Razer has announced the new Blade 17 Pro laptop which it says it’s built for professional gamers, designers and game developers. I’m not a game developer and I’m only somewhat professional gamer(if reviewing games counts) but I otherwise fit the bill. The new Blade 17 brings Intels 10th Gen processors, a 4K 120Hz ro 1080p 3000Hz display that’s powered by an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 or 2080 SUPER GPUs. Sounds like heaven.
Brad Wildes, Senior Vice President of Razers Systems Business says the Blade 17 is a workstation, stream setup, and battle rig all wrapped up in one sleek and sexy 17-inch bundle. That sleek package starts at $2600 USD or about $3700 AUD. It weighs a fairly hefty 2.75kg but the chassis is still pretty skinny at only 0.78-inches.
Razer is pretty excited about the absurdly fast 300Hz display that comes with the new model. While Asus brought such a panel several months ago, it’s still quite something to get in a 17.3-inch size with 100% sRGB coverage as well as being custom calibrated for colour accuracy. The display is also matte coated which reduces glare. In case you’re a pixel snob like me, there’s also a 4K, 120Hz touch panel. I’m not the biggest fan of laptop touch screens but a gorgeous Ultra high definition screen with a high refresh is more than welcome.
It’s unlikely that the Blade 17 Pro can actually run AAA games in 4K ultra settings anywhere near 120Hz but if you play Fortnite or CS:Go, with reduced settings, this is entirely viable. Powering the displays on the Blade 17 Pro are NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER and 2080 SUPER. The new GPU’s feature high-bandwidth GDDR6 RAM and more ray-tracing cores than non-SUPER cards for a 25% performance increase.
The Blade 17 Pro doesn’t just have graphical prowess though. The new Intel Comet Lake processors are here and they are great. The new laptops start with a Core i7-10875H which as you can tell from our recent review of the Gigabyte AERO 17 HDR, is a beast. The 8-core chip can certainly hold its own against AMD’s Ryzen 7 mobile processor and works great in games.
To keep everything cool, Razer has refined its vapor chamber cooling system for more efficient heat dissipation. It’s paired with a dual-fan system which improves overall airflow and keeps things cool allowing the Blade 17 Pro to maintain high performance for longer.
But to truly be a machine for professionals, the Blade 17 Pro needs great connectivity. The new Blade is well equipped with a host of USB Type A and Type C ports so you don’t have to deal with that dongle life. And finally, the Blade 17 Pro supports USB-C charging via 20V chargers. So any Galaxy S charger should be able to power this beast.
Photographers and videographers will appreciate the UHS-III SD card reader and USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port and HDMI 2.0b for connecting to high-res external monitors. WiFi 6 is onboard for ultrafast wireless connectivity and an ethernet port for wired connections. For all those Zoom calls you are undoubtedly making, the Blade 17 Pro has an HD Webcam built-in which also has an IR sensor for Windows Hello.
Razer has also brought the redesigned keyboard to the Blade 17 Pro. The new design gets rid of the annoying arrow/ shift key situation for a more traditional layout. The keyboard wouldn’t be a Razer board if it didn’t have per key Razer Chroma RGB lighting with all the usual flourishes.
