Razer Blade 16 (2025)

A gorgeous OLED display, impactful audio and Ryzen AI chip make this a great all-rounder, but others extract more from the GPU

- MADELINE RICCHIUTO

PRICE As reviewed, £3,250 (£3,900 inc VAT) from razer.​com

The moment I saw the new Blade 16 at CES in January, I had concerns. Such a slim design, far thinner than the 2024 model (see issue 359, p60), surely came with a trade-off in performance? Another question mark was over Razer's choice of a non-gaming CPU in the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series; last year's model used Intel's non-Al but gaming-friendly Core i9-14900HX.

Fast-forward to this laptop arriving in our labs configured with the top-of-the-range RTX 5090, which is reflected in its £3,900 price. The base model of the new Blade 16 costs £2,700, which buys you an AMD Ryzen Al 9 365 processor, 12GB GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics, a 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM and a 16in, 2,560 x 1,600, 240Hz OLED display (as used in all the models).

You can upgrade to an RTX 5080 for £400, with further options to double the RAM and the storage, or even opt for a 4TB setup based on two 2TB SSDs. The most expensive option ships with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, 64GB of RAM and 4TB of storage for £4,300. My test unit had that spec but with a single 2TB SSD.

Gaming ups and downs

So, was I right to be concerned? There was only one way to find out, and that was to put this laptop through its paces, then compare it to the previous Razer Blade 16 and two other RTX 50 series laptops we've already tested.

To say performance was mixed is an understatement. While the 2025 Razer Blade 16 often outperforms its predecessor, on occasion it lost out to last year's i9-14900HX and 4090 model. Assassin's Creed: Mirage and Far Cry 6 were the two biggest outliers, with the 4090 averaging up to 15fps higher than the 5090.