Razer Blade Pro (2015) Review (512GB SSD, 1TB HDD)

1. Introduction2. Razer Blade Pro (2015) (Packing and Accessories)3. Razer Blade Pro (2015)4. Razer Switchblade UI5. Razer Blade Pro (2015) (High Res Gallery)6. Testing Methodology and Configuration7. SiSoft Sandra8. Cinebench R11.5 64 bit9. Cinebench R1510. 3DMark 1111. 3DMark12. SSD & HDD Performance13. USB 3.0 Bandwidth Testing14. HD Encoding15. Tomb Raider16. Grid AutoSport17. Metro Last Light Redux18. Total War Rome: Emperor Edition19. Thermal Dynamics / IR Thermometer Readings20. Acoustics Performance21. Battery Performance22. Closing Thoughts23. View All Pages

Even knowing there are heat and throttling issues, it is difficult not to be impressed with the diminutive Razer Blade 14 inch laptop. Consider it the more powerful, evil twin to the 13 inch MacBook Pro, equipped with serious gaming capabilities. Today we take a look at the ‘big brother', the Blade Pro version – with 17 inch screen. This larger model features a rather sophisticated backlit touch screen interface, which can be controlled by dedicated software. As we would expect, it costs a significant amount of money, but can it justify the cost?

The 17 inch Razer Blade Pro poses a conundrum. The (2015) 14 inch model ships with the excellent Nvidia GTX970M discrete graphics card, but the physically larger version on test today is equipped with the somewhat castrated GTX960M. We had hoped for a GTX980M, or even the excellent GTX970M, but sadly Razer decided against it.

The GTX960M is basically the same GM107 chip used in the Nvidia 850M/860M – which were announced more than a year ago. GTX960M performance would therefore be expected to fall in line with the older chip, although there is a 6.5% increase in core clock speeds. This should translate to a minor increase in frame rate.

Above, the 2015 versions of the Razer Blade 14 inch (left) and Razer Blade Pro 17 inch (right).
Read our review of the 14 inch model HERE.

The two Razer Blade machines are dramatically different. The Pro we test today is equipped with a 17.3 inch screen – featuring a 1920×1080 resolution (1080p). Right now we are not aware of any 3K or 4K 17.3 inch panels on the market. While this may be seen as a downside, the GTX960M would be completely incapable of powering games at such resolutions anyway. There is some logic in the pairing.

The main talking point of the Razer Blade Pro is the integrated touch screen. This doubles up as a ‘control point' and trackpad on the laptop, fully controllable via software applications. Razer call it the Switchblade UI and we look at it in more detail later in the review.

The 2015 version of the Blade Pro has three flavours on offer. The lowest cost model incorporates a 128GB SSD with 500GB HDD. The mid range model has a 256GB SSD with 500GB HDD, and the highest cost model has a 512GB SSD with 1TB HDD. Windows 8.1 is supplied installed on the Solid State Drive.

None of these models are officially supported by Razer in the United Kingdom. You can however buy them via several verified Amazon dealers in the United Kingdom (they are imported). The 512GB/1TB model we test today can be bought from Amazon partner High-end Laptops for £2,789.00 inc vat. It is a lot of cash, but this model is specifically targeting a niche audience who want something very different.

Our sample shipped directly from America for our review today.
The outer box, complete with ‘snake like' Razer logo.

Our review model is the most expensive, equipped with a 512GB SSD and 1TB HDD.

The inner box is protected between two thick slabs of foam at each corner.

The Razer Blade boxes are little works of art, they feature the ‘green and black' colour scheme associated with the brand.

The laptop is encased between thin sheets of plastic. The laptop is protected inside a padded section of the box. All the accessories are underneath.

Razer supply some literature on the product, a cleaning cloth, stickers, and two protective covers for the touchpad – much like you can buy for the screen of a mobile phone or tablet.

There is also a power supply in the box. Thankfully it is not a huge brick, but a rather svelte unit unlikely to cause transportation discomfort in a backpack. It is made in China, and rated 100-240 v at 150 watts maximum. As such it will work in any country, with a plug adapter, including the UK. These little adapters can be picked up on Amazon for only a few pounds (or less).

This is one of the most beautiful looking laptops I have reviewed. It is simply stunning in the flesh. As I said last week, it reminded me immediately of a black MacBook Pro laptop. Not a bad thing at all.

Both 14 inch and 17 inch models are very thin and beautifully constructed. The two images above show them side by side.

Underneath there are very few cooling vents, apart from the top right and left sections. air is pulled in from underneath and expelled out the left and right sides of the chassis at the rear. As I will explain later in more detail, it is a very good cooling system and it works significantly better than the 14 inch model.

