Razer Blade Pro 17″ Gaming Laptop
Powered by the latest 9th generation Intel Core i7-9750H processor, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, and a 144Hz, Full HD Display, the Razer Blade Pro 17 is both a gaming laptop and a mobile workstation.
A novel cooling solution is proof that the laptop doesnt shy away from testing new waters, but it maintains its winning formula as evidenced by its chassis and input devices. This laptop manages to deliver on its promise of speed and power, although this comes at a cost.
Complete Review – Razer Blade Pro 17 Gaming Laptop
Appearance
The chassis and the keyboard regions of the Razer Blade Pro 17 are marked by an overlay of aluminum fired to a matte black finish. This surface finish prevents fingerprint marks from sticking to the surface and provides scratch resistance. The metal fabric used to frame this laptop is applied across its entirety, giving it a compact and uniform touch. It weighs a massive six pounds, you might need to get a bigger bag.
Ports and Connections
There is a fair number of ports featured in this laptop. They include a USB 3.2 Type-A port, 2.5Gb Ethernet, a full-sized SD Card Reader, Wi-Fi 6, and a Thunderbolt 3 that is best suited to meet your charging needs on the go. On the right-hand side, the standard Kensington lock is found. For those who don’t own a Thunderbolt 3 monitor, there’s an HDMI 2.0 port.
Display
With a refresh rate of 144Hz, a Full HD resolution, and a matte 17.3″ IPS panel, this 17 inch laptop delivers a display that few will complain about. The bezels have been trimmed to barely-there levels, freeing up space above the screen where an HD camera can be found.
For this laptop, the display is both crisp and clear, featuring a brightness of about 300 nits, a contrast ratio of around 810:1, and a range of viewing angles that retain adequate visibility levels. Its 1920 x 1080pixel resolution on a screen of its size will pose questions about pixelation and graininess, but the display is largely faultless.
And the screens’ matte finish becomes an inadvertent anti-glare tool when the laptop is used in brightly lit spaces, The display experiences minimal color distortion and offers 97% of sRGB, but 75% of Adobe RGB, the color gamut preferred by designers.
Keyboard and touchpad
A lot of laptop keyboards are getting rid of the numeric keys To afford a centralized keyboard and trackpad. That path is towed by our review laptop, and it makes typing more comfortable.
The keyboard is decent with the highlight being the per-key RGB that creates a fascinating scene during gameplay. The keys feel a little bit cushioned, and the travel distance is short for a gaming laptop under 1500 bucks, but we’ve gotten used to that. The TrackPad is placed beneath the keyboard, it is made of glass, and its large size offers greater cursor control over swipes, taps, and clicks.
Audio
The keyboard is laid out in such a way that a couple of upward-facing speakers are fixed on either side of it. The highlight of this laptops’ audio includes an apparent stereo separation that is perfect for gaming, the sounds hit close to home with little distortion at high volumes. The downside is that this high volume(above 100Hz) is the gateway for bass to surface in the sounds.
Performance
The Razer Blade Pro 17 is one of the fastest laptops available with RTX 2060. And with the 9th-gen six-core i7-9750H, you get a base clock speed of 2.6GHz and a Turbo Boost of 4.5GHz. This means that tasks are executed more promptly. Backed by 16GB of RAM and a Six-core CPU, this laptop is capable of running the most processor-intensive AAA games hitch-free.
Graphics
The RTX 2060 GPU in this laptop has been found to run at faster clock rates than other laptops with the same GPU. This results in reduced lag times, and greater heat production.
Graphic performance remains more stable at high or medium quality, as averse to Ultra-level graphics. And that is despite a couple of benchmark tests predicting healthy framerates of 60fps for games running at Ultra-level graphics on this laptop.
Another trick Ior enjoying optimum GPU performance is to enable Turbo mode through “Synapse”; a platform that was designed with the gamers in mind.
Gaming
This laptop possesses the right mix of ingredients for a enthralling gaming experience. A stunning display, refresh rate of 144Hz, immersive audio, and an outstanding GPU.
The RTX 2060 is equipped with the brawns required to run the most demanding titles at 1080p on maximum or near-maximum settings. Most games can run at a decent 60fps. And there is a ray-tracing support feature, intended for games to look great without impacting the quality of gameplay.
Battery
What is it with gaming laptops and weak batteries? Well, The Razer Blade Pro 17 doesn’t seek to change the narrative. With a 70.5 Wh battery, a significant downgrade from the previous model, and the smaller Razer Blade 15, this laptop leaves much to be desired. A meager 3-4 hours of usage is what you get with this laptop, or a real-world WLAN runtime of 4.5 hours. On the brighter side, there is improved battery efficiency with this laptop, and it takes 1.5 hours to charge from zero to 100%
Cooling
The makers of this laptop get bonus points for their Innovative cooling techniques. This laptop ditches the traditional heat pipes for a novel Vapour chamber that maximizes heat dissipation for high performance by using its entire surface area.
As if that wasn’t enough, there are four fans(yes, you read that right) in this laptop that serve to push air through the exhaust vents at the hinge. The best part is that the noise of the fans can be managed by setting to ” balanced mode”, by shaking things up in “Synapse” or by using Nvidia’s whisper. You get a much cooler and quieter laptop, with some little compromise in performance level.
Final Verdict
The Razer Blade Pro 17 offers all the niceties of a mobile workstation and a gaming laptop. The processors are efficient and the display is decent, and there is a fair selection of ports.
There are legitimate concerns about the battery and energy-intensive processors that are addressed by a seeming overkill of cooling options.
And although the Full HD display is impressive, a 4k screen would be more fitting for this laptop to allow for better color control. This is a nice laptop with more pros than cons.
Razer Blade Pro 17 – Device Specifications
Razer Blade Pro 17 2019
Screen
17.3 inch, 1920 x 1080 px, IPS, 144 Hz, matte, AU Optronics
Processor
Intel 9th Gen Coffee Lake i7-9750H CPU, Hexa-core 2.6 GHz (4.5 GHz boost)
Graphics
Intel HD 630 and NVIDIA GeForce 2060
Memory
16 GB DDR4 2667Mhz (2×8 GB DIMMs)
Storage
512 GB M.2 NVMe (Samsung PM981 MZVLB512HAJQ)
Connectivity
Intel Wireless AX200, Bluetooth 5.0
Ports
3x USB-A 3.2 gen2, 2x USB-C (1x Thunderbolt 3, 1x 3.2), HDMI 2.0, Lan, SD card reader, headphone/mic
Battery
70.5 Wh, 230 W charger
Size
395 mm or 15.55” (w) x 260 mm or 10.24” (d) x 19.9 mm or .78” (h)
Weight
2.75 kg (6.06 lbs)
Extras
Individually lit RGB keyboard, large clickpad, HD Windows hello webcam, stereo speakers, SD card reader