Razer Blade 15 Advanced: At First Glance
Razer is a brand that is well known for its premium range of laptops. Although it recently ventured into the design of budget laptops, the Blade series still falls under the high-end category.
Razer advertised the Blade 15 Advanced as the world’s smallest gaming laptop. Therefore, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced is more about the design and it didn’t disappoint in this respect.
Furthermore, Razer Blade 15 Advanced – which sits pretty at a price tag of $2,138 – is the improved version of the Razer Blade 15 Base Edition.
Now that you know that this laptop costs a little over $2,000 let’s get into the business of helping you decide if the laptop is worth spending this amount of money!
Razer Blade 15 Advanced: Design, Dimension & Weight
The Razer Blade 15 Advanced’s chassis is made of aluminum, which gives it a sophisticated and premium look. Additionally, it has a matte-black finish, which unfortunately easily gets covered in fingerprints.
At the center of its lid, you will spot the distinct Razer’s three-headed snake logo which lights up in lemon-green.
On lifting the lid, you will see the 15 inch display which is surrounded by slim bezels especially on its sides. These slim bezels gives the Razer Blade 15 Advanced its proper modern look.
Moving your gaze away from the display towards the deck, you will find the nicely centered cricket-styled keyboard.
The keyboard features an RGB backlighting system for each key on the keyboard. You can personalize the backlight on the keys with the Razer Synapse software.
We would have been totally impressed by the keyboard if its keys didn’t seem to sink into the laptop. Also, it was quite a hassle finding the power button which hides away in one of the upward-firing speakers.
Speaking of the keys, they have a shallow key travel and a decent force of actuation. It might take a while to get used to typing with the keyboard but sooner you will get a hang of it.
Below the keyboard is the 5.1 x 3.2-inch responsive touchpad, allowing fingers to glide over its smooth surface easily. The touchpad supports multi-finger gestures such as three-finger swiping and pinch-to-zoom.
Although the touchpad worked seamlessly, regardless you would likely want to use an external mouse when gaming.
Moving on to its ports, the laptop offers a decent port selection. On the left side, you will find two USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port and a headset jack.
Additionally, on the right side is another USB Type-A port, an HDMI 2.0, and an SD card reader. Still, on the right side, you get a Kensington lock slot and a Thunderbolt 3 port.
You can use the Thunderbolt 3 for connecting to multiple 4K monitors and fast-charging peripherals.
The Razer Blade 15 Advanced has a dimension of 355 x 235 x 17.8 mm and a weight of 2140g. The dimension and weight is an impressive feat for a gaming laptop.
As a result of its compact form factor, it is easier to carry around.
Although this does not translate to the Razer been the lightest laptop. This is attributable to its metallic build.
In comparison, the Razer is lighter than MSI GE66 Raider that measures 358.14 x 266.7 x 22.86 mm and weighs 2404.04 g. Razer Blade 15 Advanced is also lighter than Gigabyte Aorus 15G with a dimension of 355.6 x 249.9 x 580.64 mm and a weight of 2222.6 g.
The Razer Blade 15 Advanced has one major drawback. We were a bit concerned about the heat generated during gaming as a result of its slim chassis.
The metallic build of the laptop only made this worse. Due to its potential to generate heat, I strongly recommend that you place the laptop on a desk when gaming for long sessions.
Overall, I will rate the Razer Blade 15 advanced an eight for its design.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced: Processor (CPU) Performance
Razer equipped the Razer Blade 15 Advanced with an 8-core Intel Core i7-10875H. This processor has a base speed of 2.30 GHz, a maximum speed of 5.10 GHz, and a 16 MB cache memory.
In terms of processor power, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced is a beastly multitasking laptop. To test its multitasking capability, I opened two Google Chrome sessions – both had 25 tabs each.
Within the Google Chrome sessions, four of the tabs were playing 1080p YouTube videos. Even with this number of processes running concurrently, the laptop did not lag – the activities ran smoothly.
To further test the processor performance of this laptop, I performed a Cinebench 15 benchmark test. In the cinebench 15 test, Razer Blade 15 Advanced scored 1171 points.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced scored 1171 points slightly surpasses the Acer Predator Triton 500 which scored 1081 points. However, it performed significantly below the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 which scored 1826 points.
Therefore, as a result of its processor performance, I will rate the Razer Blade 15 Advanced a seven.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced: Memory (RAM) Performance
Razer Blade 15 Advanced comes with 16 GB 2933MHz DDR4 memory. The laptop has two RAM slots, with 8 GB RAM in each slot.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced supports a maximum of 64 GB RAM.
If you need to upgrade the Razer’s RAM, you can do so by unscrewing and removing the bottom lid. After removing the lid, replace the RAM sticks with a maximum capacity of 64 GB (32 GB in each RAM slot).
Just like I did with the processor, to be able to make an unbiased assessment of the memory performance of this laptop, I had to run PCMark 10 benchmark test.
