Kaby Lake, 4K Touchscreen Come To 14-Inch Razer Blade Gaming Laptop

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By Derek Forrest
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Razer announced that its 14” Blade gaming laptop can now be equipped with Intel 7th generation (Kaby Lake) processors, in addition to a new 4K display option.

The Razer Blade remains relatively unchanged from the previous iteration, with a 14-inch display, 16GB DDR4-2400 RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card, and up to 1TB PCIe SSD storage options. The device’s thin profile (0.70 inches) also remains unchanged with the update, and the Blade offers Killer Wireless AC and plenty of USB connectivity.

The Blade comes stock with a FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS display, but you can soon equip it with a 4K (3840 x 2160) touchscreen option, a first for the 14-inch model. Although the display may not pair well with a GTX 1060 for gaming, the increased screen pixel count is a definite plus for productivity-oriented users. The latest Kaby Lake processors also make the update, with the Blade offering an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor.

The new Razer Blade is available now from Razerzone, the company’s online store, with configurations starting at $1,899.The 4K display option won't be available until Q2, though.

Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
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16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • CaptCalamity
    Can someone please explain to what use a 4k screen is on a gaming laptop? You are insane if you think any laptop video card can drive that many pixels at an acceptable frame rate.

    Wastes power and offers zero benefit. Kinda makes me think Razer lost its way.
    Reply
  • kinggremlin
    Who thought this was a good idea? A 14" 4k screen on a gaming laptop? The gpu is way too weak to game at that resolution, and no one is buying a razer for productivity. Even if they were, the 315 dpi is about double what a normal person can comfortably use for a windows display.
    Reply
  • therealduckofdeath
    Why? Because, even though it's a gaming laptop people should be allowed to use their own device for other things when they're not gaming? Why do people on the internet always get so offended when they see a device built to be used in a way they themselves don't use a PC? I mean, the point with PC's is that you get to buy one that fits you, not one model force fitted to all. 300 DPI is a normal density for printing. Getting a display on your laptop able to present text and image as clearly as printed material is definitely not a bad thing.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    You game on 1080p resolution, but run 4K when doing work related stuff, or even when reading webpages. I definitely changed my opinion about reading dokuments from tablets, when I get a pad with retina Display. So much sharper text!
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    19292160 said:
    Can someone please explain to what use a 4k screen is on a gaming laptop? You are insane if you think any laptop video card can drive that many pixels at an acceptable frame rate.

    Wastes power and offers zero benefit. Kinda makes me think Razer lost its way.

    Well, one advantage to a 4K 14" screen is that pixel density is so high, you really don't need anti-aliasing anymore. You can free up a lot of horsepower by turning that off.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    This would be kick@ss for a power point presentation that I needed to watch on the go!!!
    Reply
  • MrKB
    1080p or 1440p (depending on game) for gaming and 4k for Video playback and reading.

    Not everything needs to revolve around gaming, even on a "Gaming PC" It's a computer not a console, it's a multi-purpose tool.
    Reply
  • photonboy
    basically as said...
    1) 4K (with DPI Scaling to about 150%) produces sharper text.
    and
    2) Games can be set to whatever resolution you want. 1920x1080, 2560x1440, or 3840x2160 and upscaled to fit the screen. Which resolution is best depends on the game.

    *However, I think 2560x1440 would be a better choice. 4K does add scaling issues, and while it can produce sharper text it causes more problems than it solves. For example, some older Adobe programs look very fuzzy when scaling up and it gets worse at higher resolutions.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    19292481 said:
    Well, one advantage to a 4K 14" screen is that pixel density is so high, you really don't need anti-aliasing anymore. You can free up a lot of horsepower by turning that off.

    Running a game at 4k requires far more horsepower than using an optimized anti-aliasing routine at a lower resolution. On such a tiny screen, I doubt you would even notice much visual difference between a 1080p display with antialiasing, and a 4k display, aside from only getting around 30% of the framerates at 4k. I suppose some older, less demanding games might be playable, but just about any big game from the last several years would require you to turn down graphics settings to be playable at 4k on a 1060, which would make the visuals noticeably worse overall. For a high-end gaming laptop, I can't help but think that giving it a higher refresh-rate screen would have been better than an apparently 60Hz 4k panel.

    19293425 said:
    4K does add scaling issues, and while it can produce sharper text it causes more problems than it solves. For example, some older Adobe programs look very fuzzy when scaling up and it gets worse at higher resolutions.

    Yep, any software that doesn't support display scaling can appear blurrier with scaling enabled than it would have without it at a lower resolution. Even some of the settings menus and utilities built into Windows 10 haven't been updated to natively support display scaling. However, one advantage I could see at 4k is that you could use an even 200% scaling on the desktop, which will likely scale a little cleaner, and still provide the same usable area as a 1080p display. 150% scaling would almost certainly not be enough to comfortably use a 14 inch 4k display anyway.
    Reply
  • kinggremlin
    19292440 said:
    Why? Because, even though it's a gaming laptop people should be allowed to use their own device for other things when they're not gaming? Why do people on the internet always get so offended when they see a device built to be used in a way they themselves don't use a PC? I mean, the point with PC's is that you get to buy one that fits you, not one model force fitted to all. 300 DPI is a normal density for printing. Getting a display on your laptop able to present text and image as clearly as printed material is definitely not a bad thing.

    No one is "offended" by how someone uses a laptop. Stop being stupid. The point we are making is that a 14" 4k screen is not usable for anything. So why waste the money developing such a product? Spend the R&D on features that actually benefit the intended target. There is no one who could use a 315 dpi screen unscaled for any text based application. Someone suggested a 150% scale. That would be the equivalent of a 21" 4k monitor. If you're a fighter pilot or Major League Baseball batting champ, that may be usable for you, still completely useless for anyone with average or slightly better eyesight. There's a reason no one sells a 4k monitor smaller than 23.6". To be made usable, you'd have to scale the text about 200% which puts you at 1080p. So, you've lost any benefit of increased screen real estate at that point. And anyone who has used windows scaling knows, it often has issues and ironically, will usually end up looking worse than if you had just being running the lower equivalent resolution to begin with.

    There is not a profitable market for a combination gaming/photo editing ultrabook. Anyone serious about content creation is not going to be shopping for a Razer. Realistically, they won't even be looking for a windows based laptop, it will be an Apple.

    Your printer comparison is useless. You can't compare the dpi of different mediums.
    Reply