The Razer Blade Pro looks great in photographs, but it is even better in the flesh.

It is crafted from anodized aluminum and it feels fantastic in the hand. No unwanted flex, no poorly engineered corners, and no groaning noises when you adjust the lid. Its built to very high standards.

My only problem using the laptop was the frequent need to clean it. Fingerprints galore on all the surfaces within only a few hours and I don't sweat much at all either.

The 17.3 inch TN panel is not up to the same quality as the 3K IGZO Sharp panel built into the 14 inch Blade. Viewing angles on the TN are noticeably worse, however it is less reflective and easier to read in specific environments.

The 14 inch IGZO panel produces much richer colours, as we would expect. The only downside for gamers would be the slower refresh rate. I measured the refresh of the Blade Pro panel to be close to 1ms, rather than 6ms from the 14 inch model. This alone may be a deal breaker for some gamers.

Not a lot happening at the front or rear of the laptop. There is a little cut out section at the front to make it easier to open by hand. This is something Apple have been doing for years, and I can't help but feel that Razer have ‘borrowed' some of Apple's better (yet simple) design ideas. PC Purists will hate to even consider this, but Apple have a good track record with their MacBook pro range.

The 17 inch model has all of the USB 3.0 ports along the left side. There is only only a Kensington lock and air vent on the right side. I can't help but feel this is a flawed layout configuration. Why?

The 14 inch Blade has two USB 3.0 ports on the left side with another USB 3.0 header on the right side – ideal for connecting a mouse. In addition to the trifecta of USB 3.0 ports, is a HDMI, GB LAN, Headphone/Microphone port, and power adapter connector. A large cooling vent runs along the rear of the left side, identical to the right side.


I really do love to get my hands on a finely constructed laptop and whether you like Razer or not, this is pretty much a showcase of quality engineering.

The power button is stunning, oversized, and pulses green when the machine is turned on. We like how the keys have green accenting, so even when the backlighting is off, the colour scheme is clear to see. The word ‘BLADE' is engraved into the chassis, between the power button and the panel. A speaker grill runs along the top of the laptop in front of the heavy duty hinge.

The keyboard is excellent, and while not in the same class as a quality mechanical design we feel it is more than usable for modest work loads on the move. I am not a fan of the single height return key, but our American readers keep trying to silence me, so I won't focus on that too much today.

Hang on, why no trackpad below the keyboard?

Razer have ditched the traditional trackpad hardware and instead incorporated a colour touch screen with ten physical buttons above it and two underneath. I go into this implementation in more detail on the next page as there is a lot of on offer. It looks deeply unimpressive when the Blade Pro is turned off, but trust me, it is worth a deeper analysis on its own page.


Out of the photographic studio and into a living room – The Razer Blade Pro in action. In ‘default' mode, the touchpad operates as a traditional trackpad. It works perfectly fine but falls short of the best trackpads on the market. Most people will be turning it off and using a gaming mouse anyway.

Specific applications allow videos to be watched on the small touch screen although the 480p screen is somewhat grainy.

Above, the touchpad in trackpad mode – indicated by the Razer logo. If you look at the image above, there is a little RAZER logo key bottom right of the keyboard. Pressing this will effectively quit any open application and return to the home screen. A three finger swipe on the touch screen will cycle to another row of 10 icons.

In this mode, the two buttons under the touch screen act as a traditional ‘left' and ‘right' mouse press. When you trace your finger on the touchpad, a little green afterglow will be seen –  this looks cool, although you can turn if off completely if you wish.

The ten keys above the touchscreen can be programmed to load specific (Razer approved) apps, available via their proprietary software. Some of them are genuinely useful and support games, and some even software such as Adobe Photoshop.

This visual pad shown above, is actually running via an application – extending the keyboard to the right. It just works like a normal keypad too.

Gaming Mode, shown above gives the user options to disable and enable specific keys which can sometimes get in the way.




Other real time displays are available – showing CPU, RAM, HDD and network activity (or a mixture). The screen update is almost real time and it looks great.

We did notice that having specific apps running while benchmarking would drop the CPU scores a little. Some apps can demand 2%-5% CPU time. The simple clock read out is actually one of my favourites and it had no impact on performance.

I tried this laptop one day in our local Starbucks (in Ireland) around lunch time, and I have to say it did draw a lot of attention when it was turned on. I try to keep a low profile so after at least 5 separate conversations with strangers about the laptop, I decided to turn it off and put it back in my bag before escaping to a more peaceful environment as I wrote up this review.

