What you need to know

• Razer is refreshing its Blade 15 and Blade Pro 17 laptops.
• New 360Hz display options are being offered.
• Both will have options for the new NVIDIA RTX 3080 GPU.
• Blade 15 goes on sale Jan 12; Blade 17 Pro in the coming months.

CES 2021 is taking a very different form this year to the norm but the support from the usual names is as big as ever. Razer is a CES regular and this year has once again come out swinging by updating its two larger gaming laptops ready for the year ahead.

Laptop hardware advancements don't stay still for long and both the Blade 15 and Blade Pro are always on the bleeding edge. This is as true for early 2021 as ever.

Starting first with the Blade 15 and the big story here is upgraded displays, better internal options from the factory, and NVIDIA's latest and greatest laptop GPUs. The choice between lower resolution with high refresh rates and high-resolution panels remains, but now the upper limit is a whopping 360Hz, while the lower tier is now up to 165Hz.

These aren't IPS panels but are "IPS grade" in so much as they maintain the good color reproduction and excellent viewing angles you would associate with such displays. Whether you really need 360Hz is a different question, as I found when looking at 2020's 300Hz Razer Blade 15. Nevertheless, with NVIDIA continuing to turn up the heat with graphics power, more frames are certainly coming.

What's new in the Blade 15 line is the high refresh rate QHD display option that will be available on the Blade 15 Advanced. This panel will offer both a 240Hz refresh rate and G-Sync, for fast, smooth, tear-free gaming. And as is traditional on a Razer Blade 15, all displays have high color accuracy, with at least 95% sRGB support and 100% DCI-P3 on the Base Model and 4K OLED variants.

Getting over to the graphics power, and thanks to NVIDIA, the Blade 15 will contain up to the next generation RTX 3080 GPU with up to 16GB of VRAM on tap and NVIDIA's second-generation ray tracing technology. This is particularly noteworthy for Razer since the only previous 16GB Blade 15 was the Quadro RTX 5000 spec Studio Edition. As ever, the Blade 15 uses Intel's top Core i7 H-Series chips.

Also new for the Blade 15 lineup is the option to get 32GB of RAM out of the box and choose an upgrade to 64GB, but the RAM is still user upgradeable so you don't have to decide right away. Under the hood the newest Blade 15 will also have an empty NVMe SSD slot available to add a second drive if you wish.

Connectivity remains as good as ever, with a multitude of I/O onboard, including HDMI 2.1 and USB-C 3.2 Gen 2.

The new Razer Blade 15 starts at $1,700 and will be available for pre-order exclusively at Razer.com and Razer Store locations on January 12 and for purchase from select third-party retailers beginning January 26.

Also updated at CES 2021 is the Razer Blade Pro, the 17-inch powerhouse which gets a similar treatment to the Blade 15 on the internals front. Of course, the big draw is the larger display, and being able to get both 4K and 120Hz on the same panel is sure to be a draw to the most demanding gamers or content creators.

In between the 1080p 360Hz and 4K 120Hz options is a new QHD 165Hz panel, so both gamers and content creators have plenty of options. It also sports 16GB or 32GB of RAM, which is upgradeable, and up to a 1TB NVMe SSD, paired with a 10th Gen Intel Core i7.

Like the Blade 15, the Blade Pro also gets the latest NVIDIA laptop GPUs up to the RTX 3080, while retaining the same great design, I/O, and internal options as last year's model.

The new Razer Blade Pro 17 starts at $2,300 and will be available first exclusively at Razer.com and Razer Store locations in the first half of 2021 with third-party retailers to follow.

What you need to know

• The Razer Blade Pro 17 now has options for full HD at 300Hz or 4k at 120Hz.
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q or 2080 Super Max-Q are now available.
• New eight-core 10th Gen Intel i7-108750H powers the Blade Pro 17.
• The new Razer Blade Pro 17 ships in late May starting at $2,600.

Razer's juggernaut laptop – the Blade Pro 17 – is getting a hardware refresh for 2020. While the chassis remains the same two new display options, a new processor, and updated GPU make the Blade Pro 17 even more power than before.

Due at the end of May, the 17-inch laptop is still aimed at hardcore gamers who need a desktop replacement, or creatives who want one of the most potent laptops with a color-accurate, high-resolution display.

Regarding design, the Blade Pro 17 follows the Blade Stealth 13 and Blade 15 with the blocky, symmetrical layout with an anodized matte black finish. Like those other laptops, Razer is also "fixing" the keyboard this year by enlarging the right shift key and shrinking the up/down directional arrow keys.

For the CPU, there are no surprises. Razer is using Intel's just-announced Core i7-108750H with eight-cores and a turbo boost to a ridiculous 5.1GHz. That CPU is the only option in the Blade Pro 17 line.

GPU ranges from an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q to the new GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q, which is effectively the most powerful mobile video card on the planet right now.

The display is where it gets interesting. Razer still has two options – full HD (non-touch), or 4K (touch) – but the display refresh rates have been updated. That full HD now hits 300Hz, which seems like overkill, but it also the trend. But that 4K now gets to 120Hz, which is still quite rare to see. The 4K display is aimed at creators, which is why it also has an impressive 100 percent Adobe RGB rating for color accuracy.

Combining that i7 and RTX 2080 Super Max-Q along with up to 64GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage, the Blade Pro 17 might actually be able to drive that 3840 x 2160 touch display at 120Hz for the first time.

Otherwise, there is the usual assortment of ports, including multiple Type-C, Type-A, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI 2.0b, RJ45 Ethernet, and a UHS-III full SD card reader. Windows Hello infrared flanks the somewhat wimpy 720p webcam and stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos provide the audio.

While the audience for a 6-pound (2.75kg) 17-inch desktop replacement laptop is small, those who have the cash and want the best around should enjoy the Blade Pro 17's power. There's not much else like it right now that is at this premium level.

Pricing and availability

The all-new Razer Blade Pro 17 will start at $2599.99 USD / 2899.99 € MSRP and will be available later this month at Razer.com and through select retailers in the United States and Canada. It will come soon to select retailers in Europe, China, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.

What you need to know

• The Razer Blade Pro 17 now has a 240Hz 1080p display option.
• This new panel follows the launch of a 120Hz 4K option in September.
• The Razer Blade Pro 17 with a 240Hz display is available now starting at $2,800.

Razer is going all in on refresh rates with its latest updates to the Razer Blade Pro 17. Following the launch of a 4K 120Hz display option in September, the company has added a new 240Hz 1080p panel to the Blade Pro's kit today.

With the range of hardware configurations in the Razer Blade Pro, you should be able to achieve some incredibly high framerates and silky smooth visuals with this new panel. The 240Hz option is available in two configurations with the Blade Pro, paired with either NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q or GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics.

The high0end graphics are paired with an Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, 512GB of storage, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. Those are backed up with a vapor chamber cooling system meant to keep the laptop cool under load.

Pricing for the laptop will likely be a barrier for many. The Blade Pro 17 starts at $2,500 with a 144Hz display and GeForce RTX 2060 graphics. The 240Hz models start at $2,800, and stepping up to a 4K 120Hz model with GeForce RTX 2080 graphics will set you back $3,700.

What you need to know

• Razer launched a new 4K 120Hz display option for the Blade Pro 17 today.
• The update combines the Blade Pro's already powerful hardware with a crisp, silky display.
• The new display option is available now for $3,700 at Razer.

The Razer Blade Pro 17 already represented the top tier of Razer's gaming notebook offerings, but it's getting a massive upgrade today in terms of display quality. Razer has added a new display option to the mix that marries crisp 4K visuals with a silky smooth 120Hz refresh rate.

A 120Hz refresh rate is often seen as the target for serious gamers, allowing games to achieve high framerates that keep the action smooth for fast-twitch scenarios. Combined with its 4K resolution, the new display option should be a boon for both gamers and content creators.

The display has a set of powerful hardware backing it up as well. Inside, you'll get an Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 graphics, 1TB of SSD storage, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. Those components are backed up by a vapor chamber cooling system to help keep the PC cool under load.

All of this adds up to a price that will be a little hard to swallow for some, however. The 4K 120Hz version of the Blade Pro 17 costs $3,700 and sits as the top configuration. If you're after higher refresh rates, you can get the entry-level model, which includes a standard 1080p panel running at 144Hz, for $2,500.

