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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom the Tech Chap and this is the new Razer Blade 14 and Razer are making
00:11some pretty big claims about this guy, including the world's most powerful 14-inch gaming
00:17laptop, the smallest 14-inch gaming laptop, most efficient 14-inch and longest battery
00:22on a Razer.
00:25Which all sounds very impressive, although to be fair there is really only a handful
00:28of 14-inch gaming laptops, the closest competitor to this would be Asus' Zephyrus G14, which
00:35is a great laptop, although that does top out with a 3060.
00:39This however can be specced with a 3060, 70 or 80, along with Ryzen 9 5900HX, which really
00:47is just as big of a deal as the new graphics, as this marks the first time we're getting
00:51an AMD CPU in a Razer Blade laptop.
00:55And then throw in a 144Hz Full HD screen, or like I have here, a 165Hz Quad HD resolution
01:01screen, up to 1TB of PCIe storage, 16GB of RAM, although that's not upgradable unfortunately,
01:08and that's all in a chassis that weighs just 1.78kg and is 16.8mm thick.
01:14So all together, this is a real killer combination and if we're going to go for an annoying
01:19cliche, a pint-sized powerhouse.
01:23But hold your horses, before you throw your current laptop in the bin out of disgust because
01:28you don't have one of these, just a couple of things.
01:31And the first one is that all three graphics card options are 100W TGP models, which is
01:36great for the 3060, pretty reasonable for the 3070, but it's definitely on the lower
01:41power end for the 3080, which tend to range between 85W and 165W.
01:47I would probably recommend the 3060 or the 70 model of this.
01:50So that's worth considering, but at the same time, the Blade 14 is very expensive,
01:55starting at about $1800 with the 3060 and up to $2800 for a 3080 spec.
02:02Also the battery life is okay, nothing special, but I'll come back to this, and while the
02:07whole thing is impressively compact given the performance, it is another copy and paste
02:12Razer design.
02:13Black aluminium chassis, RGB keyboard.
02:16The build quality is top notch, but there's still this big chin and protruding plastic
02:20bezels.
02:21It's still 16 by 9.
02:23We get the slightly awkward charger.
02:25There's no Thunderbolt support, and it can be a bit of a greasy fingerprint magnet.
02:30I actually wiped this clean before I started the video, but clearly my disgustingly mucky
02:35greasy fingerprints have already made a bit of a mess on the lid there.
02:39It is a bit annoying just how greasy this thing gets.
02:43I must admit, I am also a little bit on the fence about having a Quad HD resolution screen
02:47on a 14-inch laptop.
02:49It makes perfect sense for 15-inch and bigger sizes, but on here, while it's incredibly
02:54sharp and also I love this matte panel, it looks great, in fact my only criticism really
02:59will be the fact that it tops out at about 320 nits or so, so it's not the brightest
03:04and I often find myself maxing it out just to make it more comfortable to use.
03:08However, a benefit of this higher spec panel is it's more colour accurate.
03:12They're both about 100% sRGB, but the Quad HD hits 98% of the DCI-P3 gamut with a 10ms
03:20response time versus 20ms on the Full HD.
03:24But of course the compromise with that high resolution is the impact on your frame rate
03:29and also battery life.
03:31So these are my average frame rates with maxed out settings at 1080p, and then the same again
03:37at native 1440p, and as you can see, the FPS takes about a 10-20% hit.
03:43And most games just aren't coming close to maxing out that 165Hz refresh, although of
03:47course it all depends on the games you're playing and at what settings.
03:51I am really pleased though that Razer is finally making this switch or jump even to these AMD
03:57Ryzen 5000 CPUs because it was a bit frustrating at the beginning of the year when they refreshed
04:02some of their Blade laptops that they still came with 10th gen Intel CPUs.
04:07So I feel a bit bad for those of you who may have actually bought a Razer laptop a few
04:11months ago because now we've got laptops like this with AMD Ryzen 5000 and it's significantly
04:17more powerful and more efficient.
04:19However, all this extra power does come at a bit of a price.
04:23Heat.
04:24This thing gets pretty toasty even with the new vapor chamber cooling we've got inside.
04:29And with the dual fans whirring away, which to be fair weren't obnoxiously loud, topping
04:33out at about 59dB, I did still see the CPU peak at about 92 degrees Celsius.
04:40The good news though is the keyboard and the touchpad didn't get too hot so it was never
04:43really uncomfortable to use playing on a desk, but your legs will get a bit sweaty if you're,
04:49well, laptop gaming.
04:52Inside we get a 61.6Wh battery along with this 230W charging brick and you'll get
04:58about 6 hours or so of non-gaming use.
05:02Not too bad, but you can probably get an extra hour or two if you opt for the full HD and
05:07maybe a lower power model.
05:09Now just a quick mention of I.O. and we get a pretty healthy range of ports actually.
05:14There's two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C's and they support power delivery and also DisplayPort
05:201.4.
05:21We also get two Type-A 3.2 Gen 2, it's all a bit complicated.
05:27Interestingly, we do get a brand spanking new HDMI 2.1 port, which is great to see,
05:31so you can actually hook up to a 4K 120FPS external display if you want to go nuts.
05:38If we take a look inside, you can see that only the single M.2 SSD can be swapped out.
05:43The RAM is soldered on so that can't be upgraded, which is a bit of a shame as the spec tops
05:48out with 16GB, which is fine.
05:51I think maybe a 32GB option would have been nice to go along with maybe the higher spec
05:553080.
05:56However, the less said about this webcam, the better.
06:00The quality is pretty atrocious actually, which is a real shame given how important
06:04webcams have become in the last year or so.
06:07So that is something I definitely want to see improved on the next version of this.
06:11I mean, just look how noisy that is.
06:13Ugh, it's terrible.
06:15Okay, so let's wrap up and raise this marketing material to one side.
06:21I think this is genuinely the most powerful, the most compact, and arguably the best looking
06:2614-inch gaming laptop you can buy.
06:30Definitely give my good friend Matt Moniz's video a watch where he compares the G14 and
06:34the Blade 14 and I'll drop a link below because that is a great alternative to this and about
06:39$300 cheaper.
06:41So good job Razer, now just give me this with a 16x10 screen, maybe a slightly more fingerprint
06:47resistant coating or just a bit of a design refresh would be nice, and also a much better
06:52webcam because this thing is terrible.
06:54But despite that, if you can afford it, this is a pretty easy recommendation and I will
06:58leave links below if you want to check it out.
07:01And if you want to see more from me, if you enjoyed the video, a cheeky little like and
07:04subscribe would be lovely.
07:06Thank you so much for watching guys and I will see you next time right here on The Tech
07:09Chat.