Razer Blade Pro 2015 Notebook Review

Keyboard

It's hard to fathom that the Chiclet keyboard (27.5 x 11 cm) is almost identical in both size and layout to that of the Blade 14 despite the larger footprint of the Blade Pro. It is a compromise to make room for the Switchblade, so don't expect a better typing experience here if you find the keyboard to be too small on the 14-inch model. The keys are relatively quiet, but are a bit on the light side with shallow travel. This is especially true for the Arrow keys, which are halved in size and uncomfortable to use. Thicker models like the Asus G751 and Eurocom X8 have firmer keys and feedback overall.

The Synapse software is a bright spot for the keyboard as it offers plenty of customization, recordings, and macro options geared towards gamers. We find it very easy to use and far ahead of similar software in competing MSI or Aorus models.

Touchpad

The big attention grabber for the Blade Pro is its Switchblade UI. This 4.05-inch 800 x 480 resolution display doubles as a multi-touch touchpad with customizable macro keys and can check email, browse the Internet, play Youtube videos, and do much more. The TN panel offers a measured brightness of 192 nits. We won't bother going into detail about its specifications and features as Razer already gives a pretty good rundown.

The take-home message on the Switchblade is that it is high on potential with flat execution. Many of its built-in features like Twitter, Facebook, Internet browser, and Gmail run infinitely smoother on your existing smartphone. Videos especially play at choppy frame rates on the Switchblade. Its other main feature runs game-related Apps for displaying additional icons, movesets, and real-time game data. Supported games are sparse and the usefulness of these auxiliary keys and information will depend on the game and application. Some are actually quite handy, such as Windows 8 shortcuts and the music player, but the browser-related apps are quite poor and unresponsive. If used as standard Macro keys, the Switchblade is at a disadvantage as other gaming systems like Alienware and Aorus tend to have Macro keys nearer the left side of the keyboard for faster access.

As a standard touchpad, the Switchblade is poor. Its glossy surface results in an irregular glide (very similar to the Aorus models) and its two small click keys feel cheap with shallow travel and unsatisfying feedback. Imagine using your squeaky clean window as a touchpad and you'll have a good idea of how it feels to use the Switchblade. Fortunately, gamers are expected to use their own external mice when gaming and the Switchblade is adequate for simple navigation should an external mouse be unavailable.

Color coverage is 80 percent and 59 percent of sRGB and AdobeRGB standards, respectively. This is better than budget TN panels where 60 percent and 40 percent coverage are more common and more or less similar to current competing 17-inch gaming models. Gamut is 95 to 99 percent identical to the MSI GS70, Asus G751, and Gigabyte P37X. This has little significance for gaming purposes and is more applicable to graphics designers.

Further display analyses with a spectrophotometer reveal poor colors and grayscale. Color temperature needs to be turned down and colors tend to become less accurate the lower the saturation level. A quick display calibration alleviates these problems considerably as RGB balance, grayscale, and colors become more accurate across the board.

CPU performance according to synthetic benchmarks is in the same ballpark as other notebooks sporting an identical processor. In single-core benchmarks like CineBench and Super Pi, the Blade Pro lies very close to the average scores expected from an i7-4720HQ. In contrast, performance in benchmarks requiring sustained multi-core operations like CineBench R15 multi-core and wPrime is slower than the average i7-4720HQ as the Blade Pro is unable to maintain a high multi-core Turbo Boost for extended periods. This can be observed in our stress test below as well.

Raw performance is about 10 to 20 percent slower than the extreme i7-4940XM and just barely above that of the i7-4710HQ. For more technical information and benchmarks on the Core i7-4720HQ, see our dedicated page here.

System Performance

PCMark benchmarks place the Blade Pro alongside other high-end gaming notebooks like the Eurocom X3 and Schenker XMG A505. This is no doubt due to the powerful components and the dedicated SSD. For comparison, our record PCMark 7 holder is the Eurocom X8 with its SLI GTX 980M at 7272 points while our Blade Pro clocks in at 6049 points. Subjectively, OS navigation and applications both run and open smoothly with almost no delays.