Just over two years ago, I reviewed the Blade Pro, Razer's 17-inch behemoth of a laptop. At the time there was nothing like it on the market in terms of design or features, which is why it commanded a $3,700 starting price that peaked at a whopping $4,500.

The Blade Pro is back in 2019 and with it comes a complete redesign that mirrors the recent trends seen in Razer's Blade Stealth and Blade 15 laptops. Gone is the right-handed trackpad, mechanical keyboard, and overall unique design — sadly, the dedicated media scroll wheel is gone, too. Instead, we're left with standard 2019 Razer design.

However, this is a much smaller laptop now, effectively fitting a 17-inch laptop into a 15-inch body and making this a more accessible choice for gamers who travel. The price is also now much lower, though not without the cost of some premium features.

Razer Blade Pro (2019) specs

Razer Blade Pro (2019) customization options

The Blade Pro ships with your choice of an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, RTX 2070 Max-Q, or RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU for graphics. There is also that new Intel 9th-Generation Core i7 9750H six-core processor with a max speed of 4.5GHz. It's all kept cool with Razer's vapor chamber system and a new multi-fan design.

The screen is where things get interesting with a 144Hz 17.3-inch full HD IPS display with 100 percent sRGB. The lack of a 4K option is a disappointment but as we'll see the lower price makes up for it. Then again, don't be shocked if Razer adds an option for 4K later.

For storage, there's a 512GB PCIe NVMe (solid-state drive) SSD, upgradeable to 2TB. There's also an optional open M.2 Slot that supports PCIe and SATA SSDs, upgradeable to 2TB SSD.

RAM is set at 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 2667MHz, but it is user upgradeable to 64GB with Intel XMP support.

There's no shortage of ports in this 17-inch beast, including HDMI, Ethernet, three USC Type-A ports, three USB Type-C (one for Thunderbolt), and even a full SD card reader that supports UHS-III for creative professionals.

Razer ditched the odd mechanical keyboard of the original Pro and instead of used one like the Blade 15's.

There's also now a Windows Hello IR camera, larger stereo speakers, support for Dolby Atmos, and it also is powered by a seemingly small 70 WHr battery.

Overall, the Blade Pro is a smaller, leaner, 17-inch gaming laptop that comes in at a more affordable price. How it handles — including what is expected to be just OK battery life — remains to be seen.

Razer Blade Pro (2019) price and availability

The most exciting thing about the new Blade Pro? Its price. Whereas the previous version started at $3,500, this year's model starts at $2,499 with an RTX 2060. For $2,799 you can jump to the RTX 2070 with Max-Q, and for $3,199 you can get an RTX 2080 Max-Q.

Look to grab the new Blade Pro to be released in May from Razer.com and via select retailers in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Germany, and China.

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This clever little accessory has powerful magnets on the rear to make it stick to any of the metal panels on your PC case or anything else. It's great for hanging accessories like headsets.

Razer is known for its premium laptops, which is what justifies the $4,000 price tag of its crown jewel Razer Blade Pro with a 17-inch 4K Sharp IGZO display and NVIDIA GTX 1080 graphics card.

We reviewed that beast last year, but Razer now has a slightly toned-down version that costs "only" $2,399 (and it's on sale for $1,999 for the holidays). Take the hardware from the smaller Razer Blade 14-inch and put into the larger chassis of the Razer Blade Pro and you have this new, additional model. With a full HD matte (non-touch display) and a NVIDIA GTX 1060, you still get a competent 17-inch gaming laptop but save $1,600.

I've been using this model for the last few weeks, and I enjoy some aspects of it more than the pricier 4K model. It's also an excellent laptop for using Windows Mixed Reality (WMR). Here's my video review.

See at Razer

120Hz display and GTX 1060

What's new with the full HD Razer Blade Pro

The concept behind the new full HD Razer Blade Pro is simple to understand: Keep the same ultra-thin 0.88-inch (22.5 mm) CNC military-grade aluminum chassis and replace some of the super-premium components with those found in the 14-inch Razer Blade.

The full HD Razer Blade Pro is essentially the Razer Blade 14, but with a 17-inch display, larger battery and more ports.

The new Blade Pro still supports the quad-core Core i7-7700HQ instead of a crazy GeForce 1080, and it drops down to the GeForce 1060. That means the laptop still supports full virtual reality (VR) and can play many first-person shooters (FPS) at high frame rates.

That performance is mostly due to the drop from a 4K IGZO glossy touch display to a full HD non-touch matte one. It's also 120Hz, which looks really great. Being non-touch allows for the non-glossy material as well as saving some weight.

Other changes include a mix of solid state drive (SSD) for storage with a traditional rotational drive (which can be swapped out for more SSD). There is also a replacement for the low-profile mechanical keyboard with a membrane-based one found in the 14-inch Blade, and the RAM dropping to 16GB from 32GB (though you can still expand to 32GB).

Due to the display requiring less power, the 99 WHr battery drops to 70 WHr with a smaller 165W charger.

Still a powerhouse

Razer Blade Pro performance

Running the same hardware as the popular Razer Blade 14 means the Razer Blade Pro full HD should get similar results, and that is precisely what we see in benchmarks.

CPU

Geekbench 4 Benchmarks (Higher is better)

There are no surprises in CPU performance aside from a few mild variations compared to other laptops running the same CPU. The newer eighth generation Intel i7-8650U wins single core but matches for multi-core performance.

GPU

Geekbench 4.0 CUDA (higher is better)

The NVIDIA GTX 1060 performs similar to others in its class, though slightly below the Razer Blade 14 perhaps owing to chance.

Storage

CrystalDiskMark (Higher is better)

The Samsung SSD is decent for read times but a bit slow on the write. That is partially due to the size, which is just 256GB. The larger the SSD, the more redundancy there is with the chips resulting in faster speeds. Luckily, users can swap out the SSD for their own with ease. The secondary 2TB drive is a standard hard disk drive (HDD), but also can be swapped out for an SSD.

Performance-wise there are no surprises. The NVIDIA GTX 1060 and quad-core i7 processor let you do high-end gaming with ease especially with only pushing 1920 x 1080 resolution.

Gears of War 4 UWP

For real-world usage Gears of War 4 yields 82 frames per second (FPS) when set to a mix of high and ultra graphic settings. Pushing graphics to just ultra will drop that down to around 70 FPS, which is still excellent.

Best of both worlds

Razer Blade Pro full HD is still a ton of fun

I find 17-inch laptops to be odd machines these days. Most people find the 15-inch laptop category ideal for gaming, as the 17-inch barrier substantially increases the size and weight, making the latter more like portable desktops than a traditional laptop.

The Razer Blade Pro – both the 4K and full HD models – buck this trend. With its even and balanced design and that 0.88-inch (22.5 mm) thin chassis, the Razer Blade Pro is one of the first 17-inch gaming laptops that you can carry around and not garner stares from the ordinary folk.

The full HD Razer Blade Pro is even more appealing because at just 6.78 lbs (3.07 kg) it's not prohibitively heavy. Compared to a 15-inch laptop, that extra two pounds matters, but in the 17-inch range, it's quite doable. You'll also get more than a few hours of battery life for regular computing – I pegged it at about four to five hours, which is about average for this PC range.

The full HD display with 120Hz refresh is a welcome change, too. I prefer matte, non-touch for gaming laptops as it is just easier on the eyes (though I understand why some opt for glossy for color vibrancy). That's not to say it is perfect. Running full HD on a 17-inch monitor brings some jagged edges for text, making productivity less awe-inspiring. But people have been using full HD desktop displays for years, and your eyes adjust, making it more a side effect rather than a detriment.

The most significant surprise with the full HD Razer Blade Pro is the inclusion of the same keyboard as the Razer Blade 14 versus the low-profile mechanical keyboard in the 4K Razer Blade Pro. I found the mechanical keyboard odd in the 4K version, or rather something to get used to instead of enjoying right away. With the full HD model, however, I get back the keyboard that I prefer.

Regarding heat and fan noise, it is minimal. Seeing as this is mostly a 14-inch gaming laptop's hardware pushed into a 17-inch chassis, there is more room for venting, and the fans keep the nimble GTX 1060 cool enough.

