Razer Blade 14 (Early 2015) Notebook Review

The chassis remains identical to the original model, so we refer to our previous review for a more in-depth look at case quality and features. In short, both the design and aluminum build hold up extremely well with no major weak spots or design flaws. The center of the keyboard on most notebooks, for example, will normally warp if enough pressure is applied, but it is very resistant here on the Blade 14. The center of the outer lid could still use improvement as pushing down will warp the surface. Overall, the minimalistic and MacBook Pro-inspired design is excellent and very easy on the eyes.

In terms of size and weight, the Blade 14 is thinner than all of its current competitors at 17.9 mm and is about as heavy as the 15.6-inch MSI GS60 at 2 kilograms. This makes the Razer more dense than other 14-inch notebooks that can be noticeably lighter and more portable. The Yoga 3 14, for example, is just shy of 1.7 kg while the X1 Carbon is even lighter at 1.4 kg. Because of its duality, the Blade 14 can be considered as both a heavy 14-inch Ultrabook and a lightweight 14-inch gaming notebook.

Keyboard

The backlit Chiclet keyboard (28.5 x 10.5 cm) offers the basic keys with no extras; Users expecting dedicated macro keys, direct multimedia controls, and other fancy functions may want to look at larger gaming models or the Blade Pro instead. The included Synapse 2.0 software is where the extra features are kept with customizable macros and profiles in addition to tracking and APM counters.

Typing is accurate with firm feedback from individual keys. Perhaps more importantly for gaming, the keys feel quick and reliable and can recognize simultaneous presses. Nonetheless, travel is shallow and certainly not as satisfying as on larger gaming notebooks or desktop keyboards. The Up and Down Arrow keys in particular are too small for comfortable use and should have been extended vertically to be larger like on the Alienware 13. 

Touchpad

The sizable touchpad (10.5 x 6.5 cm) is powered by Synaptics 1.0 with support for up to four-finger gestures. The matte surface provides a smooth glide with no special texturing, but is otherwise responsive with no random cursor jumps. The dedicated click keys are very narrow, likely as a purposeful tradeoff for a larger touchpad. They are surprisingly quiet with a much shallower travel compared to most other notebooks. Feedback is thankfully still satisfactory for reliable use.

The Sharp panel boasts IGZO technology for its QHD+ display to provide accurate colors and fast response times. Indeed, color coverage is quite high for the Blade 14 at 85 percent and 64 percent of the sRGB and AdobeRGB standards, respectively, and is near identical to the displays of the P34W v3 and GS70. In comparison, mainstream TN panels typically hover in the 60 to 70 percent range for sRGB and 40 to 50 percent range for AdobeRGB.

Further color analyses with an X-Rite spectrophotometer reveal accurate colors across all tested saturation levels. Colors generally become more accurate the deeper the saturation with Blue and Teal being the least accurate amongst the primary and secondary hues. This is again similar to last year's Fujitsu U904. Grayscale could be better at maximum display brightness, but gamma is close to the 2.2 ideal for sRGB. Calibration attempts did not significantly improve our display and so these charts are not included.

Despite the small size and relatively light weight for a gaming notebook, the Blade 14 is difficult to view outdoors due to the glossy screen. Maximum brightness is just barely sufficient if working under shade and if reflections can be reduced. Otherwise, the matte 1080p Blade 14 model may be a better option assuming the panel is at least as bright as our QHD+ touchscreen model.

Processor

CPU performance according to synthetic benchmarks is in the ballpark of other notebooks carrying the same quad-core i7-4720HQ, so there is no artificial throttling imposed. Since the Blade 14 is so small, this means it performs similarly to much larger gaming notebooks such as the MSI GE62 or GS70. In fact, the Blade 14 slightly outperforms these notebooks in multi-core benchmarks as the Razer is very good at maintaining high Turbo Boost speeds. Its CineBench R15 CPU Multi score of 678 points, for example, is the current top rank for a system with the i7-4720HQ CPU. Its wPrime completion time is also the fastest by just a hair. Otherwise, overall performance is similar to the last generation i7-3840QM.

For more benchmarks and technical data on the Core i7-4720HQ, see our dedicated page here.

System Performance

With the final PCMark 7 score just barely cracking the 6000 mark, the Blade 14 sits comfortably next to larger gaming notebooks such as the MSI GT72 and Schenker XMG P724. Alongside the P34W v3, the Blade 14 is one of the fastest 14-inch notebooks available according to synthetic PCMark benchmarks and could have scored even higher with RAID 0 SSDs or with a lower native resolution display.

Subjectively, OS navigation is very fast and programs launch almost instantaneously on the first try similar to newer Ultrabooks. Power Saver mode is a tad bit slower, but speedy nonetheless.

GPU Performance

The GTX 970M was announced last year alongside the GTX 980M and is available with either 3 GB or 6 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. Most notebooks carry the 3 GB GTX 970M variant, although a few ship with 6 GB VRAM such as the XMG U505. The 970M in the Blade 14 is equipped with 3 GB VRAM, but performance differences in 1080p games between the 3 GB and 6 GB models are marginal as seen in our dedicated GTX 970M benchmarks page here.

3DMark Ice Storm and Cloud Gate scores are lower than what we had anticipated on the Blade 14 compared to other notebooks sporting the same GPU. For example, the MSI GS60 scores 47621 points in Cloud Gate Graphics while our Blade 14 scores just 38777 points. CineBench R15 OpenGL scores are much lower on the Razer as well at 60.56 FPS compared to 99.16 FPS on the Alienware 15. At the same time, its Fire Strike Graphics score of 7321 points is in line with other similarly equipped notebooks. The discrepancy in these synthetic tests is strange, but thankfully the Razer performs much more consistently in games.

