Razer’s lineup of thin gaming laptops is getting a pretty big shakeup today. The company is adding new configurations of its mid-sized Blade 15, with a new Advanced model sporting either an Nvidia RTX 2070 or 2080 (both Max-Q) and either a matte 240 Hz 1080p screen or an eye-catching (and likely battery-killing) 60 Hz 4K OLED panel with touch and support for 100 percent of the DCI-P3 spectrum.
Both of the above models sport Intel’s brand-new Coffee Lake Refresh Intel Core i7-9750H processor with six cores, 12 threads and a max Turbo clock of 4.5 GHz, as does the base model, which ships with a non-Max-Q RTX 2060. The base model also gets a smaller 65 WHr battery, while the Advanced model ships with an 80 WHr battery. Both laptops ship with 16 GB of RAM (expandable to 32 GB) and a 512 GB SSD, although strangely the Advanced version also has an option for a smaller 256 GB SSD. The Advanced model will also be available in mercury white as well as the more traditional black.
The base model Blade 15 will sell for $1,999, while the Advanced model with the 240Hz display will start at $2,399. If you want the version with the 4K OLED screen, you’ll be looking at a starting price of $3,299.
Blade Pro 17: Putting the Touchpad Back Where It Belongs
The Blade Pro 17 is getting a more substantial revamp, bringing its aesthetics more in-line with its smaller counterparts and moving the touchpad back down below the keyboard (and nixing the RGB light ring in the process). This also results in a smaller footprint, as you can see in comparison to the previous model above, where you’ll also notice the bezels are much smaller.
The Pro 17 will be available in three models, starting at $2,499 with an RTX 2060, $2,799 for an RTX 2070 Max-Q, and $3,199 for an RTX 2080 Max-Q. All three will sport a 144 Hz IPS display that’s rated for 300 nits of brightness, and 100 percent of the Adobe sRGB color gamut. And all will feature the same Intel 9th Generation Core i7-9750H CPU as the Blade 15. The Blade Pro 17 will also ship with 16GB, although the company says it’s upgradable to 64 GB.
(Sort of) New USB 3.2 Gen2 Ports
The base model of the Blade 15 will feature familiar USB 3.1 ports. But Razer says both the Advanced models of the 15 and all models of the 17 Pro will sport faster USB 3.2 Gen2 ports. You can hit the link for the (confusing) details, but essentially USB 3.2 Gen 2 is USB 3.1 Gen 2 with a new name, meaning you get theoretical throughput of up to 10GBps on those ports. Those looking for more speed can hit up the Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port available on all the new Razer models here. The Blade Pro 17 is also the first laptop we’ve seen that sports a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port that can provide up to 2.5 times the speed of a traditional Gigabit Ethernet port. But of course you’ll need to be plugged into a network (a router or a switch) that also supports that speed to get it.
