop slot – it’s still a 16-inch model after all. The 330-watt power brick is another bulky addition, but it’s not obscenely large for the power it can supply. The power brick uses a proprietary connector, though the laptop also supports 100W PD charging using either of its USB-C ports, one of which is Thunderbolt 4. That’s enough juice for casual use, but won’t keep the system running long if the GPU is unleashed.
The Razer Blade splits its ports up between each side well. Power comes in on the left alongside two USB-A ports, a USB-C port, and a headset combo jack. The right side includes HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, and a full-size SD card reader. Those looking for a convenient desk setup will want to look at Thunderbolt docks though, because there are no ports coming out of the back.
Despite being a semi-large laptop, the Razer Blade 16 includes just a basic keyboard with no number pad or extra navigation keys. Where it strays from basic is in the Chroma RGB lighting, which is available on a per-key basis and illuminates the entire legend of the keycaps exceptionally well. The keyboard doesn’t commit any major sins, like shrinking a Shift key to squeeze in a full-size up arrow, though the bunched-together arrow keys can be a little harder to use. It’s possible to get the Delete key and power button mixed up as well, though I haven’t run into that particular problem just yet. The keys have a short travel and little in the way of contours for feeling out the center, but are consistent. Without taking much time to get adjusted, I was able to hit 104 words-per-minute with 99% accuracy typing in Monkeytype.
The trackpad seems like it should be a dream, as it’s domineeringly large – it’s larger than my Pixel 7 Pro in a thick case and about half as wide as the whole laptop, and it occupies virtually every vertical inch of space it has available. This comes with some notable drawbacks in actual use though. I'm almost constantly touching it with more of my hand than I intend to because even just resting my palm on the edge of the laptop will see a little bit of my palm touch the trackpad. This consistently makes for erroneous multi-finger gestures and clicks that interrupt whatever I’m trying to do. Palm rejection is also a little weak, so I frequently see the mouse move or click to a different part of the screen when I’m trying to type – even as I type this very sentence.
The display on the Razer Blade 16 should be phenomenal. It’s a 16-inch, 3840 x 2400 display with stunning pixel density, and it’ll run along at 120Hz. Even better, gamers who want more speed can switch it to a 1920x1200 native mode that will let it refresh at 240Hz. With Mini-LED backlighting and local dimming, the visuals on this display can be outright phenomenal at times. It blasts out HDR content with rich color, sultry blacks, and sizzling highlights that I measured as high as 957 nits.
However, the shortcomings of the local dimming technology can rear their head in even the most mundane applications, and it can be simply glaring. Even just displaying static simple geometry, the seams can begin to show. Large dark shapes on white backgrounds can show an inverse bloom. Worse still, this dark aura, as it appears around the object, will follow it like a ghosting trail. This appears to be a symptom of the backlighting not reacting as fast as the display can with its high refresh rate. It’s painfully evident any time there’s a sudden shift from a large area of dark to light. If you’re not picky about how perfect the display looks when using it for work or browsing though, you’ll find it phenomenal for gaming and media consumption – though support for 4K and HDR on Windows machines is incredibly lacking from streaming services.
The entertainment capabilities are boosted by the capable speaker setup on the Razer Blade 16. It packs a pair of tweeters and woofers that pump out impressively loud and clean audio. At the high end of the volume range, it’s a little grating though, with an over-emphasis on mids and treble.
The system includes a Full HD webcam that looks notably sharper than the dime-a-dozen 720p options found just about anywhere you look. The camera has a handy slide shutter to cover it up when not in use, though it doesn’t actually cut off the hardware. Windows Hello facial recognition is also built into the camera setup.
I’ll talk more about heat below, but it’s worth noting here that the Razer Blade 16 struggles a bit. The surface of the laptop isn’t scorching while it’s working hard, hitting around 90°F on the WASD keys and even 100°F at the center of the keyboard. I saw the central area just above the keyboard go hotter still at 115°F. More concerning is the heat that’s jetted straight up into the display. Two hot spots appear on the screen that I measured as high as 136°F. It’s unclear if that could cause damage over time. For what it’s worth, the laptop can be run with the display closed in a desktop-like setup that avoids sending exhaust heat into the monitor.
Razer Blade 16 – Software
The Razer Blade 16 runs Windows 11 like many of the laptops launching now. Where it might differentiate itself from other gaming laptops is that it’s not largely loaded up with extraneous gaming software. Assuredly, it comes with Razer Central for managing some core aspects of the system, like keyboard lighting, performance modes, and the display’s unique resolution and refresh rate modes. The software runs effectively, not standing in my way or running into issues – something I couldn’t always say for devices running Asus’s Armoury crate software.
Razer Blade 16 – Gaming and performance
Let’s get this out of the way first, the performance you can expect from the mobile components in this laptop are high, but not as high as the performance you’d get from the corresponding desktop parts. You can still prepare for some exceptional gaming muscle out of a compact machine though, because the CPU and GPU combo in this machine is no slouch.
