Razer Blade 17 (2022) review: faster and cooler than ever

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If you're after a minimalist, dead-serious-looking gaming laptop, the one to get is the one from Razer. Its design is similar to Microsoft's Surface Laptop 4, a laptop that was made for gaming. When it comes to build quality, port selection, and having an excellent keyboard and trackpad combo, the Blade line is unbeatable.

There are a variety of sizes and price points for the Blade gaming laptops. For people who want the biggest, most powerful blade in the knife block, the 2022, Blade 17 brings the heat without bringing too much actual heat.

Though the Blade 17 looks similar to prior versions from the outside, its fans and cooling system keep it running cooler and quieter than before. Even though it has even more powerful specifications. That includes a faster Intel 12th Gen processor and faster graphics.

There are a couple of new form and function additions that are available in all of the Razer models, like bigger keycaps and laser-cut speaker grilles. This iteration of the Blade 17 has the same features as the late-2021 iteration, but with a different camera.

The Blade 17 starts at $2,699.99, but the model I tested costs $3,999.99. It's the same price as the GE 76 Raider, which has a faster Core i9 processor and faster RTX 3080 Ti, along with more storage, but an FHD display.

The black aluminum of the Blade 17 feels high-end and cohesive. If you want to see how little has changed over the years, look at the pictures from our 2020 review and the pictures from our 2019 review. The company's three-headed snake logo on the display is the only splashes of color on the case. The laptop is the physical embodiment of darkness.

The bar was low, but the new fingerprint-resistant coating works as advertised, just like I noted in my review of the thinner-than-ever 2021 Blade 15 Advanced. It is now easier to keep a laptop that is presentable than it was before. After a day of use, the blade 17 still picks up fingerprints and smudges. If you are a person who takes breaks and runs their fingers through your hair or face, you can use a grease multiplier to turn your Blade's matt finish into a shiny one.

You can choose from a variety of panels with different resolutions and refresh rates for the 17.3-inch display. The QHD / 240Hz G-sync panel in our review model is the best place for video and photo editors to look for mouse pointers. It provides a boost in detail above FHD without costing anything to upgrade, and more games will run well at its native location.

• 17.3-inch IPS QHD 240Hz, matte non-touchscreen, G-Sync, 300 nits
• 15.5 x 10.24 x 0.78 inches, 6.06 pounds
• Intel Core i7-12800H (14-core, 1.8GHz base clock, 4.8GHz boost clock)
• Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti (16GB vRAM, 165W TGP, 1,395MHz boost clock)
• 32GB dual-channel DDR5 4800MHz (two slots, upgradeable to 64GB)
• 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD (one open M.2 slot, room for up to 4TB)
• Windows Hello 1080p IR webcam
• Wi-Fi 6E 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.2
• Three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one 2.5Gb Ethernet port, a power port, HDMI 2.1, UHS-II SD card reader
• 82Whr battery
• 280W adapter (also has support for 54W USB-C charging)
• See more specs here

The screen is fast, but the display is great. It is full of detail, with accurate colors and satisfying contrast. The FHD panel fully covers the sRGB gamut, while the 4K option has 100 percent coverage of the AdobeRGB color gamut. The colors and contrast on the screen hold up even when you aren't looking at it straight-on, so you can watch a movie or a game with a friend on the couch. It has a bright peak brightness of 300 nits. The number is comparable to other gaming laptops, but below the 500 nits of brightness that the MacBook Pro and Dell XPS 13 can provide, to name a few examples.

The display isn't necessarily hurt by it being a 16:9 aspect ratio since it's so big, but I would love to see it move to the taller 16:10 aspect ratio. The 16-inch screens on gaming laptops are better for reading content, browsing the web, or for watching movies, which is why more of them are shifting to this aspect ratio. Changing this laptop's name to the Blade 16 is what that spec requires.

The Blade 17 is close to being the top-of-the-line model, and it easily shows in just about every use case. It has a 14-core Intel Core i7-12800H processor, 32GB ofDDR5 RAM, 1TB of NVMe storage, and a new graphics chip from Nvidia.

The power envelope for the new graphics chip was increased considerably. The RTX 3080 Ti in this laptop has a boost clock of 1,395MHz, compared to the late 2021 model that had an RTX 3080 with 130W of total graphics power. I was impressed that Razer raised the power, and initially a little frightened of what it might mean for producing heat and a lot of fan noise. Neither of those had much of an issue here. The fans did not eclipse the game audio. They were louder without game audio, but it wasn't as loud as some other gaming laptops I've tried.

The Blade 17 has plenty of warm air, but it doesn't feel like a giant heatsink, like some of the previous models we've tested. I wouldn't recommend using it on your lap unless you have a lap desk, as its bottom gets warm and some of its intake fans are located there.

The Blade 17 ran at an average of 72 frames per second, starting with Red Dead Redemption 2 and running at QHD resolution and ultra graphics settings. The performance went up to 83 frames per second with the use of Nvidia's supersampling tech. I'm impressed with the numbers at QHD resolution for a 17.3-inch laptop. The game runs well above 60 frames per second and it gets extra points for it.