Gaming Performance

Today's titles play wonderfully on the Blade 14 at 1080p Ultra settings with frame rates averaging well above 30 FPS or even 60 FPS for older games. In comparison, the recently launched GTX 960M can be over 30 percent slower while the crown GTX 980M can be over 30 percent faster depending on the title.

Of course, opting for the QHD+ configuration will mean that most gamers are expecting native 3200 x 1800 gameplay. Assuming a minimum of 30 FPS, a handful of games are playable on Ultra settings including Tomb Raider and Guild Wars 2. F1 2014 in particular remains above 60 FPS for an extremely fluid and crisp experience on a small screen. Even so, the majority of titles dip to the low 20s and must run on Medium settings instead.

Razer claims that they "don't impose additional throttles on the CPU or GPU, allowing them to run at full speed". We put this to the test with synthetic stress benchmarks and CPU-Z, GPU-Z, and HWiNFO monitoring tools active.

With just Prime95 running to stress the CPU, core temperatures jump quickly to 95 C before maintaining a steady 80 to 90 C range. Clock rate remains stable at 3.1 to 3.3 GHz, which is just a few hundred less than its maximum 3.4 GHz via Turbo Boost. With just FurMark active, the GPU drops steadily from just over 1000 MHz to the 797 to 810 MHz range, which is a little over 100 MHz less than its rated base clock rate. Once GPU temperature reaches 85 C, the system fans will run at full force to maintain a ceiling of 80 to 85 C. Memory remains constant at 1252.8 MHz throughout.

Under simultaneous Prime95 and FurMark stress, the CPU will drop to its base 2.6 GHz and remain in the 90 to 95 C range. While the CPU never throttles, the GPU falls further before reaching a steady 670 to 746 MHz range. GPU voltage also drops very slightly and suggests a power or hardware limitation preventing maximum performance at 100 percent system activity.

The integrated and non-removable 71 Wh (6400 mAh)  Li-Ion polymer battery is quite dense and packs a bigger punch than other 14-inch notebooks including the Gigabyte P34W v3 (61 Wh), the Lenovo Yoga 3 14 (45 Wh), Yoga 14 (56 Wh), and the Lenovo Y40 (54 Wh). There is more power here than even the thicker 15.6-inch MSI GE62 (51 Wh), though larger systems like the 17.3-inch Asus ROG G751 can have battery modules reaching 90 Wh.

Granted, the Blade 14 houses more demanding components than others notebooks of the same size class, so higher capacities do not necessarily mean longer runtimes. Battery life for the Blade 14 is average at just over 3.5 hours of constant WLAN use on the Balanced profile at a 150 nit brightness setting. This is noticeably less than competing 14-inch notebooks under the same testing conditions. When compared to the older Blade 14, however, the latest model is not all that different despite having the same battery capacity and more powerful components - a perfect example of increasing power efficiency between hardware generations.

We came in with concerns about how a GTX 970M would perform on such a small and thin notebook, but we walked away genuinely impressed with the performance of the refreshed Blade 14. The model experiences no major throttling when gaming and is even able to consistently run at Turbo Boost speeds for the CPU and GPU. This in turn leads to high surface temperatures and very loud fan noise, so headphones are almost requisite. Outside of its solid performance, the aluminum chassis is rigid with a surprisingly easy-to-remove maintenance panel, especially for an ultrathin where internals are generally more difficult to access.

We criticized the first Blade 14 for its poor 900p TN panel and we're relieved to see a very high quality 3200 x 1800 IPS panel with a matte 1080p option on the 2015 refresh. Colors are accurate out-of-the-box with a bright backlight, though our glossy screen does make the touchscreen configuration more difficult to use outdoors. Native QHD+ gameplay on a GTX 970M is limited to Medium settings for most games, so the 1080p panel may be preferable to some. Nonetheless, the Blade 14 is an almost perfect solution for those who want a lightweight notebook that is as good for high-end gaming as it is for schoolwork and light traveling. We say almost perfect as battery life and weight are both not quite there yet when compared to standard Ultrabooks.

There are a number of omissions and missing features from the Blade 14, however, some of which are conspicuously absent. Where is the card reader or Gigabit Ethernet adapter? Why no DisplayPort or RAID 0 and why was the second M.2 slot removed for the 2015 refresh? Such features are common on larger gaming notebooks or even mainstream ones, so we would have liked to see more connectivity options on this $2000 to $2400 Razer.

Gamers should also note that unlike most other gaming notebooks out there, the Blade 14 has no internal 2.5-inch SATA III options. This essentially forces the owner to invest in a very high capacity and more expensive M.2 SSD to hold all those game installations without resorting to an external HDD. In a world where the latest Call of Duty is 41 GB, a 256 GB C drive won't cut it for very long.

The 2015 Razer Blade 14 is at its core the best lightweight 14-inch gaming notebook money can buy - just be prepared for the vanilla feature set. It currently has little competition in this size category for now as the only other notebook with the same 970M GPU is the Gigabyte P34W v3, which unfortunately suffers from moderate throttling issues. Users willing to stay thin but go bigger may find more value in the 15.6-inch 4K MSI GS60 Ghost series. Otherwise, the new Razer stands paramount in the 14-inch space.