Razer Blade 17 (2021) review
Our Verdict
The Razer Blade 17 is a premium gaming laptop at a premium price. You tin can expect excellent performance, a dandy OLED display and a sleek pattern, just also a heavy chassis and a relatively cramped keyboard.
For
- Powerful components
- Excellent functioning
- Gorgeous OLED screen
Confronting
- Very expensive
- Cramped keyboard
- Limited battery life
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Razer Blade 17 is a premium gaming laptop at a premium price. You can expect excellent performance, a great OLED display and a sleek design, but also a heavy chassis and a relatively cramped keyboard.
Pros
- +
Powerful components
- +
First-class performance
- +
Gorgeous OLED screen
Cons
- -
Very expensive
- -
Cramped keyboard
- -
Express battery life
Razer Blade 17 (2021): Specs
CPU: Intel Core i9-11900H
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
Display: 17.iii", 4K OLED, 120 Hz
RAM: 32 GB
Storage: 1 TB SSD
Dimensions: 15.half-dozen ten 10.ii ten 0.8 inches
Weight: 6.ane pounds
The Razer Blade 17 (2021) is one of the well-nigh powerful gaming laptops you lot can purchase— and it'southward priced to match. The accented cheapest model will set you back $2,400, and the one nosotros reviewed costs a whopping $three,700.
The latest version of the Blade 17 has a lot going for it, including an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. You'll too find an impressive 120Hz OLED display and a generous corporeality of ports. The Blade 17 could conceivably be your main gaming and productivity car for years to come up, equally it tin live comfortably on peak of a desk-bound, or in a hotel room, or in a tournament hall.
All the same, for such an expensive machine, the Bract 17 doesn't feel as premium every bit it could. At more than six pounds, it'due south fairly heavy, nor is it the thinnest gaming laptop on the market place. At that place'southward also the cramped membrane keyboard, which feels a lilliputian antiquated in an era of streamlined numpads and thin mechanical keys.
Nonetheless, Razer's full-blooded alone makes the Bract 17 worth a look, and in terms of components, you'll definitely get what y'all pay for. Read on for our full Razer Bract 17 (2021) review.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Price and configurations
The Razer Blade 17 (2021) comes in vii different configurations, at seven different prices. At the cheapest stop, there'south a $2,400 model, which comes with an Intel i7-11800H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, 16 GB RAM, a 1 TB SSD and a 1440p, 165 Hz screen.
The highest-stop model, which nosotros reviewed, costs $3,700 and comes with an Intel i9-11900H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 RTX GPU, 32 GB RAM, a 1 TB SSD and a 4K OLED touchscreen with a 120 Hz refresh rate.
It's worth pointing out that a few models in the middle offering 1080p, 360 Hz screens to maximize frame rate rather than resolution. The middle-of-the-road $two,800 model comes with an Intel i7-11800H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, 16 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD.
The bottom line is that while the Razer Blade 17 comes in a multifariousness of configurations, they tin go pretty expensive, pretty apace.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Design
The start matter I noticed about the Razer Blade 17 is that it weighs a lot: vi.ane pounds. That's heavier than competing 17-inch models from MSI and Alienware, which tend to counterbalance between v and 5.5 pounds.
At fifteen.6 x 10.2 x 0.8 inches, it's thinner than competing laptops from Alienware, but thicker than MSI and other Razer models. Information technology fit in a standard driver backpack, admitting just barely, and it was a real pain to carry around for more than most an hour at a time.
In terms of aesthetics, the Blade 17 has a sleek and straightforward design, much similar Razer'due south other laptops. The chassis is almost all black metal, salve for a lite-up green logo on top of the lid. The lesser of the laptop has a few ventilation ports, while yous'll detect a fairly generous selection of ports on the sides.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Ports
The Blade 17 has a generous port selection. Every model of the Bract 17 comes with three USB-A ports, ii Thunderbolt USB-C ports, an Ethernet port, a power port, an HDMI port and an SD carte reader. This is a robust lineup of ports for both work and play, and having both USB-C and discrete power ports gives you lot a lot of elbowroom in the cables you lot acquit with y'all.
