This blog was updated in November 2022.
Pros
- Gaming-grade hardware in a portable form-factor
- Premium build quality
- Advanced cooling solution
- THX-powered audio
- Best touchpad on a Windows laptop
- Available in several configurations
Cons
- Premium price for a premium product
- Not as performant as a heavy gaming laptop
Razer. You’ve no doubt heard of the name. As an iconic and pioneering brand of gaming gear, Razer became a major player with their high-performance gaming mice.
Nowadays, they’ve ventured far outside of the realm of peripherals. Razer’s line-up now includes Android gaming devices, gaming monitors and, most successfully, gaming laptops. They’re some of the best on the market. Let’s find out what makes Razer gaming laptops so good.
Razer Gaming Laptop Form-Factor
If you were to imagine a ‘gaming laptop’, you’d likely conjure up an image of a thick, bulky device. Crammed full of gaming-grade hardware and a heavy-duty cooling solution to keep temperatures in check, surely a gaming laptop has to be on the heftier side?
However, the shockingly slim profile of Razer gaming laptops blurs the line between a thin-and-light laptop and an ultra-powerful gaming laptop.
Let’s look at the Razer Blade 14, specced-out with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. That’s an 8-core, 16-thread CPU matched with the world’s fastest mobile GPU, yet this outrageously powerful gaming laptop weighs in at just 1.78kg and 16.8mm thick. It’s currently the smallest 14” gaming laptop by volume, with 40% less volume compared to a standard 15” gaming laptop. In terms of size, it’s in closer competition to non-gaming laptops with low-powered integrated GPUs.
For on-the-go gamers and content creators, the concept of a thin laptop that’s as fast as a whole gaming desktop is mind-blowing. Maybe you’re a student who needs a laptop to see them through uni lectures as well as late-night LAN parties. Or you’re a YouTuber that’s got to whip up video content as fast as possible whilst at a convention. A Razer gaming laptop is the perfect fit. Get real-world gaming performance with the latest Intel or AMD CPUs and discrete NVIDIA GPUs, in a form-factor you can carry around in a backpack.
Vapour Chamber
How does Razer manage to squeeze all this high-performance hardware into such a tight space? On their higher-end gaming laptops – where it’s needed most – Razer smartly deploys the use of a vapour chamber cooling solution.
By evaporating and condensing an internal fluid, a vapour chamber can help a Razer gaming laptop to stay surprisingly cool, at least for the power consumption and form-factor. You can learn more about how temperatures affect performance in our PC Cooling – What You Need to Know blog.
Razer Gaming Laptop Displays
Whether you’re looking for an ultra-portable laptop or a full-on desktop replacement, Razer offers up a wide range of gaming laptops with 13”, 14”, 15” and 17” displays. What’s more, each size comes in several configurations, so you’ll be able to choose exactly what you want. On most Razer gaming laptops, you’ll have three display options: a 1080p/360Hz display, a 1440p/240Hz display, or a 4K, 144Hz display.
Each display, regardless of resolution and refresh rate, comes calibrated from the factory for superb colour accuracy right out of the box, with razor-thin bezels to boot. If you need help deciding which display is best for you, check out our Gaming Monitor Guide for further info.
For Gamers
Gamers queueing up for rank and competing at an esports-level will surely opt for a 1080p/360Hz display option. It’s not only the fastest refresh rates we’ve seen on gaming laptops, but standalone gaming monitors too. Such a ludicrous speed ensures you’ve always got an upper hand, seeing the latest frames as soon as they’re rendered for lightning-quick reactions and flick shots.
For Creators
A content creator would benefit greatly from the increased screen real estate and wider colour gamut of Razer’s higher resolution, more premium displays. Cover 100% of the DCI-P3 gamut and with anti-glare coatings, these displays are tailor-made for colour-critical work wherever, whenever. Their refresh rates are nothing to scoff at either, 144Hz is more the adequate for most and is a considerable step up from ordinary laptops.
THX Speakers
Audio is often the weakest element of a laptop, as if it’s treated as an afterthought. When a laptop’s chassis is already consumed by the mainboard, cooling solution and battery, most manufacturers don’t have much choice but to squish tinny, down-firing speakers in the left-over space.
Razer gaming laptops are no-compromise machines, however, so audio is given as much attention as any other element. And Razer has a trick up their sleeve to make this happen – they own THX. Yes, the company behind cinema’s iconic ‘Deep Note’ lends its expertise to Razer gaming laptops.
First of all, the speaker hardware itself is a noticeable improve over ones you’d typically find on most gaming laptops. Open up the display of a Razer gaming laptop and the large, front-firing speakers flanking the keyboard immediately impress. As they’re aimed at your head (instead of down into the desk) the audio is clear, not muffled.
On the software side, these speakers are driven by THX-certified Spatial Audio tech for a convincing 7.1 surround sound effect. This makes it so you can track your opponent’s position in 3D space – on laptop speakers! A dedicated gaming headset might still be optimal for longer gaming sessions, but high-quality speakers are great for kicking back and catching up with YouTube and Netflix too.
Keyboard and Touchpad on Razer Gaming Laptops
Having a keyboard that’s both easy to adapt to and comfortable to thrash away at is essential for the best gaming laptops, and Razer absolutely nails it. We’ve covered quite a few Razer gaming laptops on the Ebuyer YouTube channel – get subscribed. After a couple of goes at a typing test, guest presenter James has no trouble becoming accustomed to a Razer gaming laptop’s keyboard and besting his high scores.
They’re by no means mechanical, but these keyboards exhibit a surprising amount of travel for a laptop keyboard, with a clicky, tactile feel that’s not too dissimilar from the real deal. Don’t worry about fumbling your keystrokes, it’ll take no time at all to adjust from a desktop PC set-up to a Razer gaming laptop.
These keyboards are great for gaming, that’s Razer’s expertise after all. If you need to type something up quickly while out and about, however, they’re just as great for productivity tasks. And since these are gaming laptops we’re talking about, of course they’re RGB backlit and customisable through Razer’s Synapse software.
The other half of the input equation is the touchpad, and Razer gaming laptops have one of the best you’ll find on a Windows laptop. Powered by Microsoft Precision drivers for pin-point tracking and reliable gesture control, these touchpads are a huge upgrade over the alternatives. They act as one large, smooth, clickable surface and are most comparable to an Apple MacBook, which is high praise indeed. No other Windows laptop – gaming or otherwise – comes as close to a MacBook’s touchpad.
Razer Gaming Laptops at Ebuyer
The Razer Blade 17 ranked first in our list of the best high-end gaming laptops of 2022, so make sure you check out Ebuyer’s entire range of Razer gaming laptops. For the best bang-for-buck, here’s our best budget gaming laptops of 2022. Over the years, Razer has grown and expanded into new categories. Gaming chairs, for example – check out our review of the Razer Iskur.
