Do you really need 440 Hz? Why the new dual-mode display of the Razer Blade 18 is a downgrade for many users

The old Razer Blade 18 was available with an IPS as well as Mini-LED panel, but the manufacturer decided to offer only one IPS screen for the new 2025 model. It is a so called dual-mode display with the native resolution of 3840 x 2400 pixels (4K, 16:10) with a 240 Hz refresh rate. The subjective image quality is good, but the new IPS panel cannot keep up with the old Mini-LED screen (300 Hz) in terms of brightness or contrast ratio.

You can switch the display to the Full-HD resolution (1920 x 1200 pixels) in the Synapse software, which also increases the refresh to extremely fast 440 Hz. However, this requires a restart and the scaling is not adjusted, so this will mix up your arrangement of desktop symbols. The picture quality also suffers a bit, because it is just not as sharp due to the scaling. The refresh rate can help with very fast shooters, for example, but this is a very specialized case and raises the questions, how many users will actually use this mode because they are not happy with the default 240 Hz.

We think that it is a step in the wrong direction that Razer only offers one display option. The old Mini-LED screen with 300 Hz was very good and also enabled HDR gaming, for example, which is not the case anymore. The refresh rate of 300 Hz was already very fast and we think it was the better choice for most users. Please see our review of the new Razer Blade 2025 for further information.