The Blade Pro is extremely easy to carry around, due to the slim profile and relatively low weight – so it is somewhat ironic that I didn't want to bring it with me at all. Fielding questions from the public is not how I want to spend my time.

If Apple made this and it was available in the United Kingdom at all their stores, no one would bat an eyelid. As it stands, even though this Razer design has been on the market for many years, it still proves somewhat of a curiosity for the average punter. The difficulty in actually buying one in the United Kingdom just raises the exclusivity factor.
On this page we present some high resolution images of the product taken in our professional studio. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.











Razer do not install bloatware, and the install is very clean. Steam and Start8 are actually installs I did before I remembered to take the screenshot.


An overview of the system in GPUz and GPUz. The Intel Quad Core i7 4720HQ is a very capable quad core processor, with hyperthreading. It is clocked at 2.6ghz, with a turbo boost up to 3.6ghz. More details HERE.

The Razer Blade Pro system has 16Gb of DDR3 memory installed, clocked at 1,600mhz. Memory timings are 11-11-11-28-1T. The system uses a combination of Intel HD4600 graphics, with the Nvidia GTX960M taking over when the demand requires.

Comparison Mobile Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):

MSI GT80 Titan (i7 4980HQ)
Razer Blade 14 Inch (2015) (i7 4720HQ)
MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K 2QE (i7 4710HQ)
MSI GT72 2PE Dominator Pro (072UK)
MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro 15.6 inch (Intel I7-4700HQ).
MSI GT70 2OC (Intel Core i7 4700MQ).
MSI GS70 2OD Stealth (Intel Core i7 4700HQ).
MSI GE40-20C Dragon Eyes (Intel Core i7 4702MQ).
PCSpecialist Inferno 11.6 inch (Intel Core i7 3630QM).
MSI GX60 (AMD A10 4600M).
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (featuring Core i5 3427U).
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge S430 (featuring Core i5 3210M).
PC Specialist Vortex III HD72 (featuring Core i7 3610QM).
Asus G74SX-91013Z (featuring Core i7 2360QM).
Dell XPS 14z (featuring Core i7 2640M).
AlienWare M18X (featuring Core i7 2960XM Extreme Edition).
MSI CX640 (featuring Core i5 2410M).
Intel Core i7 2600k desktop processor.
Intel Core i5 2500k desktop processor.

Comparison Desktop System (for gaming tests).

Detailed specifications over HERE.
Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum (1,241 mhz core / 1,753mhz memory)
Asus R9 290 Direct CU II OC (1000 mhz core / 1,260 mhz memory)
Gigabyte GTX770 OC (1,137mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Sapphire Dual X R9 285 (965 mhz core / 1,400 mhz memory)
XFX R9 280X DD (1,000 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory)
Asus Direct CU II GTX 760 OC (1,006mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
Asus GTX750TI Strix OC Edition (1,124mhz core / 1,350mhz memory)

Software:

3DMark 11
3DMark
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Cinebench R15 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley
SiSoft Sandra
CrystalDiskMark
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 12
Cyberlink MediaEspresso

Games:

Grid Autosport
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light Redux
Total War Rome 2: Emperor Edition.

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

It is important to ensure that the background tasks associated with the Switchblade UI are disabled as they can claim up to 5% of the CPU. Performance falls in line with previous tests, and the dual channel memory also performs well.CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.


Performance in this benchmark is excellent, varying between 6.50 and 6.80 points depending on the Switchblade UI App demand.CINEBENCH 15 is a cross-platform testing suite that measures hardware performance and is the de facto standard benchmarking tool for leading companies and trade journals for conducting real-world hardware performance tests. With the new Release 15, systems with up to 256 threads can be tested. CINEBENCH is available for both Windows and OS X and is used by almost all hardware manufacturers and trade journals for comparing CPUs and graphics cards.


The final score of 600 falls in line with the other 4720HQ tests. This would fluctuate a little depending on Switchblade UI demand when the benchmark was run.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.


Performance in the last generation Direct X 11 benchmark is decent although there is a huge performance difference between the GTX960M in the Blade Pro, and the GTX970M in the smaller 14 inch model.
3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”


We can see that performance from the GTX960M is a pretty close match for the Maxwell GTX750ti desktop solution.Our review Razer Blade Pro 2015 features a 512GB SATA M.2 drive. You can also get 128GB and 256GB configurations. Right now there are no 1TB drives in this category so 512GB is the biggest.