The Blade 17's limits were more apparent in Cyberpunk 2077's new graphical benchmark that was released within the game. The benchmark ran at an average of 25 frames per second at QHD resolution with ultra graphical settings. This is one of the most system-intensive games available right now, so it is not a total failure.

Performance gets a lot better with help. The benchmark ran at an average of 67 frames per second with those same-out settings maxed out. The graphics performance was boosted to an average of 81 frames per second when the ray tracing feature was turned off.

The Shadow of the Tomb Raider's highest settings are 70 frames per second and in QHD resolution, and without any help from the DLSS, this Razer Blade 17 could do it. The performance went up to 105 frames per second. The benchmark ran at an average of 94 frames per second and 101 frames per second. It's really impressive across the board.

The trade-off is size and weight. The 6.06-pound weight of the Blade 17 makes it difficult to move around or travel with. You will need to make room for the 280W power adapter, which weighs a couple more pounds.

The video export test in Adobe Premiere Pro shows how long it takes to export a 5 minute, 33 second 4K file. The laptops that we have reviewed are extremely fast at exporting video. This one took two minutes, 29 seconds to complete. The GE 76 Raider has a faster Core i9-12900HK processor and takes just one minute, 56 seconds to export. Alienware's 14-inch X14 is fast with its 3-minute, 1-second export time. If you are a creator, you may want the fastest processor available, but we have had good experiences with other options at this point. The Puget Bench benchmark on the Blade 17 performed nearly as well as the Alienware X17 R1 in terms of performance metrics in Premiere Pro.

I didn't expect much out of the battery life. The Blade Pro 17 sat at under three hours in our previous reviews. The battery has been increased from 70.5Wh to 82Wh. I got three hours of productivity from this new one. The only things that were running were 12 tabs within Microsoft Edge. If you are traveling with the Blade 17 and plan to game, don't forget its 280W power brick. It can get a charge through one of its ports at up to 54W. It won't be able to run at full power without a full-size power adapter. I would only use this charging method to top it up while it was sleeping because 54W wasn't powerful enough to keep the Blade 17 from running out of battery capacity.

The size of the keycaps on the keyboard was increased by a small amount. I can't say that it affected my experience in a significant way, but I did try to deliver a typing experience that wouldn't feel foreign for desktop users. The keyboard layout is mostly unchanged from last year's model, except for moving the power button from its previous location to a dedicated spot above the backspace key. I am not sold on it being a necessary change, but the enlarged keycaps kept me from accidentally hitting it.

The power key was added more resistance to by Razer than the others. I noticed this in Alienware's X14, but it was too easy to press with the blade. One of the best keyboards in the business is from Razer. It feels familiar and comfortable to use, even though I haven't tested any of the laptops yet. It is not likely that I will warm up to the new power button location.

The port selection of the big blade 17 is usually the best. You won't be able to get on the Blade 15 and below if you are on the left and right sides. Other ports include a full-sizedSD card reader, a full-sizedHDMI port, a full-sized Thunderbolt 4 port, a full-sized headphone jack, and a 280W power plug.

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it. It is impossible for us to read and analyze all of these agreements. We started counting how many times you have to agree to use devices when we review them.

The Blade 17 presents you with a number of things to agree to or decline upon setup.

An agreement is required for the mandatory policies.

• A request for your region and keyboard layout
• Microsoft Software License Terms

There are a lot of optional things to agree to.

• Connect to Wi-Fi network
• Sign in with a Microsoft account (if you decline to do this, you’ll create a username and password for an offline account)
• Device privacy settings: Find My Device, Inking and Typing, Advertising ID, Location, Diagnostic data, Tailored experiences
• Allow Microsoft to collect information (including your location and location history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing history, search history, calendar details, content and communication history from Microsoft services, messages and apps, and Microsoft Edge browsing history) to let Cortana provide personalized experiences and relevant suggestions
• Set up OneDrive
• Start free trials of Microsoft 365 and Game Pass

There are three mandatory agreements and 13 optional ones.

The speaker performance in the Blade 17 is better. Under the speaker grilles that flank the keyboard, there are four tweeters and four subs that claim to power better stereo sound, especially with its THX spatial audio app built-in. I preferred the sound quality with the setting off. I felt the same about game audio. Music and games sound too airy and shrill when they are played through the speakers.

I'm not sure if the name of the Blade 17 should be shared with the subs. While the sound is pleasant for those rare moments when I don't feel like grabbing my headphones, I don't agree with Razer that sound quality is one of the Blade 17's defining qualities.

The last year-to-year change that you might frequently use has received some noticeable improvements. It still produces a grainy image that struggles with exposure, but the color accuracy, white balance, and detail are good enough to be relied on in a pinch. It is a noticeable improvement over the 720p cameras that Razer used. The laptop webcams are still bad, but this one is less so. If you live in Zoom during the workday, you may want to get a betterWebcam.

A buying decision for a big, expensive gaming laptop is usually based on how powerful it is and how much it costs. If you want a laptop with an appealing and thin design, a stellar keyboard and a bunch of power, the Blade 17 is a good option. This year's model is a particularly good one, if still quite expensive.

The Verge has a photography by Cameron Faulkner.