Razer Blade 15 (2022)

A high price and poor battery life, but if you want staggering gaming power in a sleek chassis, buy it

- JOHN LOEFFLER

PRICE £2,583 (£3,100 inc VAT) from razer.com

The Razer Blade 15 has long been the MacBook Pro of gaming laptops, and this 2022 update continues the trend. The all-black anodised CNC aluminium finish is still gorgeous and slim, yet Razer packs in a plethora of ports: Thunderbolt 4 plus USB-C, three USB-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 output and Gigabit Ethernet. Considering it measures 17mm from top to bottom, that's quite a feat.

The keyboard is as comfortable as ever, with per-key RGB lighting that looks refined rather than garish; a major plus point compared to many gaming laptops. It seems odd not to exploit more of the chassis width by enlarging the keys, but that leaves space for the superb up-firing speakers. Razer makes much of the THX Spatial Audio, with its support for 7.1 surround sound, but in reality most gamers will stick with their headphones.

I tested the version of the Razer Blade 15 with a 360Hz Full HD panel, which covers 100% of the sRGB colour space and offers 2ms response times. Although it doesn't support Nvidia G-Sync, games look sharp. When you're spending this much, though, you may decide a QHD (2,560 x 1,440) panel makes more sense, especially when this version of the Blade 15 not only supports G-Sync but also delivers richer colours (Razer says 100% of DCI-P3, but we measured 87%). Colour accuracy is superb, too, with an average Delta E of 0.25.