Synthetic graphics benchmarks rank the GTX 960M in our Blade Pro slightly above average compared to other systems with the same GPU. This is due to the Blade Pro's good performance when under gaming loads as clock speeds do not drop dramatically from thermal or power limitations. Contrast this with the Asus G501, which is unable to maintain a constant GPU Boost under similar loads.

For more technical details and benchmarks of the GTX 960M, see our dedicated GPU page here.

Gaming Performance

As the GTX 960M is simply a rebrand of the GTX 860M, users can expect just slightly higher performance compared to mainstream gaming notebooks of yesteryear. The performance gap between it and the lower GTX 950M is roughly 30 percent compared to 15 to 20 percent against last year's GTX 860M. However, the gap is even larger when compared to the GTX 970M as even Razer's own Blade 14 outperforms the larger Blade Pro by 50 to 60 percent on high graphics settings. Nonetheless, most of today's titles will be playable on Ultra 1080p settings at 30 FPS, though the GTX 960M will start to buckle on more demanding games.

We stress the Blade Pro with synthetic benchmarks to observe for any throttling or stability issues. With only Prime95 active, the CPU can be seen running at its rated 3.4 GHz maximum before falling to a steady 2.8 GHz in a matter of seconds when CPU temperature reaches ~85 C. While this is still 200 MHz above its base clock speed, it reveals a weaker Turbo Boost than what the Core i7-4720HQ is capable of. Core temperature holds steady at the 75 to 80 C range.

With only FurMark active, the dGPU will start as high as 1110 MHz before steadily dropping to a steady 1084 MHz according to GPU-Z. While this is a bit less than the 1097 MHz base speed, the Blade Pro does quite well as it never dips below 1084 MHz even under these extreme stress conditions. This is compared to the Asus G501, which can frequently dip to the 800 MHz range when running the same benchmark. GPU temperature plateaus at about 80 C.

When under both Prime95 and FurMark stress simultaneously, the Blade Pro holds up quite well with no major throttling issues. The Nvidia core remains steady at 1084 MHz while the CPU drops just a hair to 2.7 GHz. CPU and GPU temperatures are firmly in the 80 to 85 C range.

For more realistic gaming stress conditions, we run Unigine Heaven 4.0 and observe for any discrepancies in performance. The Blade Pro runs well under pressure from both Prime95 and FurMark, so we expect it to do even better under Unigine Heaven. This is exactly the case as both the CPU and GPU run consistently at higher Boost speeds. The GPU in particular runs at a constant 1201 MHz throughout the run, while the CPU can be as high as 3.6 GHz for brief periods depending on the demand.

Throttling under gaming stress is a non-issue. To test this, we run the Metro: Last Light benchmark consecutively ten times in a row to compare average frame rates between each run. If heavy throttling should occur, we should see declining frame rates after each run. This fortunately does not happen on the Razer as the average frame rate on run #1 is identical to run #10. For comparison, the Gigabyte P34W experiences a notable decline in performance under the same benchmarking conditions.

Running on battery power will reduce CPU performance significantly while the GPU is unaffected. A quick 3DMark 11 run on batteries results in Physics and Graphics scores of 5669 and 5546 points, respectively, compared to 8016 and 5397 points when connected to an AC adapter. This is because the processor core drops to only 1.7 GHz if not connected to mains in favor of preserving GPU performance. It's an uncommon feature as most notebooks normally reduce both CPU and GPU clock speeds with no bias.

Battery Life

The non-removable 74 Wh Li-Ion polymer battery is standard size for 17-inch gaming notebooks. Certain models have even larger capacities such as the 96 Wh modules in the Alienware 17 and Asus G501.

Runtimes are very good on the Blade Pro with a high maximum of 8.5 hours on Power Saver and the lowest brightness setting. Users can expect a more realistic 4 hour runtime on the Balanced profile and a ~150 nit brightness (setting 5/10), but this should be notably longer if on Power Saver mode instead. Note that gaming performance and system noise will decrease further if battery capacity is 30 percent or less. This feature can be toggled in the Intel Graphics Properties menu.