My merely issue here is that large USB-C dongles will cake the USB-A ports. It's not a Razer-exclusive result by whatever means, but it's an increasingly frequent problem in gaming laptops, as peripheral manufacturers beginning to switch over from USB-A.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Keyboard and touchpad
My one big complaint with the Razer Blade 17 is that the keyboard feels tiny and cramped — which it didn't have to be, considering how much infinite the speakers take up on either side of it.
While larger-than-average laptop speakers tin can be situationally useful, I would have much rather had a numpad, or at least a little more space betwixt keys. Typos were mutual, and the half-sized up-and downward-arrow keys made matters even more than complicated. I did appreciate that the keyboard has full RGB adequacy through the Razer Synapse software, though.
The touchpad, on the other hand, felt responsive, and didn't get in the style besides oft. I'd still recommend a discrete mouse if you lot want to get any serious gaming washed. Touch typists might actually consider a wireless travel keyboard, as well.
Razer Bract 17 (2021) review: Brandish
The screen in our Razer Blade 17 was the primary reason why I was excited to test it. Subsequently running the 4K OLED touchscreen through a gauntlet of games, TV shows and productivity tools, I didn't want to go back to a standard LCD model. Granted, non every model of the Blade 17 comes with a 4K OLED screen, and our Razer Bract 15 Advanced review might give you a better idea of what Razer's more than traditional screens wait like.
All the same, it'southward hard to overstate just how deep the blacks and just how vibrant the colors wait on a UHD OLED screen, and it'southward especially striking when playing games that lean heavily into a cohesive color palette, such as Doom Eternal'south red and browns, or Age of Empires Four's blues and greens. We ran the numbers, which back up our observations:
| Razer Blade 17 | Maingear Vector Pro | Razer Blade fifteen Advanced | |
| Effulgence (nits) | 349 | 346 | 313 |
| sRGB Color Gamut (%) | 113 | 114 | 109 |
| Delta-E | 0.25 | 0.20 | 0.24 |
Compared against the similarly powerful Maingear Vector Pro and Razer's other heavy hitter, the Razer Blade Advanced 15, the Bract 17 more than than holds its own, offering the all-time brightness of the three, and a better coverage of the sRGB spectrum than the Blade 15.
Granted, the Blade 17 is non quite as colorful as the Vector Pro, or as color-accurate equally either machine (a lower delta-E ways improve color accurateness), but there's non a tremendous difference in benchmarks. The bigger deviation is qualitative: an OLED screen only looks better most of the fourth dimension, particularly for dark images that crave subtle dissimilarity.
It's hard to enlarge simply how deep the blacks and just how vibrant the colors expect on this 4K OLED screen.
With a 120 Hz screen, the Blade 17 is also perfectly poised to run games at 4K settings. While running 4K games at 120 fps sounds like a dream come true, gaming laptops aren't quite ready to do that even so — the absolute best nosotros got were brief bursts of Final Fantasy Xiv at 115 fps. You won't need to worry about the car's performance outstripping its refresh rate.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Gaming operation
Mostly speaking, the Razer Blade 17 generally provides better performance than other gaming laptops we've tested recently. This seems fitting, since the Blade 17 is also much more expensive than those other laptops. Take a look at some frame rate benchmarks in common games, measured in frames per 2d (fps) at 1080p resolution:
| Razer Blade 17 | Maingear Vector Pro | Razer Blade xv Advanced | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 80 | 74 | 66 |
| Dirt 5 | 91 | 89 | 78 |
| Thou Theft Motorcar 5 | 111 | 124 | 106 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 81 | 93 | 82 |
In Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Clay 5, the Bract 17 performed amend across the lath. In Thou Theft Automobile V and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, yet, the Blade 17'southward performance was a fleck more than mixed, falling considerably short of the Maingear Vector Pro. This could be due to a difference in drivers, or it could be that the Bract 17 is simply not optimized for lower resolutions.