Pros

• 120hz matte display is great for gaming.
• Excellent mid- to high-range performance.
• Improved keyboard and awesome Precision touchpad.
• Outstanding audio.

Cons:

• Full HD display results in jagged text.
• Trackpad is for right-handers only.
• Not cheap.

Overall, I'm a huge fan of the Razer Blade Pro full HD. The keyboard is an improvement compared to the more expensive 4K model, and the display fits the hardware.

While $2,400 is still a lot for a laptop, I think the design and quality of the Blade Pro speak for themselves. Combined with the ability to upgrade the RAM (up to 32GB) and replace the internal storage with high-performance SSD, this is a reliable laptop for those who want something bigger than usual. It's also the most comfortable 17-inch PC that you can actually use on your lap.

See at Razer

Razer products tend to be on the high-end for PC gaming enthusiasts, something demonstrated by the 17-inch Razer Blade Pro, which started at $4,000. But what if you wanted the Blade Pro's ultra-thin body but not the cost of a used car? Today, Razer announced a new iteration, in addition to the 4K Blade Pro, that's much more affordable.

The new Razer Blade Pro with full HD (1920 x 1080) and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 should go on sale this fall, and instead of costing $4,000 it'll go for $2,299. Here's what else is new.

120Hz display and GTX 1060

What's new with the full HD Razer Blade Pro

The concept behind the new full HD Razer Blade Pro is simple to understand: Keep the exact same ultra-thin 0.88-inch (22.5mm) CNC military-grade aluminum chassis and replace some of the super-premium components with those found in the 14-inch Razer Blade. The full HD Razer Blade Pro is essentially the Razer Blade 14, but with a 17-inch display, larger battery and more ports.

The new Blade Pro still supports the quad-core Core i7-7700HQ instead of a crazy GeForce 1080, and it drops down to the GeForce 1060. That means the laptop still supports full virtual reality (VR) and can play many first-person shooters at high frame rates.

That performance is mostly due to the drop from a 4K IGZO glossy touch display to a full HD non-touch matte one. It's also 120Hz, which should look awesome. Being non-touch allows for the non-glossy material as well as saving some weight.

Other changes include a mix of solid state drive (SSD) for storage with a traditional rotational drive (which can be swapped out for more SSD), replacement of the low-profile mechanical keyboard for the membrane-based one found in the 14-inch Blade, and RAM dropping to 16GB from 32GB (though you can still expand to 32GB).

Due to the display requiring less power, the 99 WHr battery drops to 70 WHr with a smaller 165W charger.

Otherwise, you still get the same amount of ports, including three USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed), one Type-C with full Thunderbolt 3 support, an Ethernet jack, SD card reader, and HDMI 2.0. Razer also enabled Razer Core support so users can utilize an external GPU for even more graphics power.

There's Killer DoubleShot Pro on board, as well, which lets you merge Ethernet and Wi-Fi for unparalleled networking.

Finally, the full HD Blade Pro shaves off a full pound and drops to 6.78 pounds (3.07 kg) down from 7.8 pounds (3.54kg) compared to the 4K model.

Full HD Razer Blade Pro quick analysis

While the Razer Blade Pro 4K remains the crown jewel in Razer's gaming laptop lineup, the $4,000 starting price (it goes up to $4,500) is out of reach for many gamers.

Mixing the 14-inch Razer Blade's feature-set into the larger 17-inch chassis, while reducing weight and the price, is the right move for Razer to reach more users. While a $2,299 laptop is still expensive for many, shaving off $1,700 is not insignificant.

Our Review: Razer Blade Pro 17" with 4K display

While the 4K IGZO display is amazing, there's something to be said for gaming at 120Hz on a matte full HD screen. Plus, for those who did not immediately love the Blade Pro's quirky low-profile mechanical keyboard, you can get the same membrane-based one found in the 14-inch Blade.

Full HD Razer Blade Pro pricing and availability

Look for the new Razer Blade Pro full HD model to drop just before the holiday season later this fall.

• Pricing – U.S. $2,299.99 / Canada $2,899.99 / EU €2,399.99 / UK £2,099.99
• Availability – Razerzone.com (U.S., Canada, UK, France, Germany) during the third quarter of 2017. The PC should also be available soon at Amazon, Best Buy, and select retail partners and worldwide during the fourth quarter of this year.

The recently refreshed 4K Blade Pro with THX certified display and sound and the latest seventh-generation Intel processor is still available and will be for the foreseeable future.

More information about the new Razer Blade Pro can be found on Razer's website.

Razer's Blade Pro is our pick for the top gaming laptop to own. It may have a $4,000 starting price, but it's also the thinnest and one of the most powerful 17-inch laptops on the market.

Today, Razer is giving the ultra-premium Blade Pro a mid-cycle refresh and boosting the Intel processor to the latest 7th-generation "Kaby Lake" chip. Additionally, the Blade Pro earns the title of the first laptop to be qualified as "THX Mobile Certified."

Here's what's new, and why it all matters.

New overclockable Intel Core i7-7820HK

One of the more exciting additions to the new Blade Pro is the brand-new Intel Core i7-7820HK, which is an upgrade from the previous Intel Core i7-6700HQ. That's an interesting choice because Razer could have just bumped the 6th-generation "Sky Lake" chip to a 7th-generation Core i7-7700HQ. Instead, it opted for an all new CPU branch.

Not only is the new 7820HK faster but users can now overclock it past 4.0GHz, which is very impressive for a laptop. Here's how the new processor compares to the older one:

Razer Blade Pro CPUs

As we pointed out in our latest 2017 Razer Blade "re-review", such a bump in speed can result in up to 20 frames-per-second (FPS) increases in some games, making it quite significant for gamers. The added cache should aid in performance, as well, and with the ability to overclock the CPU it only pushes those gaming boundaries further.

THX Certification for display and audio

Razer bought famed audio and visual specialist THX last year, and that acquisition's benefits are coming to the Blade Pro first. The new Blade Pro gets THX Mobile Certification making it the first laptop to earn the title.

What exactly does that mean? There are two areas where THX certification matters: display and audio (headphones).

Now, the 4K 17.3-inch IGZO display with NVIDIA G-SYNC is fully calibrated out of the box giving it 100 percent Adobe RGB color accuracy. Clearly, Razer is giving a nod to professionals who are eying the Blade Pro for gaming but also for video editing. Gaming laptops tend to forgo color calibration that meets the high demands of accurate colors for video editors. That all changes with this new device.

For audio, specifically the headphone jack, the new Blade Pro meets "THX requirements for voltage output, frequency response, distortion, signal-to-noise ratio, and crosstalk that guarantees clear sound through headphones." For gamers, that means better sound with a higher quality component used for the headphone jack. (The external speakers remain unchanged.)

This move by Razer is smart. The Blade Pro now becomes something that video pros — and not just gamers — will want to use for work, opening a whole new avenue for them.

Faster RAM

Every bit of speed counts for gaming, and that applies to memory, too.

Rounding out the CPU and THX improvements is the bump in RAM speeds. The old Blade Pro featured 32GB of 2,133MHz RAM but the new version has 32GB of 2,667MHz RAM. That's a significant jump, thanks to the new Intel chipset that supports higher clock rates for the memory, and it surpasses the 2,400MHz that we usually find in real high-end laptops, such as the XPS 15 and 14-inch Razer Blade.

About the Blade Pro

The refreshed Blade Pro otherwise remains the same. Razer is still using the NVIDIA GTX 1080 with 8GB of GDDR5X video RAM. So there is no model with the GTX 1080Ti just yet. For internal storage, consumers can still get up to 2TB of RAID 0 SSD, providing the fastest read and write times on the market today for any laptop.

Additionally, the Blade Pro still has the new Ultra-Low Profile Mechanical keyboard, Precision touchpad and famed Chroma lighting.

Review: Razer Blade Pro is a 4K gaming laptop with all the power you'll need

Despite the new internals, the Blade Pro's pricing remains the same, starting at $3,999 and going up to $4,500 for the 2TB edition. Razer tells us the thermal profile and four-hour rated battery life for the Blade Pro also remain the same with the 2017 edition.

