Each year at CES, Razer brings new gaming technology to its popular Blade 15 gaming laptop. Not to be bested by other manufacturers, this year Razer has brought an exciting new 1440p display option to the mix to match the new graphics capabilities inside.
In the past, Razer offered both a gaming-oriented 1080p option with a sky-high refresh rate, as well as creative-focused 4K model stuck at 60Hz. This new 1440p model isn’t just a middle-ground option — it reflects the improved gaming performance made possible by the new Nvidia RTX 30-series graphics inside. The fact that Razer included a 240Hz refresh rate on a 1440p screen should tell you something about just how fast these Blades could be.
The 2021 Razer Blade 15 includes options for the new RTX graphics cards, either the RTX 3070 to the 3080, as well as Intel’s latest 10th-gen H-series processors, with up to eight cores.
The $2,899 1440p model also comes with G-Sync, Nvidia’s anti-screen-tearing feature that’s long been missing on the Blade laptops. Razer says G-Sync shouldn’t reduce the battery life of the laptop too much outside of gaming, thanks to the use of Nvidia’s Advanced Optimus, which allows the system to switch between discrete and integrated graphics. This model also comes with 2.5 millisecond response time, compared to the 2.0 millisecond response time of the 1080p models.
Speaking of which, the 1080p Razer Blade has once again bumped up its refresh rate, this time to a blazing 360Hz. Only time will tell if we’ve finally hit the endgame for refresh rate, but each year, it keeps increasing more and more. Razer offers three different versions of the 1080p model: 240Hz for $2,499, 360Hz for $2,599, and the RTX 3080 with 360Hz for $2,999.
The 4K model is also being updated and is the only Blade that has the full RTX 3080 with 16GB of VRAM. This model starts at $3,299.
The other change to the lineup is in storage. Razer has bumped all the configurations up to 1TB of SSD storage, up from 512GB. Razer says its done this without adding to thel cost.
Razer has also brought the same processor and graphics updates to the Razer Blade Pro 17, though a 1440p option will remain exclusive to the 15-inch models.
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