Based on the PCMark 10 benchmark test, Razer Blade 15 Advanced scored 5448 points which was below Acer Predator Triton 500 which scored 6086. However, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced performing only marginally better than Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 which scored 5353.
Finally, based on the performance of this laptop’s RAM in comparison to competing laptops, I will rate the Razer Blade 15 Advanced an eight.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced: Storage Options & Performance
Razer shipped the Razer Blade 15 Advanced with a 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD that can be upgraded to 2 TB.
To determine the storage performance of the Razer Blade 15 Advanced, we performed a file transfer test. Our test checks for the transfer speed recorded while copying 25 GB of data.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced copied the data at a speed of 853 MBps. Unfortunately, this performance is below the average premium gaming laptop transfer speed of 877 Mbps.
Moreover, the Razer also underperformed when compared with Lenovo Legion 7 that copied the same file at a speed of 342 Mbps.
Interestingly, the Razer laptop surpassed the Acer Predator Triton 500 which recorded a speed of 724 Mbps. It also outperformed Gigabyte Aorus 15G which recorded a speed of 460 Mbps.
As a result of its RAM performance, I will rate the Razer Blade 15 Advanced an eight.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced: Graphics Card Performance
Razer ships the Razer Blade 15 Advanced with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER with Max-Q. This GPU has a GDRR6 VRAM memory of 8 GB as well as a refresh rate of 300 Hz.
We tested the laptop’s gaming prowess by comparing it with other competing laptops. Unfortunately, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced failed to outpace its competitors.
During our gaming performance test, Razer Blade 15 Advanced ran Assassin’s Creed Odyssey at 1080p resolution and very high settings at 54 fps. Unfortunately, this result is below the average premium gaming laptop frame rates of 60 fps.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced’s frame rates were a tie with that of Gigabyte Aorus 15G. The Gigabyte has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q graphics card and also recorded 54 fps.
However, the frame rate of the Blade 15 was lower than that of the Predator Triton 500 and the Lenovo Legion 7 – both laptops recorded 64 fps playing the same game with the same settings.
Moreover, in a 3D Mark Fire Strike test, Razer Blade 15 Advanced still performed below par by scoring 16573 points. This is below Acer Predator Triton 500 which scored 16839 while farther below Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 which scored 17793.
Bearing in mind that Razer Blade 15 Advanced performed worse than competing laptops in most of my gaming tests – I will rate the graphic performance of Razer Blade 15 Advanced a six.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced: Battery life & Performance Review
Razer equipped the Razer Blade 15 Advanced with an 80 Wh Li-Polymer battery. This battery is expected to deliver 7 hours of backup at standard usage.
In a battery test that involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits (screen brightness), we were disappointed by the laptop’s battery performance. Needless to say that the laptop’s battery performed worse than the expected 7 hours.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced lasted 3 hours and 12 minutes. This performance is below the 5 hours 11 minutes average for premium gaming laptops.
Moreover, its performance is the poorest among the competitors we checked it against.
To offer you some examples, in the same test, Acer Predator Triton 500 lasted 3 hours 46 minutes, while Lenovo Legion 7i lasted 4 hours 37 minutes. Lastly, Gigabyte Aorus 15G lasted 6 hours 16 minutes.
As a result of its relatively poor battery performance, I will rate it a six.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Razer Blade 15 Advanced offers multiple upgrade options. For example, you can upgrade the RAM up to 64GB. Additionally, you can upgrade the SSD storage up to 1 TB.
Yes, the Razer Blade 15 Advanced edition is supported by Synapse 3.
Unfortunately, yes and this is one of the things we don’t like about the laptop. It gets extremely hot when gaming. Therefore, we recommend placing the laptop on a desk when gaming for long hours.
Yes, the camera on the Razer Blade 15 advanced can be used with Windows Hello.
The advanced models feature per-key RGB, which means each key backlight can be individually configured. The Base model features single-zone RGB, meaning the entire keyboard backlight can be configured but not on a per-key basis.
Conclusion
Razer deserves some praise for building the Razer Blade 15 Advanced as a unique laptop. This is due to Razer’s attempt to pack as much power as possible into its minimal form factor.
However, I’m not quite convinced that the Razer Blade 15 Advanced is worth the price tag – which is a little over $2,000.00 when we published this review.
To be honest, Razer Blade 15 Advanced model has a lot of room for improvement. While I love its sleek, compact form factor, its all-metal chassis comes with some disadvantages particularly when it comes to heating.
Moreover, it is also not up to expectation among competing laptops in many other areas including battery life, and gaming performance.
I hope you found this Razer Blade 15 Advanced review helpful? If you found the review helpful, kindly click Yes to “Was this page Helpful?” below.
You could also share your thoughts with the “Leave a Comment” form found at the end of this page.
Finally, for more laptop reviews, visit our Laptop Reviews page. You may also find our Laptop Specs page very helpful.