The Blade Pro refresh is rolling out in the U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, and France through Razerzone.com and select retailers starting in April.

More information on the Blade Pro can be found on Razer's website.

Windows Central will re-review the Blade Pro in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for our benchmarks and deep dives into the new hardware.

There are few companies in the world that can charge over $4K for a gaming laptop and still make it seem worth it. Razer is such a company, and the new Razer Blade Pro is such a laptop.

It is in every way a full gaming desktop PC crammed into a laptop. That's an astounding feat, and I'm hard pressed to find much wrong with it. It's perfectly executed and an outstanding addition to the resurgent PC in 2017. Can Razer and I convince you to buy this uber-gaming rig? I think so.

See at Amazon

Only the best

Razer Blade Pro specifications

Breaking down the hardware in the Razer Blade Pro is easy. Take components that are typically used in a high-end gaming desktop rig and cram them into a 7.8lb all-metal laptop with a 4K display.

There are only three user configurations for the Blade Pro, and your choices comes down to just storage: 512GB ($3,699), 1TB ($3,999) or 2TB ($4,499) options in a RAID zero format, all SSD. RAID 0, also called a 'striped volume', is where two separate drives work in parallel, but without redundancy or parity. This type of RAID configuration is best for high-performance systems but is a riskier if one drive fails. We'll see below in the benchmarks that Razer's choice here was the right one — performance is off the charts.

The Intel Core i7-6700HQ quad-core processor with Turbo up to 3.5GHz is of the 6th generation (Skylake) class. It's a 45W processor so not quite as powerful as a desktop Core-i7 6700 (65W). It's the same processor found in the Dell XPS 15 (9550) for comparison.

There is no option to configure RAM on the Razer Blade Pro, but since it comes with 32GB of DDR4 for all configurations there is little to worry about need for future updating. The RAM is clocked at 2133MHz, which is not as fast as a high-end PC gaming rig, but does well enough for a laptop.

At the center of the Blade Pro, however, is the powerful NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 with an outstanding 8GB of GDDR5X VRAM. There is no more capable graphics card on the market today — unless you pair up two of these monsters together.

There is also Killer DoubleShot Pro for Wi-Fi and a full Gigabit Ethernet port for your favorite LAN party, as well as Bluetooth 4.1 for your peripherals. When it comes to ports, there is a single Thunderbolt 3 USB Type C, three USB 3.0 slots, HDMI 2.0 for an external display, and a full-size SD card reader.

Razer has done a great job here with components. The RAID 0 storage configuration and GTX 1080 video card are at the heart of the Blade Pro and what makes it stand out from the competition. Well, that and the famed restrained Blade aesthetics.

Just a bigger Blade 14… with a twist

Razer Blade Pro design

From the outside, the Blade Pro is, for all intents and purposes, a blown-up Razer Blade 14 (much like how the Stealth is a shrunken version of the 14). It's nearly comical since 17-inch laptops always seem out of place in the sea of current Ultrabooks and increasingly rare 15-inch laptops.

At less than an inch thick (0.88 inches / 22.5mm) and weighing 7.8 lbs (3.54 kg), the Blade Pro is not a small laptop, and yet… it is. I have used some 17-inch gaming rigs before, and they always push 9 or 10 pounds and are much thicker. While an 8-pound laptop is not something you want in a shoulder bag, the Blade Pro feels proportional for its size and the quality of the material used. Honestly, for its size and specs, the Blade Pro is a thin and light machine.

The Blade Pro is made of the same black machined aluminum found in the Blade and Blade Stealth. It makes the Blade Pro feel substantial without adding much weight. That black metal is also still a grease and fingerprint magnet, but is relatively easy to clean with a cloth. The back-lit Razer snake logo adorns the display's back side, and the light can be disabled in the included Razer Synapse software.

Opening the Blade Pro reveals an off-center keyboard and an adjacent Precision trackpad to the right. Above the trackpad is a scroll wheel that can be designated for volume control or act as a trackpad button. There are also dedicated media keys for play/pause, mute, skip forward and back.

4K never looked so good

Razer Blade Pro display

In 2017, 4K displays are becoming increasingly common, but are still on the high-end. The biggest problem with them is in gaming, where they require very robust systems to power those 8.2 millions pixels.

The Blade Pro features an impressive 17.3-inch IGZO 4K (3840 x 2160) LED display with touch. With 8.3 million pixels and a glossy finish, it is easily one of the best laptop screens around and rivals the Dell XPS 15's. The big difference is Dell's is nearly bezel-less with its Infinity Edge design whereas, the Blade Pro's bezels around around an inch on all sides. It's perhaps the one design change I hope Razer addresses eventually, as thin bezels are the rage now. There are reasons for thick bezels, including a larger base to the laptop (useful for all of the components and cooling that is stuffed inside).

I found color accuracy to be on point with the Blade Pro. Black are nearly indistinguishable from the black bezel, thanks to the IGZO display technology.

The display also gets plenty bright and well past 300 nits, but it's not the brightest panel. For gamers, though who will utilize such a device mostly indoors, it gets the job done. In a typically-lit room at night, I kept the display at between 20 and 30 percent, and that was more than enough. During gaming I rarely maxed it at 100 percent and instead felt more comfortable in the 80 percent range. Of course, a brighter backlight will kill the battery faster.

I have no complaints about the Blade Pro's display. It's just gorgeous and the saturation, while heavy, is not quite as intense as the Dell XPS 15's Vivid setting, which I can find too harsh at times.

Side note: In case this single 17-inch 4K display wasn't enough, Razer used all the computing power of the Blade Pro as the basis for their 3-screened 3x4K Project Valerie concept laptop at CES 2017.

It's weird, but not bad

Razer Blade Pro keyboard

Razer makes a big deal about the Blade Pro's keyboard, claiming it's the "world's first ultra-low profile mechanical keyboard." The mechanical design is to ensure "anti-ghosting capabilities, optimized reset points, and an actuation force of 65g" — gamers love the clickity-clack of such contraptions.

My feelings are a little more mixed, and if the Blade Pro has a weak spot, this would be it.

To be clear, I don't hate the Blade Pro's keyboard. In fact, I'm quite proficient in using it for speed and accuracy when typing. But it's a bit jarring when you first use it. The feeling is akin to typing on popcorn or bubble wrap. The keyboard is also off-center from the display, which is typical for gaming laptops of this size, but still a different experience for those new to such designs.

Like all Razer products, the Blade Pro features its Chroma keyboard lighting with 16.8 million colors. Sure, you don't buy a Razer for the Chroma lighting, but it is a nice touch and completely configurable under the Razer Synapse software. It looks great here, and while I still wish the secondary key functions were backlit, there is little to complain about. The lighting is even with little to no bleed from individually-backlit key to individually-backlit key.

Personally, I would have been just fine with the Razer Blade 14's keyboard jammed into the Blade Pro and if it were centered. In fact, the Blade 14 has some larger keys (e.g. Enter) that I prefer. But this is the Razer Blade Pro — just doing that wouldn't have been enough for Razer, and I get that. Again, it's a fine keyboard, but there will likely be an adjustment period no matter if you're coming from a mechanical keyboard or a membrane one. Don't base your judgment though on the first five minutes of using it, give yourself a few days to get used to it. That's an odd recommendation along the lines of what you'll hear about the controversial butterfly-switch keys in the new Apple MacBook Pro, but even those prove to be solid once you use them for a bit.

Houston, we have Precision

Razer Blade Pro trackpad

At long last, Razer has opted for a Precision trackpad instead of the Synaptics they've long used. It even mechanically clicks when you press down, unlike the Blade 14's solid, unmoving you-have-to-tap-it trackpad.

The Blade Pro's trackpad is outstanding. It's one of the best trackpads I have used in a laptop and rivals the one found in the Microsoft Surface Book. The Surface Book's still has a smoother feel, but the Blade Pro's is highly accurate and top notch. Being Precision means users also get the full gesture suite found in Windows 10, including four-finger tap for the Action Center and three-finger swipe to switch apps.

I don't know why Razer didn't use this same trackpad on the Blade 14. The Synaptics-powered non-clicking trackpad on the smaller laptop is a disappointment; with the Blade Pro they have corrected that long-running error, and now I'm in trackpad heaven.

