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00:00People sometimes ask why would you buy a gaming laptop when you can just build a custom PC for like $7
00:06This is why this is the new 15-inch razor blade and it is one of the best-looking laptops
00:11I've seen this year the design has changed quite a bit
00:13I always thought that the 14-inch blade looked a lot like a MacBook this new 15-inch blade looks a little bit more unique
00:19The corner radius is a little bit smaller slightly more boxier shape, and I think it looks really good
00:24There's some noticeable improvements in build quality as well, so the chassis just feels more rigid
00:29It's a tighter build and I think it's one of the best-looking products from razor
00:32So the logo is still right in the middle
00:34It's sunken in a little bit more and it still lights up
00:36It would be cool if they released a gunmetal color like they did on the stealth
00:39But something tells me they won't do that anytime soon
00:42You can get skins for them the dbrand one in matte black looks really cool
00:45If you mute out the logo and it protects the surface from any scratches and stuff
00:49When you open it up
00:50You'll see speakers on either side of the keyboard and the power buttons on the right speaker
00:53It almost looks like they could implement a fingerprint sensor on that power button, but it doesn't exist right now
00:58Maybe for future generations the speakers themselves sound good for reference
01:02They're similar if not slightly better than the speakers on the 2015 MacBook Pro
01:06But the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro speakers still sound significantly better than these but good speakers overall the audio sounds clean
01:15But I wish there was a little bit more bass so the screen is fantastic. It's bright. It's fast great color gamut
01:21There is a 4k panel available, but the 144 Hertz screen
01:24It's where it's at if you plan on playing games on this machine
01:27higher refresh beats higher resolution any day of the week unless you're really hardcore about video or photo editing this is one of the
01:33Best 144 Hertz panels on the market right now. I'd consider it a step above the competition now keep in mind
01:38It does not have G-Sync. I think it was right decision
01:41I'll explain why in a little bit, but yeah, no G-Sync the webcam quality is pretty mediocre
01:46It's a 720p image to get inside. It's just a few Torx screws and the panel comes off pretty easily
01:52There's finally user upgradable memory. I think that's something that a lot of people have wanted over the years
01:56It's traditionally been soldered on on the razor blades. It's now replaceable
02:00You can also replace the SSD and the Wi-Fi card battery life is fair. It's an 80 watt hour battery
02:06I'm getting around five and a half hours of battery life with the screen at 250 nits
02:10This is what the screen at 60 Hertz, so I'm actually reducing the 144 to 60 just kind of preserve battery life
02:15So five and a half hours, and this is what I was talking about before
02:18I feel like without G-Sync you get NVIDIA Optimus which helps extend battery life and on a device like this
02:23It just makes sense to not have G-Sync and have technology in here to extend its battery life because that's why you want something
02:29That's thin and light and portable right the AC adapter on this thing is a little bit bigger than the previous generation
02:35But it's still really portable
02:36It's a very clean design the plug connects into this oval shaped port it's kind of like this bigger
02:41USB-C shaped thing it is reversible, but it's not magnetic. I do like it though
02:45It feels secure the rest of the ports are pretty standard you got three USB A's a Thunderbolt 3 with some display outs
02:51But there's no SD slot, and there's no Ethernet
02:54Okay, let's talk about the keyboard when I first saw pictures of this layout
02:57I was concerned it reminds me a lot of the keyboard from the Razer Blade Pro
03:00And I did not like that layout very much, and it's essentially the same layout
03:04So here's the issue the shift key on the right side and the arrow keys are positioned in a very untraditional way
03:10Normally that shift key is right beside the question mark and just out of muscle memory when you're doing a question mark
03:15You'll hit shift question mark just really quickly, and it just makes sense right you've done it a thousand times in your life
03:20Probably a hundred thousand times in your life, but on this keyboard
03:23There's an arrow key right between them, and it's actually quite difficult to get used to it
03:27I've been using this thing for about a week at this point and for the first two days. It was very irritating
03:31I was constantly hitting up question mark instead of shift question mark and you can see how they'd be annoying
03:36After day four day five I got used to it