CrystalDiskMark highlights fantastic performance results, 520MB/s in the sequential read test, and 370MB/s in the sequential write test. 4K QD32 performance is equally as impressive. The 2.5 inch mechanical drive in the Razer Blade Pro isn't one of the fastest (or slowest) models we have tested, falling into the middle of the pack – achieving around 105 MB/s with sequential read and write.

ATTO Disk Benchmark highlights great performance from the internal 512GB SSD drive, hitting over 550 MB/s in the sequential read test and around 380 MB/S in the sequential write test.

Excellent results from the internal 512GB SSD in the AS SSD benchmark.
To test USB 3.0 performance we need a drive that is capable of completely saturating the bus. Until recently we used the Corsair Voyager GTX drive, one of the fastest pen drives on the market. We have recently switched to using a 500GB Brinell Drive, available on Amazon for around £250 inc vat. Inside is a 500GB SAMSUNG EVO 840 SSD, a product all our readers are familiar with.

We have not reviewed this product, but it is one of the fastest external SSD products you can buy, and is self powered from the USB 3.0 port.

Performance from the external SSD over USB 3.0 is stellar. Both read and write speeds hold around the 400 MB/s mark.

ATTO produces similar results from the drive – although sequential read performance rates higher, around 460MB/s.
CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features:

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version of MediaEspresso.

Hardware acceleration is enabled.


The 10 minutes and 17 second results are very strong. The fastest laptops we have tested have scored just under 10 minutes, and the slowest over an hour.Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. (Wikipedia).

We test at the native 1080p resolution of the panel with ULTRA settings.

Performance at 1080p is quite good, holding a 32 average frame rate. Dropping the image quality settings further would enhance the performance.Grid Autosport (styled as GRID Autosport) is a racing video game by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008′s Race Driver: Grid and 2013′s Grid 2. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 24, 2014. (Wikipedia).

We test at the native 1080p resolution of the panel, with the highest image quality settings and 8x anti aliasing enabled.

At these settings, Grid AutoSport is playable at 1080p, running very smoothly indeed.
On May 22, 2014, a Redux version of Metro Last Light was announced. It was released on August 26, 2014 in North America and August 29, 2014 in Europe for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. A compilation package, titled Metro Redux, was released at the same time which includes Last Light and 2033. (Wikipedia). We test with following settings at 1920×1080: quality medium, SSAA off, 4AF, Tessellation NORMAL, VSYNC off and Advanced PhysX off.


This is an incredibly demanding engine, especially at full HD resolutions. That said, the Razer Blade Pro is able to maintain smooth frame rates throughout, dropping only once below the 25 fps point. A little more tweaking with some of the image quality settings would smooth this out.Total War: ROME II Emperor Edition. Emperor Edition collects together all free content to date, which includes wide-ranging revisions, additions to game features and adds a brand new Campaign Pack expansion, ‘Imperator Augustus’. We test the game at 3200×1800 with the image quality settings at both ‘ULTRA' and ‘VERY HIGH'.

We test at 1920×1080 with the ULTRA image quality setting profile enabled.

The ULTRA profile is demanding, however the GTX960M handles it well, holding frame rates above the 25 mark – which we consider ‘smooth motion'.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.

Load measurements were acquired by playing Tomb Raider for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The Razer Blade Pro runs much cooler than the smaller 14 inch model. The Intel Core i7 4720HQ runs around 17c cooler under load than the same processor inside the 14 inch chassis. The processor does not throttle.

To test the real world impact of heat I looped 3DMark and measured temperatures on the keyboard of the laptop with our Fluke Visual IR Thermometer/Infrared Thermal Camera. This is a real world running environment.

Details on each test are shown below. (To compare, head to THIS page to see thermal testing of the Razer Blade 14 (2015).

The chassis feels quite cool to the touch, even after 15 minutes of looped synthetic stress tests. This is around 13c cooler than the 14 inch Blade. Staggering differences.

After 30 minutes, we measured the hottest spot on chassis – close to the F5 and F6 keys. It measured 34C. By comparison the Razer Blade 14 was around 48c in the top corners.

The Core i7 cooler is positioned top left (from above) and warm air is expelled out the side of the chassis – captured in the thermal image above. Temperatures measured up to 33c in this area.

The GTX960M cooler is positioned top right (from above) and warm air is expelled out the side of the chassis – captured in the thermal image above. Temperatures measured up to 31c in this area.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide

10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The Razer Blade Pro is quiet, even when modestly loaded. If all 8 logical cores are at an extended 100% load, the left side fan spins fast, although it is never actually what we would consider very intrusive. Compared to the 14 inch Razer Blade it could be classed as silent!To test today, we are putting the machine through a variety of ‘real world’ situations, mirroring the real world usage of a potential customer.