The one downside is the trackpad's placement. It's to the right of the keyboard. Luckily, I'm right-handed, and I enjoyed having the trackpad to the side like how you use a mouse. My palms had plenty of space to rest, and my arms/shoulders were well spaced unlike on Ultrabooks where your arms squeeze together. Still, if the trackpad were below the keyboard then left-handed people would feel more comfortable, and Razer could have made the trackpad wider (and have larger keys on the keyboard, or a numpad). The placement makes the trackpad feel a smidge narrow, especially in today's world of increasingly huge trackpads on other laptops. That's not bad, but an extra inch would have been amazing to go with that enormous 17.3 inches of space to mouse around.

The Blade Pro's trackpad also has Chroma lighting around its edge, and it looks great. It's very helpful to distinguish the trackpads edge visually, plus yeah, it just looks awesome.

Delivering the best

Razer Blade Pro audio

The Blade Pro features two upward-firing speakers with Dolby Digital Plus Home Theater Edition. Being a 17-inch laptop that costs upwards of $4,000, there's no excuse for these to not be good. Luckily, Razer did not let me down.

The speakers are just great and barely distort even at max volume. I still wish it was a bit richer with more bass, but overall these are good, loud speakers. Combined with Razer's Surround Pro software the Blade Pro gets a thumbs up from me.

Of course, when gaming those fans are going to ramp up loudly, and you will want to use a headset. Audio piped into your headset of choice is excellent, and you can optionally buy Razer's Surround Pro software to tweak further the settings, which I do recommend.

A small hair dryer

Razer Blade Pro fans and thermals

It's probably not too surprising that a gaming laptop with a NVIDIA GTX 1080 will get hot. Which the Blade Pro does.

I found some spots of the Blade Pro to peak at 140F (60C), which is hot. Granted, those temps were right at the exhaust port. The device itself was more in the 110-120F (43-49C) range, which is warm but still fine, so long as you're not planning on gaming on your lap. The heat was isolated to above the keyboard and near the hinge on both the top and bottom. The keyboard itself and any area below were slightly warm, but never approached anything resembling hot.

As you might expect, the fans get loud during gaming but are inaudible when just using the Blade Pro as a Windows 10 PC.

The Blade Pro ventilation at full speed sounds like a small tabletop fan on low and while loud (70-80db) it wasn't high pitched or super annoying. Gamers know to wear a headset for maximum input and directional consistency, so the sound of the fans is more likely to be bothersome to the people around you than to you. When I wore my over-the-ear HyperX CloudX Revolver and Turtle Beach Elite Pro Tournament headsets I never heard the fans of the Blade Pro.

All that loud fan power also helps to cool things down quickly when you stop hitting the chips hard — spinning down in 5-10 seconds after closing a game. That's the experience you want and is a testament to Razer's excellent thermal engineering. Users can also set different modes like Quiet, Cool, or Default, which adjusts the fan's power curve accordingly.

All that said, I would not recommend any significant gaming with the Blade Pro on your lap. It'll get uncomfortably hot in short order, and human thighs aren't the best things for making sure the vents on the bottom the fans pull air through remain clear when that air's needed the most. But if you're doing lighter work like browsing the web, it's just fine for lap-based used.

A big battery that won't last long

Razer Blade Pro battery

The Blade Pro packs an impressive 99WHr battery. That's the FAA's limit for the size of lithium-ion battery they'll allow you to bring on a commercial flight, so give a hand to Razer to pushing the limits here — especially with that much battery crammed into this thin of a body.

The bad news: Let's be clear, the Blade Pro is not meant to be used off AC power, but it's not terrible. At night with the display set to 20 to 30 percent, I easily pushed 3 to 3.5 hours of regular Windows 10 usage (web, Twitter, email, some Windows Store apps). Gaming will cut that time in half (or worse) depending on how intensive the game is.

The good news: the 250W AC power brick is fantastic. Sure, it's big, but it's very thin and less clunky than most AC bricks for this class of device. Coming in at around 1.25lbs (567g) the brick will add weight to the Blade Pro, but it's a lot lighter than I had expected. You also get Razer's usual braided cloth cord, which is a nice touch. They did this right.

4K gaming (almost) done right

Razer Blade Pro benchmarks

What good is a 17.3-inch 4K display if you can't use it for gaming at that resolution? The Blade Pro is powerful enough to push those pixels, although you may want to step down the resolution slightly to hit 60 FPS in some games. Still, it's much better than having to do Full HD gaming on a 4K display like a lot of gaming rigs.

Playing Gears of War 4 on Ultra at 4K with Vertical Sync on yielded 40 FPS. Certainly, that's playable, but not ideal. Bringing the resolution in the game down slightly to 2916x1640 (or 76%) let me hit 60FPS while at Ultra. Of course, you could bump the settings down to High and try to keep the higher resolution, but this is nitpicking, and it's questionable whether you can discern a difference when playing.

Rise of the Tomb Raider set to 4K at Very High using DirectX 12 resulted in an average framerate of 43 FPS – still very playable. Bumping resolution down to a still admirable 2048x1536 but on Very High did not bring any improvements. However, turning down graphics from Very High to High did earn 49 FPS. To get ~60 FPS, you will have settle for graphics set to Medium and display at 2048x1536 for Rise of the Tomb Raider.

The takeaway is while the Razer Blade Pro is capable of gaming at 4K with settings on High, Ultra, or whatever, you likely won't be hitting the ideal of 60 FPS. Instead, you must tune the resolution down a bit or drop some of the graphics settings.

The bottleneck comes down to the Core i7-6700HQ, which is not nearly as capable as a much more powerful desktop-class Core i7-6700. That's understandable as the wattage (45 versus 65W), socketing, and higher thermals make such a processor unfeasible for a laptop (at least one this thin).

Using 3DMark Time Spy 1.0, the Razer Blade had a score of 5591 ranking it 71% better than all the results. Again, we can see that the Blade Pro falls behind a true 4K gaming PC of the desktop variety, but is well ahead of most gaming laptops.

3DMark (Time Spy)

For Fire Strike, which is a more intensive and usually only used for desktop PCs the Blade Pro does well with 7857 more than doubling a gaming laptop from 2013, but just falling behind a minimum spec VR-enabled desktop PC.

3DMark (Fire Strike 1.1)

For PCMark, the Blade Pro yielded a score of 3223 placing it better than 63% of all PCs — that includes desktops. It lagged just behind a desktop gaming PC that was VR-ready, but almost doubles the score of a gaming laptop from 2013. Again, the limiting factor in why the Blade Pro cannot beat a desktop PC comes down to the processor.

PCMark 8

Looking at Geekbench 4.0 the Blade Pro falls behind the top-tier Surface Studio, which is interesting and likely due to the processor:

Geekbench 4.0 Benchmarks (Higher is better)

Turning to CUDA graphics using GeekBench, the Blade Pro is well ahead of pretty much everything thanks to the NVIDIA GTX 1080 with 8GB of VRAM:

Geekbench 4.0 CUDA (Higher is better)

Finally, for storage the Blade Pro is off-the-charts fast thanks to its dual-SSD RAID 0 setup:

CrystalDiskMark (Higher is better)

Okay, the chart actually does go that high, but damn.

Not only does the Blade Pro get the fastest read speed, which is the most important thing for gamers, but the write speed is also remarkable, making the Blade Pro an excellent option for professionals who need to output 4K videos.

The best gaming laptop. Period.

Razer Blade Pro: The Bottom Line

The Razer Blade Pro is easily the best gaming laptop you can buy. It's not the most powerful – for instance, the insane Sager NP9873 can pack two GTX 1080 video cards. It's also far from the cheapest, and in fact, you can build something similar as a desktop PC for $3K. But it is the best overall gaming laptop. That is, if you can afford it.

Like the Blade 14, Razer has done a fantastic job of balance. The specs are all good enough to do 4K gaming, albeit while not hitting 60FPS. The display is one of the best I have seen on laptop or desktop. The design is fantastic, with a smooth, machined aluminum body and minimalist styling that doesn't go over-the-top corny like many gaming laptops. Even the 7.8-pound weight isn't obscene for the size of this thing.