03:39But there's another problem to this if this was the only laptop or the only keyboard that you ever used
03:45Then you'll get used to it
03:47But the moment you switch to another keyboard like even a regular Razer keyboard like one of their desktop keyboards
03:52You're back to a completely different layout and that is the bigger problem the inconvenience when it comes to switching keyboards now
03:58If you're someone that uses the left shift instead of the right shift
04:01Then this probably won't bother you or if you're someone that just doesn't switch keyboards very often
04:05Then it also won't bother you
04:06But for the few people out there, it might be more than just a few
04:09But for the people that do switch keyboards or just switch devices regularly
04:14It's a thing
04:16Now another thing that kind of bugs me before about Razer keyboards is that the function keys up top only let up the function number
04:22You don't actually see the hotkeys being lit up. So the brightness controls and the volume controls
04:26You can't see those in the dark
04:27But you can map different colors to that using the Razer Synapse like you can make those purple or green whatever you want
04:32So you can technically identify what buttons those are by the color which is a bit of a workaround
04:38But at least it's better than not being able to tell where they are at all the trackpad
04:41This is now using Windows precision drivers great surface texture and accurate tracking
04:46The buttons are underneath the trackpad this year instead of the dedicated hardware buttons
04:50They've had in the past, but I think most people will enjoy this trackpad
04:53There's one like mild issue. The trackpad is quite large and the palm rejection software isn't perfect yet
04:59I think that's something that can tweak over time
05:00But right now when you're typing occasionally your palm will kind of move that tracker around but it's a really minor problem
05:06The performance is great. It's running the 8750H. It's a six core CPU excellent for multi-core applications
05:12There are two GPU options
05:14There's a 1070 max-q and a 1060 max-q that 1070 gives maybe 25 30% better performance than the 1060
05:22It's not insignificant, but it's also a little bit thicker like half a millimeter thicker
05:26It's barely noticeable but there is a difference
05:29The performance in games for either of these cards is gonna be great and depending what you play or what you want to do
05:33With your laptop, you'll have to make that decision for yourself. My unit runs pretty warm, but I'm not seeing it throttle
05:39It's cutting it kind of close
05:40So if you live in a warmer climate or if you play your games in a room that doesn't have air conditioning
05:44Then you're gonna get warmer temperatures. Keep in mind. This is at stock though
05:47I did try undervolting an XTU and I got it to like negative 130 millivolts and temperatures are noticeably better
05:53Now cooling a device like this is not easy every millimeter that you shave off this laptop to make it thinner and thinner just makes
05:59It exponentially harder to cool it properly and this year they did a really really good job. It's still not perfect
06:05I'd love to see lower temperatures without undervolting or repasting but it's better this year than it has been in the past
06:10Okay, the fans are not too loud
06:13You actually get pretty decent control in the software this time. You can tweak it the way that you like and even at max speed
06:18It's not crazy loud or anything one weird thing though
06:21I don't know why it takes like 10 maybe 15 seconds for the fan speed to ramp up and down like a lot of gaming laptops
06:26That have used you press a button and the fans goes all the way up instantly
06:30This takes a little while to get there
06:32It's not it's like not an issue or anything, but it's just something I've noticed
06:35I haven't seen in other devices before so I thought I should just mention it now whether or not you should purchase this thing
06:40Like should you get one? Here's the thing this year in 2018
06:44there are a ton of really good thin and light gaming options to choose from like there's
06:49More this year than have been any other year that I've seen before
06:52With the Razer Blade you're getting the device that is the smallest
06:5715.6 inch gaming laptop on the market
06:59It's literally the smallest one available and with that title comes a price premium
07:04But the overall device is really good this year nice design awesome build really powerful components good thermals
07:11The keyboard is really my only gripe
07:12But if you think you can adapt to it or if you don't really care about those issues that I mentioned about that shift key
07:17And arrow key then I think you're gonna really like this device. Okay. Hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs
07:22We liked it subs if you loved it. I'll see you guys next time