Firstly, the Blade 14 has a MacBook-like build quality since Razer always employs the use of CNC aluminum, so the entire laptop screams ‘premium.’ The display is a 14-inch IPS LCD with a 1440p resolution that supports up to a 165Hz refresh rate, making it a solid panel for color-accurate work, content consumption, and of course, gaming. Speaking of gaming, the Blade 14 is equipped with an 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, along with an 8GB GDDR6 RTX 3080 GPU. However, the RTX 3080 in this Razer notebook is running at up to a 100W power limit, which is lower than what the GPU runs in bigger laptops, but that was expected given the limited cooling space of the gaming laptop. Regardless, it is still impressive that the company was able to cram in a graphics processor in a package this thin and small. You also get 16GB DDR4 of RAM which is soldered to the motherboard, so there is no way to upgrade it; keep that in mind before proceeding with your purchase. There is also a single M.2 slot, which is populated with a 1TB SSD, but you can upgrade it down the road if you feel that is not enough. Again, due to space limitations, the Razer Blade 14 features a 61.6Whr battery, which should give you a few hours away from the wall, but do not expect an all-day battery. Fortunately, despite its size, there is a healthy assortment of ports, and the keyboard features per-key RGB lighting, assuming that matters to you. In addition, modern-day wireless adapters such as Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 are also supported. Now, we are confident that many will comment, recommending buyers to pick something else, but in the 14-inch gaming laptop category, Razer is as good as it is going to get. While $1,999.99 is still a premium to pay, given what the Blade 14 packs underneath the hood, it is a rock-solid product.
