Much like their desktop counterparts, gaming laptops comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. For some, portability isn’t even considered an important factor, instead proudly adopting the title of ‘desktop replacement’.

Sure, these are technically portable, but you honestly wouldn’t want to lug around one of those hulking behemoths for any extended period. We seriously doubt it would even fit into any conventional backpacks, requiring a dedicated suitcase to be privately escorted to LAN parties.

For a niche but dedicated audience, achieving the closest parity with the bleeding-edge in desktop-equivalent performance is a perfectly reasonable compromise, real-world usability be damned!

How to choose a gaming laptop?

However, for most consumers, choosing their next gaming laptop is about more than just raw benchmarking credentials. Form factor, battery life, typing experience – there’s so many extra considerations.

Unfortunately, buying a laptop isn’t like building your own gaming PC. Where careful deliberation over each component upgrade and replacement is not only possible, but actively encouraged.

With gaming laptops, nearly everything’s integrated – soldered directly on the mainboard – mean you’ve got to be absolutely sure it’s the right gaming laptop for you needs before pulling the trigger.

Razer Blade 15 gaming laptop

At the complete opposite end of the gaming laptop spectrum is the Razer Blade 15. From initial impressions, it appears relatively ‘normal’ – but it also happens to game, very well in fact. Yet it doesn’t fall subject to the obvious shortcomings of most gaming laptops.

Deceiving looks

Getting the obvious out of the way, gaming on the Razer Blade 15 is a premium experience. Looks can be deceiving, but housed inside this sleek half-matte, half-glossing chassis is the smallest 15-inch RTX gaming laptop.

Before commencing a deep dive into the technically nitty-gritty of components and specifications, let’s quickly run though the equally important characteristic of a laptop for day-to-day usage.

THX audio

Lifting the laptop’s lid, you’re immediately confronted by the imposing speakers flanking either side of the keyboard. Powered by the latest THX-certified spatial audio technology, an advanced 7.1 surround sound solution, the subtlest details such as the enemy’s footsteps clearly stand out against the mix, making positional tracking possible.

It’s a substantial improvement over the ubiquitous inclusion of bottom-mounted, down-firing speakers found in most gaming laptops. For intense, drawn-out sessions, gamers will opt for a dedicated gaming headset, but these laptop speakers come in clutch for casually browsing YouTube or Netflix.

Versatile keyboard

The keyboard is one of the primary methods of interfacing with your laptop, so it’s a crucial element in the selection process. After a couple rounds of a typing test, it quickly becomes apparent the balanced nature of the keyboard is perfect for productivity-lead applications. With lightweight sharp, satisfying key travel, ensuring every stroke is distinctly registered.

Razer Chroma RGB

The keyboard’s backlighting is powered by Razer Chroma RGB software. With over 16.8 million colours to meticulously pore over and a whole host of eye-catching lighting effects, you’re in complete control over your experience… or simply disable it all outright! Though, this may displease the RGB overlords.

Razer Chroma RGB is also integrated into over 150 of the biggest gaming releases, including Fortnite and Apex Legends, for dynamic adjustments to the lighting based off in-game actions and events. Getting riddled with a hail of bullets? The keyboards flashes red accordingly to alert you of damage taken.

Attention to detail

Smartly lifting inspiration from outside the gaming laptop space, the smooth, sizable glass touchpad is a much-welcomed inclusion for precise mouse-less movements and general comfort. The attention to details in seemingly inconsequential areas like these make the Razer Blade 15 stand out among the crowd.

Sure, regardless of the touchpad’s quality, it isn’t going to increase your in-game frame rates. But gaming-grade credentials aren’t all that matters. Once you’ve used a touchpad of this quality, it’s hard to transition back to bog-standard ones.

If you’re a die-hard stickler for traditional trackpads, the Gigabyte G5 gaming laptop has got you covered, with dedicated left-and-right mouse buttons and other old-school throw backs.

Ports

Despite the slimmer form factor, the port selection’s no slouch, either. The laptops comes fully equipped, ready for plenty of peripherals.

On the right-hand side: a Kensington lock, a full-sized HDMI for easily connecting up to a gaming monitor, two Razer-green coloured USB Type A and a USB Type C.

On the left-hand side: the power connection, an ethernet, another USB Type A and USB Type C and wrapping up a headphone/microphone combo-jack.

Having this amount of connectivity at your disposal is refreshing to see in 2021. When other laptops slim down, they start to solely rely on USB Type C – while great, is a little restrictive by itself.

Covering off any situation, select models feature Wi-Fi 6 delivering next-gen wireless connectivity, Bluetooth 5.2 and Thunderbolt 3 on Intel-powered models for hooking up external GPU enclosures.

FHD, QHD and 4K

Facilitating the flexible ‘do-it-all’ nature, the Razer Blade 15 comes in several configurations, tailor-fit for your specific needs. Competitive gamers demanding split-second advantages for calculated plays will obviously opt for the high refresh rate display – though there’s also high resolution QHD and 4K OLED touch displays for colour-critical, creative work.

Regardless of choice, the 15-inch display comes custom calibrated for colour accuracy straight out of the box and the minimal bezels enable a seamless, edge-to-edge viewing experience.

Need a bit more screen real estate? Check out out latest video on the Razer Blade 17. The same fantastic experience you’ve come to expect from a Razer Blade gaming laptop, but in a bigger form factor.

Portable performance

Now what you’ve all been patiently waiting for – the all-important hardware specifications. The Razer Blade 15 line-up comes equipped with Intel Core i7 processors, providing up to 8 powerful physical cores boosting to an eye-watering 5GHz in some scenarios. Not only ideal for driving the highest frames-per-second possible, for quickly shifting to productivity needs too.

Leveraging the beastly performance of the NVIDIA RTX 30 series GPUs, Forza Horizon 4 (Ebuyer’s current game of choice due to the extensive and easily repeatable benchmarking suite) easily blasts past the 100FPS mark and even further beyond. Check out the below video of a Razer Blade 15 configured with a NVIDIA RTX 3060 graphics card.

Vapour chamber cooling

Managing to maintain operational temperatures in such a stealthy enclosure is no easy feat. Razer engineers must’ve had quite the undertaking on their hands.

Cutting no corners, the Razer Blade 15 deploys a vapour chamber cooler to efficiently exhaust excess heat through the evaporation and condensation of an internal fluid on the Advance model, and the Base Model features a robust, tried-and-true heat pipe system.

More than a ‘gaming laptop’

What are your ‘must-haves’ for a laptop? Long-lasting battery life, plenty of ports, a lightweight design? These are only a few examples; all the real-world considerations are too exhausting to conveniently list out. It’s a difficult decision having to pick-and-choose and make glaring compromises for something you’re going to use on a regular or even daily basis.

The Razer Blade 15 is a far departure from what you’ve come to expect from a typical ‘gaming laptop’. If you’re in the market for a purely gaming-focused laptop, ASUS’s ROG Strix G17 fits the bill.

The category carries a lot of baggage, but this laptop manages to stand out from the pack by embracing an ‘all-in’ approach. Just because it’s a ‘gaming laptop’, doesn’t mean it can’t be sleek, minimal or embrace design philosophies from other industry-leading manufacturers.

Check out the Razer Blade 15, over at Ebuyer:

Razer Blade gaming laptops.

Taking the exact opposite approach, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo redefines the concept of a laptop.