In benchmarks, the Razer Blade 16 shows the leaps in performance its modern-gen hardware has against competition running previous-gen CPUs and GPUs. The system leaps out ahead by thousands of points in all of the 3DMark benchmarks we run, scoring 18099 in Time Spy, 31139 in Fire Strike, 64873 in Night Raid, and 13463 in Port Royal. In Unigine Heaven 4.0, the system came out well ahead again with a 243fps average compared to 137fps for the Alienware x17 R2, 135fps for the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16, and 172fps for the Lenovo Legion 7i, all of which run an RTX 3080 Ti and a high-end CPU from the previous generation.
We’re running a new suite of demanding game benchmarks (hence the missing data for last-gen laptops in the table above) that nonetheless continue to see strong performance for the Razer Blade 16. Even with ray-tracing effects enabled, the system is able to spit out high frame rates at 1080p, boasting a 107 fps average on our Hitman 3 benchmark at the Ultra preset with RT on and DLSS set to balanced. That jumps up to 167 fps with Nvidia’s new DLSS 3 Frame Generation tech enabled.
Even the demanding Cyberpunk 2077 ran smoothly, hitting 76 fps in a benchmark with DLSS set to balanced and the ray-tracing-enabled Ultra graphics preset. Toggling on Frame Generation effectively doubled the score to 153.7 fps.
Given the Razer Blade 16 has a 3840x2400 display built in, I also re-ran benchmarks at this higher native resolution. Even there, it manages playable results. Hitman 3 averaged 58 fps without Frame Generation and 69 fps with it. Total War: Warhammer III ran at 53.55 fps. Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 41.5 fps without Frame Generation and 61.7 fps with it. Forza Horizon 5 manages the most sustainable speed at 86.5 fps.
To get an idea of how Razer Blade 16 differs from the desktop part’s performance, I’ll note that the RTX 4080 FE (not even the 4090) hit 136 fps running Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with DLSS 3 Frame Generation enabled. While the Razer Blade 16 was working at a slightly higher resolution, it wouldn’t make enough difference to account for running less than half as fast as the desktop graphics card.
A big part of the Razer Blade 16's performance struggles seems to come from heat. Even when the CPU isn't being fully taxed, such as in a benchmark that's largely GPU bound, the temperatures of the CPU are hitting 90°C and above. This will limit the potential of the system to serve as a solid 1080p platform as that will depend more on the CPU which struggles with throttling. In the case of operating at 1440p or 4K and leveraging more of the GPU's power for ray tracing and DLSS, the system actually seems to run smoother. In a series of benchmarks, the fans ran calmer and the system seemed to find a balance that it could consistently keep up doing a more GPU-intensive workload. In either workload, whether stressing the CPU or the GPU, the CPU consistently runs hotter while the GPU rarely exceeds 80C, tending instead to stick closer to 60° or 70°C. This suggests the system has better cooling applied to the graphics processor, which makes some sense given it's the higher power component at 175 watts.
No matter the workload, the system will lose a bit of speed after a short burst. I ran a series of stress tests in 3DMark and saw the first run or two show higher performance until temperatures and clock speeds stabilized. Fortunately, GPU-bound scenarios seem to have the best stability, as over 20 Time Spy Extreme runs, the results only varied by 1 to 2 fps.
When the GPU is being pushed especially hard, it can produce some unfortunate artifacts. During one of my stress tests running a 20 round loop of 3DMark’s Port Royal benchmark, I noticed the lighting sputtering, creating an intense flickering that persisted through multiple runs. While playing Cyberpunk 2077, I also ran into an issue with Jackie’s face texture popping in and out.
Despite the thin design of this beastly laptop, it seems to have consistent cooling at least. The vents at the back edge of the laptop actually appear slightly obstructed when the laptop is open, which left me curious to see how it would handle in different setups. So I ran stress tests with it in its open position on a flat surface and with it closed and upright, giving the bottom intakes and rear exhausted unimpeded airflow. Sure enough, the latter setup saw better results, but it was only the difference of a couple frames.
All told, the performance is about as good as you can expect from a Windows laptop. It’s exceptional, especially in size-to-performance. I expected it to lag a little further behind the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 I also recently tested, which had much beefier cooling, but the Razer Blade 16 proved only marginally weaker while being substantially more portable.
Even the Razer Blade 16’s battery life is an upgrade over prior gaming laptops. It uses its space to pack in a 95.2Wh battery. This managed to run 5 hours and 29 minutes in PC Mark 10’s battery test, which is about 2-and-a-half hours better than the results of the Alienware x17 R2, Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16, and Lenovo Legion 7i. In actual use, I found the battery slightly more lacking, getting a little over 2 hours of use even with battery saving features enabled. Fortunately, the 330W power brick can recharge the laptop in a jiffy.