Dropping a minimum of $3,700 on a laptop (and peaking at $4,500) may seem insane, but there are a lot of gamers who are willing to shell out that money for a quality product, and I think Razer nailed it with the Blade Pro. If you're going to spend that kind of cash for a PC, you want it to be more than just 'good', and I'm having a hard time putting this thing down. I have a twice-weekly Gears of War 4 Horde Mode sessions with my friends, and I choose the Blade Pro over my Xbox One S every time.

The Blade Pro is an impressive feat that is yet another demonstration of how Razer's design and engineering prowess and sheer audacity is only rivaled by the likes of Microsoft and Apple. It's an awesome creation, and worth every penny.

Pros:

• Gorgeous 4K display
• Beautiful, clean design
• Lighter than you would think
• Best gaming laptop you can buy

Cons:

• Very expensive
• Mechanical keyboard is….different
• Trackpad is slightly narrow

See at Amazon

Halo Wars Definitive Edition is an Xbox Play Anywhere HD-remaster of the Xbox 360's Halo Wars, which was a real-time strategy game (RTS) simplified for console play. Like Halo Combat Evolved before it, Halo Wars hoped to bring RTS to an entirely new audience by placing it on a console, which was something very few games had done successfully before. Halo Wars became somewhat of a cult hit in the series, earning a legion of dedicated fans that contributed to reviving the spin-off for a sequel.

Halo Wars Definitive Edition grants the game new visuals, higher resolutions, and new effects. Best of all, it brings the Halo franchise back to PC, hot on the heels of Halo 5's Forge mode. Halo Wars DE will launch as a standalone game sometime after February 24th, but you can jump in right now by pre-ordering Halo Wars 2: Ultimate Edition.

We've covered Halo Wars 2 before, and we'll have more to share on this intriguing iteration in the franchise soon, but for now, let's take a look at how Halo Wars Definitive Edition UWP runs on various PCs!

See at Windows Store

Halo Wars Definitive Edition on PC

As mentioned, Halo Wars Definitive Edition is built for the Universal Windows Platform, granting it cross-save, cross-purchasing features with Xbox One. UWP games have historically had issues with certain hardware set-ups. Microsoft has fixed a lot of the common problems, but it's a shame that Halo Wars DE doesn't support DX12, making it potentially less optimized for lower-end setups.

Halo Wars DE isn't a visually intensive game, generally. It's not as detailed as Halo Wars 2 will be, and even with the enhancements, the game still looks a little dated on max settings. It was originally released back in 2009, after all. Large skirmishes impact performance, but the good news is that Halo Wars DE is totally playable on the Surface Book, and thus likely similarly equipped non-gaming PCs.

Halo Wars DE vs. Surface Book

First, we tested Halo Wars DE on the launch edition core i7 Surface Book. The relevant specs are below, but feel free to check out the full Surface Book specs over here too.

Considering Killer Instinct runs fairly well on the regular Surface Book, I expected decent performance out of Halo Wars... but initially, I was only getting around 10-20 frames per second (FPS) in regular play, on the lowest of the low settings.

I was ready to call it a day and just conclude that Halo Wars DE was poorly optimized, but I found that wasn't the case. By default, Halo Wars was using the Surface Book's integrated Intel HD graphics, instead of the custom 940M d-GPU. After a quick tweak in Nvidia control panel to force Halo Wars to force the d-GPU, the performance gains were considerable, giving me anywhere between 55 and 60 FPS.

Halo Wars DE doesn't allow you to set resolution manually. It only allows you to switch between "high" and "low" resolution, and we lack the tools to calculate exactly what resolution it's providing in these situations. You can also control visual features like multisampling and shadows, allowing you to tailor your experience if you're on lower-end GPUs like the Surface Book's.

It's a shame that Halo Wars DE isn't better optimized for integrated graphics like those found in the Surface Pro line considering how visually dated it is, but Halo Wars DE is deemed to be "early access" right now. There's certainly room for improvements and updates.

Halo Wars DE vs. Surface Book with Performance Base

We were also interested in how well Halo Wars DE would perform on the Surface Book with its Performance Base. The Performance Base notably increases the convertible's battery life, but also throws in a much beefier d-GPU.

We encountered the same issue on the Surface Book with Performance Base, where Halo Wars DE was defaulting to the on-board graphics. But when the game was pointed at the Performance Base's 965M GPU, as you might expect, it ran far better than on the regular Surface Book, even on higher settings.

The Performance Base' 956M allowed 45 to 55 FPS with all of the game's settings on high, making it not only playable, but far sexier to look at.

When it comes to Surface gaming on the go, quite obviously, the Surface Book with Performance Base is the clear winner, but for similar money, you could pick up the New Razer Blade, which utterly dominates the Surface line for gaming.

Halo Wars DE vs. Razer Blade (2016)

Naturally, we tested Halo Wars DE on a real gaming laptop, the New Razer Blade from 2016. Strangely, Halo Wars DE again defaulted to the Razer Blade's integrated graphics, which is something that will no doubt get patched out before it launches proper. Here are the relevant Razer Blade's specs.

With fully maxed out settings, the Razer Blade naturally made short work of Halo Wars DE, running it flawlessly at 60 frames per second.

Wrapping up

As an Xbox Play Anywhere title, games that are well optimized to run on as many machines as possible will become incredibly valuable when Windows 10 for ARM arrives. The Snapdragon 835, which will power Windows 10 on ARM experiences, is far more powerful than the Snapdragon 820, which was shown running World of Tanks Blitz quite competently in Microsoft's announcement video.

Gaming laptops with GTX 10xx series cards and quad-core processing will always dominate setups like the ones found in the Surface Book, but if you value the 2-in-1 nature of the versatile Surface Book, it looks as though it will at least be viable to some degree for playing many upcoming Xbox Play Anywhere titles.

More

• Can you really game on a Surface Book?
• Should you buy the Surface Book with Performance Base for gaming?
• Best Gaming Laptop: Razer Blade

The Razer Blade Pro has a great 17.3-inch 4K display, but what if it had three 17.3-inch 4K displays? That's the idea behind Project Valerie, a bonkers concept design unveiled at CES 2017 from the mad scientists at Razer.

The base of Project Valerie is the current top-end Razer Blade Pro, for all intents and purposes. It has the same 6th-generation Intel Core i7 Skylake processor, the same high-powered NVIDIA GTX 1080 GPU, the same custom vapor chamber heat management system, and the same ultra-low-profile mechanical keyboard with Chroma RGB lighting that we fell in love with. All of this is wrapped in a black aluminum unibody chassis — it just happens to have three 17.3-inch 4K displays attached.

The two side displays slide behind the center one, which then folds down over the keyboard just like normal. The entire package measures in at 1.5 inches thick when closed (honestly, thinner than I expected) and weighs in at 12 pounds (nearly double the 6.8 pounds of the single-screen Razer Blade Pro).

And as this is a Razer laptop, the entire thing's geared towards gaming. The trio of 4K displays are all IGZO panels with NVIDIA G-SYNC built in — the two side panels even have Chroma light strips on the underside. Combined with NVIDIA Surround they can generate up to a 180-degree view of your gaming environment, all without any fiddling on your part. Or you can load all of the tabs in your browser of choice. And should having the equivalent of a 46-inch 12K 48:9 überwide monitor not be enough for you, that Core i7 and GTX 1080 combine to make Project Valerie potent VR-capable rig.

Project Valerie is a showcase right now — Razer's mum on the possibility of putting the beast into production or how much it'd cost. They didn't even have a fully functioning device for us to check out, there were two: one a polished design prototype outfitted with the angled hinged displays and Chroma lighting, the other a rougher engineering prototype with a pair of sliding-on-rails-but-functional displays. And battery life? Likely measured in minutes, thanks to all those pixels and backlights. The single-screen Razer Blade Pro already has a 99Whr battery that's just under the FAA limits for what they'll allow to be brought on airplanes. Previous Razer concept designs have made it to production — 2012's Project Fiona became the 2013's Razer Edge gaming tablet, for example.

All I know is that I want one. I want to take it to a coffee shop, set up on one of those little 2-chair tables, and open up its glorious 4-foot wingspan and start fragging in 12K while I sip my latte. It's the dream, people.

