Razer Blade 15 Advanced Edition (2021): Portable, Powerful, and Slick

The Razer Blade 15, a perennial favorite among gaming laptops for its premium metal chassis and slick, slim design, has reached new heights this year.

- MATTHEW BUZZI

The 2021 Blade 15 Advanced Edition (starts at $2,499; $2,899 as tested) now carries Nvidia’s GeForce RTX “Ampere” 30 Series GPUs, unlocking a new level of gaming performance—and our test unit’s RTX 3080 can leverage the fast 240Hz refresh rate of its desktop-caliber 1440p display. Add a Core i7 CPU, 1TB of solid-state storage (both present in all models), 32GB of RAM (in our tester), a useful complement of ports, and nearly nine hours of battery life, and there’s a whole lot to love. Yes, it’s expensive, but this Razer represents the best of the best in the premium gaming space, earning an Editors’ Choice award for its reasonable portability, high build quality, and screaming speed.

RAZER THIN: A SLIM METAL MONSTER

A few years back, Razer modernized the Blade 15 with a squarer look and thinner screen bezels. Since then, it’s had only a few iterative changes, but that’s no cause for complaint. The Blade 15’s svelte build remains one of the sleekest among gaming laptops in terms of style, quality, and portability, all while ramping up the power under the hood. The all-black paint job, sharp edges, and clean look create a striking silhouette that several competitors have mirrored in their more recent designs.

The Blade 15 was one of the first high-end gaming laptops to be reasonably portable in a world of hefty slabs. This iteration measures 0.67 by 14 by 9.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.4 pounds, plenty thin and relatively light while packing more power than before. (It’s actually slightly thinner than the previous version, which was 0.7 inch thick.)