One as a media movie lover on the move (wearing headphones), a person wanting to watch high definition media on a train journey or bus with screen brightness two notches from maximum.

Second as a businessman, with screen brightness around half way. Wireless was enabled. A mixture of checking, answering emails using Microsoft Office and editing pictures in Adobe Photoshop.

Lastly as a gamer, playing Tomb Raider until the machine turned itself off.

Battery life under lighter loads is very good, averaging just over 6 hours when dealing with general tasks. The battery life drops to around 2 hours when gaming.
The fact that the Razer Blade Pro is not officially sold or supported in the United Kingdom hasn't stopped enthusiast users importing it. As we discussed earlier in the review, Amazon are now working with a select group of partners, offering various configurations for sale HERE.

These dealers are also offering 1 year technical support and warranty terms, via local UK repair stations. Of course without official support there is an extra risk involved, but hardcore UK Razer gamers wanting these distinctive and attractive laptops may be likely to take the chance.

The Razer Blade Pro presents a confusing proposition. The smaller 14 inch Blade is more powerful, shipping with an Nvidia GTX970M – while the larger ‘Pro' version has to make do with the weaker GTX960M. Razer could argue the smaller model gets the better GPU to help power games via the 3K screen, however as we have already reported the 14 inch Blade runs very hot, and sounds like a helicopter on takeoff under heavy load. A 1080p screen and GTX960M would have made more sense for that diminutive chassis and it would certainly have helped mitigate thermal throttling issues.

Within a 17 inch chassis, a GTX970M or GTX980M would surely have been possible. Yes, the Blade Pro is a sleek, sexy, slimline laptop, but if Razer are willing to wedge a GTX970M into a much smaller 14 inch Blade, why not at least use the same graphics solution in the bigger chassis? The GTX980M might also have been an option, albeit with a slightly larger power brick.

While we could argue the point for a more powerful graphics card inside the Blade Pro, the upside is that the 2015 model runs relatively quiet and cool under load. Fans at either side will spin reasonably fast, but the pitch is dull and noise emissions are never a problem. The cooling system in the Blade Pro has less to do, and with greater physical space inside, the air expelled is generally quite cool.

The addition of M.2 boot SSD means that the 2.5 inch bay slot can be used for a large mechanical drive. Dual drive options are standard, up to 1TB – as in our review sample today. No doubt that a percentage of the potential audience may want to remove this mechanical drive completely and refit with a high capacity solid state drive. We used the mechanical drive for large STEAM game installs and it performed at a respectable level.

The Switchblade UI is a rather inspired design, and while MSI may have used a similar system for their GT80 Titan laptop, there is no doubt that the Razer implemention is infinity more sophisticated and capable.

The all important question needs answered. Why would I want the Razer Blade Pro model, over the more powerful, compact 14 inch version?

Heat and noise are two of the primary reasons I found myself gravitating towards the 17 inch model. The larger laptop runs much cooler and typing on it is not uncomfortable due to built up, radiated heat. Noise levels are dramatically lower, especially when gaming.

There is also the topic of the ‘real world user experience' with a 14 inch 3K and 4K panel. Windows 8.1 scaling is much better than Windows 7, but there are still issues. Some applications just don't scale at all. Electronic Arts Origin on the Razer 14 inch screen is so small it makes it almost unusable.

A 3K panel on a 14 inch laptop is certainly a talking point, but the refresh rate of the IGZO screen is much slower than the TN panel in the Blade Pro. I am not someone who is prone to noticing ghosting , but many gamers demand a 1ms refresh for the best experience.

As a pure gaming machine the Blade Pro is not as powerful, but the GTX960 is actually very capable at 1080p. It delivers a similar level of performance as a desktop GTX750Ti. Most titles run well at 1080p with the image quality settings set high but in another year this may not be the case.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• Not as hot running as Blade 14 (2015).
• black anodized aluminum looks fantastic.
• USB 3.0 performance.
• good keyboard.
• thin.
• 802.11AC Wifi performance is excellent.
• Switchblade UI is excellent.
• fast panel refresh.

Cons:

• Expensive.
• GTX970M would have been nice.
• Switchblade UI can task the CPU.
• no official UK support by Razer.
• Not an IPS panel.
• All the USB 3.0 ports are on the left side.

Kitguru says: The Razer Blade Pro is a stunning looking laptop and thinner than competitor products. It runs cooler than the 14 inch version, but Razer should have included a GTX970M, as the GTX960M while capable at 1080p today, isn't very future proofed.

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