In some circles, the latest 'Pro' laptops have been a disappointment. And then you have the Razer Blade Pro. Touted as the "ultimate laptop," this goliath is less a notebook than a desktop replacement in a sleek notebook form factor.

When we first laid eyes on the Razer Blade Pro a few months back, it took our breath away. But it was eyes only at that point — no touching. But now I've had the opportunity to get our hands all over it, if only for a few days, and so far it's living up to — and exceeding — my expectations.

Alas, I didn't get the time to give the Blade Pro a full and proper review, but in only a few days I've fallen in love all over again.

See at Razer

In the box you get:

• Razer Blade Pro
• 250W Power adapter
• Cleaning cloth
• Paperwork

And that's it. But then you don't really need anything else, frankly. The power adapter is surprising small and light — a testament to how power efficient the new Pascal 10-series GPUs from NVIDIA are. It's slim and light enough that it's actually portable.

So too, is the laptop itself. So long as you remember that it's a 17.3-inch notebook PC made out of metal. The Blade Pro weighs under 8lbs, which is still quite a lot, but compared to the 17-inchers of old it's a lightweight. Add in that it's unusually slim for something containing this much hardware and it becomes a machine you can actually move about. Even if you still need a large bag to do it in.

Speaking of the hardware, here's a recap on what to expect inside the Razer Blade Pro:

On the outside, the Blade Pro looks a lot like a larger version of both the Blade Stealth and the Blade. This family of laptops all share common exterior features, notably the all black metal body and that green glowing Razer logo on the lid. And, like the other two, the Blade Pro is a bit of a fingerprint and oil magnet — the price we pay for dark, matte metal.

Lift the lid and you'll see that iconic Blade Pro design with the trackpad over to the right, a pair of speakers, the mechanical Chroma keyboard and the full touch, 17.3-inch 4K display. From a gaming perspective, the only trouble with the display is that it's a glossy finish. I personally prefer matte displays, with less glare when playing games. But, the display looks fantastic, that much isn't in doubt.

The keyboard is another thing worth singling out. It'll take a little getting used to, but Razer has designed a fully mechanical, low profile keyboard for the Blade Pro. For serious gamers, it's not likely to replace their favorite keyboard, but it's still probably the best laptop keyboard I've tried. It's responsive, has that satisfying click you get from mechanical switches and is truly a joy to type on. The difference is night and day compared to a traditional low-profile keyboard you'll find on most laptops.

The trackpad isn't bad, but not spectacular by any stretch, but the included scroll wheel is a nice touch. The default setting for the wheel is to change the speaker volume, but you can set it to whatever you prefer. The keyboard and trackpad are both backlit by Razer's Chroma technology, which the included Synapse app allows you to customize. You can either go wild and have all the colors, or have much, much less. With Chroma set to wave, I dare you to try and actually do something meaningful. It's so distracting!

The Blade Pro is every bit that 'pro' laptop, too, with USB-C Thunderbolt 3, SD card slot, full sized USB ports, HDMI out and Ethernet. Everything you need to use this as a desktop and a portable is placed down its sides. That's extra important when you consider that for many of its buyers, this will be the only computer they have.

The hardware seems top drawer. Great keyboard, great display, nice looking design. But it's what's inside the Blade Pro that makes the difference. The spec sheet reads off like a parts list for a high-end desktop rig, and that's exactly what it is. But with a display and it's small enough you can take it to Starbucks without looking like a buffoon.

Our own Matt Brown has a similarly spec'd up desktop Rig, with an Intel Core i7 6700K, 32GB of RAM and an 8GB GTX 1080 GPU. For a quick comparison, we ran 3D Mark Fire Strike Ultra and the DX12 Time Spy benchmarks on both that and the Blade Pro. It should be noted that the Blade Pro isn't running the stock NVIDIA drivers, and as such 3D Mark decided they were unsupported. But nevertheless, we got some results.

In Fire Strike Ultra, the results are really close. Time Spy wasn't quite the same, but the Blade Pro still scored incredibly well.

Benchmark tools are fun, but you can't get a real feel without getting into some games. And guess what? The Blade Pro will easily play the latest titles at 4K resolution. Mileage varies when it comes to frame rates, but this is 100% a 4K gaming machine. Here's what I've been able to get in some of the games I've tried:

• Battlefield 1 - 4K resolution, Ultra details, 45 FPS
• FIFA 17 - 4K resolution, Ultra details, 60 FPS
• Gears of War: Ultimate Edition - 4K resolution, Ultra details, 62 FPS
• Mortal Kombat X - 4K resolution, Ultra details, 59 FPS
• Tomb Raider - 4K resolution, Ultra details, 53 FPS
• Forza Horizon 3 - 4K resolution, Ultra details, 48 FPS
• Dirt Rally - 4K resolution, Ultra details, 53 FPS
• Crysis 3 - 4K resolution, High details, 28 FPS

Crysis 3 still, three years on is a PC killer. At Ultra at 4K, it's barely hitting 20 FPS most of the time. But ignoring that and looking at current games people want to play, it's mostly good news. You're comfortably getting above 30 FPS across the board and in most cases you'll be able to achieve that magic 60 if you dial back a few of the settings. Coupled with the G-Sync display, games on the Blade Pro look incredible. Those numbers are impressive whichever PC you're talking about, but remember this is a laptop. It's pretty mind blowing.

We'll be spending a lot more time with the Blade Pro in the coming weeks, but my first all-too-brief impressions are very good. I had high hopes for it as soon as it became official, and initially, those look to be well-founded. Sure, it's expensive with a starting price of $3,700, but it's only expensive to those who don't have a place for this in their lives. This isn't just a laptop — it's a laptop and a high-end desktop. It's a fully capable portable gaming and VR machine.

It's not perfect — the trackpad could be better for example and it still gets quite warm (which is to be expected) —but for what it is and what it delivers, the Razer Blade Pro is an exceptional machine. Once we get to spend more time with the Razer Blade Pro you can expect a more in-depth review, but in the meantime know this: there's no more tremendous of a laptop that you can buy today.

See at Razer

Announced earlier this year, the Razer Blade Pro has been reborn and is being touted as the ultimate laptop. With an Intel Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, up to 2TB of SSD storage in RAID 0, a 4K G-Sync display and a full mechanical keyboard, it's easy to see why.

We've been lucky enough to get a brief time with the Blade Pro before the holidays, so the first port of call is an unboxing and a closer look at this incredible Windows 10 machine. We'll have a more detailed impressions post soon ahead of a full review in the coming weeks, but something this incredible is too good not to show off!

For more on the Blade Pro check out the links below, and see it in all its glory in the unboxing video above.

• Razer Blade Pro specs
• Razer Blade first hands-on

If you're looking for a great gaming laptop then the Razer Blade is a fine choice. One of the best you can make. But with the announcement of an all new Blade Pro you might find yourself wondering which is right for you.

Let's compare what you're getting from both.

The Blade and Blade Pro occupy the mid and upper tiers of Razer's lineup. There is also the Stealth, but we've written that out here based purely on the fact it isn't a gaming laptop on its own.

There is much to consider. The first is the size, because despite the relatively svelte form of the Blade Pro, It's still a 17.3-inch notebook. That size is either something you want or something you don't, it isn't really something you might be ok with.

That also ties in with the price. The Blade Pro is much more expensive than the Blade at $3,699 and up compared to a starting price of $1,799. Neither are cheap, but the Blade is cheaper.

From there on out the question to ask is how much you actually want from your laptop. The Blade Pro is very much a full on desktop replacement, while the Blade is still something you could well consider a secondary device to your main rig. How you're going to use it will help you decide which to get and how much to spend.

With a GTX 1060 the Blade is still a remarkably capable gaming laptop. The processor is the same as the Blade Pro and the standard 16GB of RAM is still more than ample. The Blade Pro is just insane, but it's also all the PC you could possibly want.

If you want something portable and powerful, the Blade is a great choice. If you want a single laptop that can replace everything and be your only high end gaming PC, maybe hold out and go for the Blade Pro.

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Razer just unveiled the new Blade Pro laptop, and the company has released an ad for the beast of a machine right on cue. With the new Blade Pro, Razer is adamant that it has managed to put a desktop in your laptop, and the ad below really hammers that idea home.

