The new Razer Blade 17 has been revealed, offering up boosted graphics and processing power thanks to the latest Nvidia GPUs and new Intel 11th Gen Core H-series processors.
Razer may have dropped the "Pro" nomenclature the pervious Blade 17 had, but it's no less pro, given it now has access to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3070 and GeForce RTX 3060, as well as the Core i7 11800H or Core i9 11900H.
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With the GPUs granted access up to 130 watts of power (more than the GPUs in the Blade 15 Advanced) and the Intel Core H-series CPUs able to boost up to 4.6GHz and 4.9GHz respectively, the new Blade 17 isn't likely to lack gaming grunt.
Yet Razer has manged to keep its flagship laptop basically the same as the older Blade Pro 17; the new laptop measures 15.55 x 10.24 x 0.78 inches and weighs 6.06 pounds. An improved vapor chamber will apparently keep the laptop's powerful innards cool despite the extra wattage.
As the name suggests, the Blade 17 sports a 17.3-inch display that comes in a Full HD and QHD resolutions with 165Hz, 240Hz or 360Hz refresh rates. There's a 4K touch screen option as well with a 120Hz refresh rate.
Other key specs include up to 32GB of RAM, which should appeal to creative professionals. Storage starts at 512GB, though a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD is the most common option across the variety of configurations, with another M.2 slot to upgrade the storage further.
The overall design of the Racer Blade 17 remains very similar to its predecessor. But the CNC aluminium chassis now has an anti-fingerprint coating and the trackpad has improved palm rejection. A quad speaker setup uses THX Spatial Audio to deliver a form of virtual 7.1 surround sound.
Port selection remains unchanged with a trio of USB 3.2 connections, one USB-C 3.2 for power delivery, and a pair of USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4.
With this refresh, the Blade 17 looks set to take on the likes of the Alienware m17 R4 and compete for a spot on our best gaming laptops list. But be aware that prices start at $2,299 in the U.S. and £2,299 in the U.K. — models with the GeForce RTX 3080 top out at $3,599 and £3,399 respectively. You can pre-order the Blade 17 in the U.S. from Razer right now.
Razer Blade 15 Base model gets an Intel refresh
The Blade 15 Base models, aka the entry-level Blade 15, has also been given a refresh.
The new Base model now comes with two PCIe 4.0 SSD slots, Thunderbolt 4 connectivity and the Intel Core i7-11800H processor.
Keeping things simple, there are only three models to chose from with the only variations being the choice between the GeForce RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 and a FHD 144hz display or QHD screen with a 165Hz refresh rate. The new Blade 15 Base can be pre-ordered today and starts at $1,699 and £1,699.
We'd expect the Blade 15 Advanced to get a refresh at a later date, as it already has access to the latest Nvidia GPUs, though it has to make do with 10th-gen Intel processors; Razer could be considering the making a switch to AMD Ryzen CPUs like it did with the Razer Blade 14.