That brings us to another important point: the Blade 17 has a full 4K screen, which is a relative rarity among gaming laptops. At 4K settings with the graphical options cranked up to Nvidia-recommended settings, Assassin'south Creed Valhalla ran at 38 fps; Dirt five ran at 48 fps; Grand Theft Machine 5 ran at 35 fps; and Shadow of the Tomb Raider ran at 33 fps. These are all comfortably above 30 fps, which is generally the minimum frame rate you lot'd want for a modern game.
You can as well toy with the settings if you lot'd prefer true 4K/60 fps gaming, which I was able to reach in a number of titles. Age of Empires Four, Dragon's Dogma: Night Arisen and Final Fantasy Fourteen all ran around a consistent 60 fps at 4K, even during intense battle scenes. Only Doom Eternal hovered around the 35 fps range — but fifty-fifty then, 35 fps at 4K is naught to sneeze at.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Productivity operation
In terms of productivity operation, the Razer Blade 17 wasn't the benchmarking powerhouse that I expected.
| Razer Blade 17 | Maingear Vector Pro | Razer Bract 15 Avant-garde | |
| Geekbench five.4 (artificial operation criterion) | 7,010 | eight,786 | 6,924 |
| Copying 25 GB from flash drive (MBps) | 1,247 | 1,844 | ane,796 |
| Handbrake video encoding (minutes:seconds) | 8:59 | half dozen:27 | 8:46 |
Using the artificial Geekbench 5.4 examination, which gauges a motorcar's overall ability, the Blade 17 fell short of the Vector Pro, and exceeded the Bract 15 Avant-garde just slightly. Both the Vector Pro and the Blade xv advanced outperformed the Blade 17 in the file-copying and video-encoding tests, often by a wide margin. The Blade 17's terrific components don't e'er turn in the level of performance I had expected.
On the other manus, this may non matter much from a applied standpoint. I used the Blade 17 as my everyday workstation for about a week, and it handled everything I could throw at it, regardless of how many tabs I had open up, how many programs I had running or how much multimedia I wanted to consume. This is probably due to its 32 GB RAM, which far exceeds what an everyday worker would demand — unless, of grade, your everyday piece of work involves graphic pattern or animation.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Battery life and rut
The Razer Blade 17 runs hot, and has a surprisingly short battery life, for both productivity and gaming. Here's how it compares:
| Razer Bract 17 | Maingear Vector Pro | Razer Blade fifteen Advanced | |
| Battery life – productivity (minutes:seconds)Valhalla | three:52 | 6:27 | 5:23 |
| Battery life – gaming (minutes:seconds) | 1:19 | 1:37 | one:35 |
| Heat – productivity (°F) | 108 | 104 | 88 |
| Heat – gaming (°F) | 123 | 129 | 123 |
Even if you lot use information technology for productivity, the Blade 17 is besides hot to comfortably continue in your lap. While y'all're gaming, yous probably won't desire to touch on the underside at all.
At less than four hours, the battery life is as well relatively unimpressive; information technology won't even last for a moderately long flight. While the Blade 17's gaming rut and gaming battery life are comparable to the other laptops nosotros tested, the other systems last much longer for productivity, and the Blade 15 Avant-garde is cool plenty to hold in your lap if you're not gaming.
Razer Blade 17 (2021) review: Verdict
The Razer Bract 17 provides excellent performance and gorgeous visuals, admitting for a lot of money. In terms of performance, it'south similar to its close competitors — although said competitors don't offer full 4K screens, so yous'll have to accept that into account.
If y'all're in the market for a powerful 17-inch gaming laptop, the Alienware m17 R4 is also worth considering, as is the Maingear Vector Pro. But there's something undeniably stylish about the Razer Bract 17's pattern, and you'll get good performance for both piece of work and play.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/razer-blade-17-2021
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