To recap, the insanely powerful Razer Blade Pro packs a GTX 1080 graphics chip, Core i7 processor and a full mechanical keyboard in its chassis. The laptop's full specs also include a 4K touch display, 32GB of RAM, and much, much more.

The Razer Blade Pro is set to go on sale in November for the hefty price of $3,700 in the U.S. and €4,200 in Europe. Will you be splurging on Razer's latest beast?

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The Razer Blade Pro was one of a new breed when it first launched, proving that true gaming performance from a laptop was not only possible, but that it didn't need to be the size of a house. This iconic notebook paved the way for future releases in the Blade line from Razer, including the 2016 Stealth, the company's first true ultrabook.

But to close the year out with an almighty bang, Razer has gone back to the Blade Pro. The headline act in its laptop lineup has been reborn, and it's the craziest it's ever been. This is the ultimate laptop.

Razer focuses on three core PC products, and despite the pre-event obvious tease of a desktop PC, the curtain dropped on something quite different. But also not completely absent of that desktop mention, because the Blade Pro is every bit as powerful as a full desktop rig. Except you can take it with you. This is all the PC a gamer could ask for right now.

So what makes it so good? Let's start from the outside and work in. The new Blade Pro, like it's predecessors, is a 17.3-inch laptop. The display takes one look at many competitors, has a chuckle, then stands there looking amazing in its 4K touchscreen glory. After all, a 4K display is about the best you can get on a PC right now, so the Blade Pro has it. Not just 4K, either, it also boasts 100% Adobe RGB and NVIDIA G-Sync. Because why not.

The chassis is all metal, finished in Razer's trademark black, broken only by the green glow of the company logo. I've been a critic of 17-inch laptops in the past and their need, built mostly on their ridiculous size and heft. The Blade Pro takes what many of us think about 17-inch laptops and throws it out of the window. This is the sleekest big notebook you've ever seen.

It's staggeringly just 22.5mm thick and weighs in at 3.5kg. Just take that in, because this is a 17.3-inch laptop in a metal shell and it weighs under 8lbs. Sure, it's not a lightweight, but consider what it's made of and what's inside it and it's borderline witchcraft.

So just what is inside the Razer Blade Pro? Well there's an Intel Core i7 6700HQ CPU, which isn't too fancy. But there's also a standard 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB PCIe SSD Raid 0 storage. Again: two terabytes of speedy solid state storage. Then there's the graphics; how does an 8GB NVIDIA GTX 1080 sound? Pretty good, huh?

Razer's claims of being a desktop in a laptop are well founded, and when you take the above, add a sprinkling of Thunderbolt 3 USB-C and a Killer DoubleShot Pro dedicated network card, you get the picture. The Blade Pro is equipped to be all the machine you could want, be that at home or on the road. It ticks pretty much every box there is to tick given currently available hardware.

One thing desktops have though that the Blade Pro does not, is interior space. More specifically airflow to help keep those high-end components cool when they're being punished as they're going to be. Cooling is something Razer has paid particular attention too, and while the Blade Pro will get warm, Razer designed a specialized cooling system that should prevent it from getting too toasty.

The Blade Pro features a bespoke system containing the thinnest vapour chamber in the world. How well it performs in real world use, only time will tell, but it's impressive technology if nothing else.

A gaming PC be is complete without a top-notch keyboard. Despite the power of some of today's latest gamer-focused notebooks, there's only so much you can do with the keyboard. There are some crazy efforts with a full sized mechanical keyboard, but it's not exactly practical. Razer has taken everything it has learned making switches for its desktop keyboards and come up with what it says is the world's first low-profile mechanical keyboard for the Blade Pro. And it's one of the best laptop keyboards I've ever tried.

It's an unusual typing experience, as you're getting some of the feel you'd get from a regular mechanical keyboard, but with the key travel you'd find on a laptop. It might still be replaced as the default instrument of your fragging sessions, but there's no questioning what Razer has achieved with it. The unusual miniature display that sat to the right of the keyboard on the previous version of this laptop has been excised, replaced by a more traditional trackpad paired with a scroll wheel.

None of this comes without a price, and understandably if you're interested in a Blade Pro then you're going to have to dig deep. It'll go on sale in November, costing $3,699 in the US, with European pricing (inclusive of tax) as close in parity as possible at £3,499 and €4,199.

Oh yes, that's the other thing. Along side the big global product launch Razer has also announced it will begin selling its latest laptops in the UK, France and Germany with localized keyboard layouts for each. No longer do Europeans look on and lust, it's time to join the party.

Razer's trifecta of notebooks is nothing short of remarkable. The Blade Pro is the king of the hill, and it's setting a high benchmark for the others to follow.

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BERLIN – Razer ™ , the leading lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the new 17-inch Razer Blade Pro. Completely redesigned from the ground up, the system is made specifically for enthusiasts and power users who want desktop performance but don't want to sacrifice portability. Packed with more power than ever before possible in a notebook under an inch thick, Razer's latest system is capable of handling virtually any task, anytime, anywhere.

The new Razer Blade Pro features the latest Intel® Core™ i7 quad-core processor and next-generation NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 GPU. It is the most powerful system ever built by Razer and the thinnest notebook available with a GTX 1080. Other highlights on the new Razer Blade Pro include Thunderbolt 3 for advanced connectivity options, 32 GB of DDR4 dual-channel memory, up to 2 TB of PCI M.2 SSD in RAID 0 storage and a built-in SD card reader.

While other similarly equipped desktop replacements are more than two inches thick and weigh more than 10 pounds, the new Blade Pro retains its iconic form factor. Its unibody CNC aluminum chassis still measures just 0.88 inches thin while weighing less than eight pounds. The included AC adapter is also far slimmer than those for similarly powered systems and complements the overall mobility of the Blade Pro.

Even more remarkable is the system's thermal management system. This all new thermal management system in the Blade Pro now includes the worlds thinnest manufactured vapor chamber cooling solution in a notebook. The vapor chamber reduces heat resistance and hotspots by spreading heat quickly, evenly and efficiently. A custom fan design and dynamic heat exchanger are paired with the vapor chamber to maximize heat dissipation. This allows the Razer Blade Pro to be the most powerful computer ever assembled in such a thin chassis.

The rest of the desktop replacement notebook offers a similar no-compromises approach. A stunning 17.3-inch 4K IGZO monitor with NVIDIA G-SYNC™ technology produces the smoothest possible framerates. The display offers 100 percent Adobe RGB color accuracy to deliver stunning visuals to gamers and professionals.

Additionally, the Razer Blade Pro is the first notebook to utilize Razer's Ultra-Low- Profile Mechanical switches. Each switch features a true actuation and reset point. Presses are registered with 65 grams of force, mimicking the feel of full-size mechanical keyboards. The keyboard and trackpad are also Powered by Razer Chroma™. This technology unlocks a virtually endless array of dazzling lighting effects that can be customized by the user or synced to display in-game events.

The specs for the Blade Pro exceed minimum hardware requirements of HTC Vive™, Oculus Rift and OSVR HDK 2, making it one of the most mobile VR-ready devices for enthusiasts and developers.

"The original 17-inch Blade was the first laptop that truly blended power and portability in a PC," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. "We've taken that approach another step further with the new Razer Blade Pro. The thermal engineering behind it is staggering. It's incredible how far we've come, from having one product and a small team, to today, with a full catalog of gaming systems and a large group of engineers and designers pushing what a portable gaming machine can do."

"It's impressive what Razer was able to pack into the new Razer Blade Pro," said Mark Aevermann, senior product lead for GeForce gaming laptops at NVIDIA.  "They have managed to design a gaming laptop with our flagship GeForce GTX 1080, in a form factor gamers can take with them on the road."

The 17-inch Blade Pro joins the rest of Razer's award-winning systems lineup. The 14-inch Razer Blade sets the benchmark for mobile gaming, while the 12.5-inch Razer Blade Stealth was named the "Best PC" at CES earlier this year for its combination of performance, value, expandability and portability. Both models recently announced refreshes that are shipping now.

For more information on the new Razer Blade Pro, and to register to be notified about on-sale timing, visit razerzone.com/bladepro. Units are expected to ship this November from Razerzone.com and select retailers.