Customer Ratings & Reviews

I have been back and forth what feels like a hundred times over what laptop to get. In the past, it wasn't really an issue. I would just get a light and thin laptop, and then use a relatively powerful PC at home to play games and do my photo-editing on. But I wanted to move away from using two separate machines, and just get ONE unit to suffice for both needs. This was a bit of a challenge. For laptops I've owned Macbook pro's (both 13" and 15"), Surface pros, the i7 first gen surface book, Asus strix 15" gaming, Dell XPS 15 9550, Sony's (back when they still made laptops), even several MSI models, all with the desire to find something that works for the multitude of functions I use a mobile PC these days. Build: The first important factor I was looking for was overall build quality. Fit and finish may not be important to you, but for me it was paramount. As a user of Macbook Pro's in the past, I was certainly spoiled by the advantages of a CNC machined aluminum uni-body chassis. The two "close enoughs" I found in other models were the Surface Book (from Microsoft, with a full Magnesium body shell) and the Dell XPS 9550 (With aluminum top and bottoms, but plastic interior. Both of these other products felt "good enough" to get past that hurdle, but there were performance issues with both. The Blade has that full unibody construction, so no compromises there. If i'm going to spend this much on a computer, I don't want plastic. Performance: The second main area in what I was shopping for was over-all performance, and application specific performance. I wanted something that was zippy for everyday use (Web-browsing, word, excel, etc) but also had the guts to tackle AAA game titles, intense photo editing, video editing, and even DAW (Digital audio workstation, think ProTools) use. That's a rather tall order to overcome. The aforementioned Asus and MSI models all had the raw performance I was looking (in spades no less) but lacked the build quality, and were ginormous machines to boot. The Blade has the chops to handle everything I've thrown at it so far, with little to no hesitation. The GTX 1060 graphics card can work through some of the most challenging titles on the market and lend itself to graphics accelerated photo-editing programs. The quad-core i7 processor leaves very little to be desired when demanding tasks are presented to it. The m.2 SSD hard-drive is stupendously fast. All in all, very impressed with the performance. Portability: Lets be honest, even with the best build quality and the best perfomance on the market, if I can't fit the darn thing in my laptop bag / backpack, whats the point of it being a "portable"? If the thing only has 3 hours of battery life, whats the point of taking it out of the house if I ALWAYS have to have it connected to the wall? The short answer is that there is no point. I wanted all of the performance and I wanted the ability to ACTUALLY use it on the go for extended periods of time. The Macs, Surfaces, and Dells, all went out of their way in that department. But they almost universally ignored the performance side of things (relative to price point). This is another area where the Blade fails to disappoint. With screen brightness at recommended mobile levels, and while not trying to play games or do other intensive tasks, the Blade delivers 6-7+ hours of usable battery life. Not the "best" but considering the horsepower this thing has under the hood, its like a dodge viper getting 40 miles to the gallon: Somewhat unexpected. The last of my absolute must-haves for this purchase is the ports. It's shocking to think that this would have actually become an issue, but with the recent MacBook Pro announcement where they removed every port sans the headphone jack (ironic) and 4 usb-c ports, thus necessitating the need to use and carry dongles around for literally everything you need to plug in, the Blades retention of "legacy" (read: necessary) ports, is a welcome pro. The Blade keeps 3 USB 3.1 ports, 1 USB-C, HDMI, Headphone, and the ever-present kensington lock port. The only, and admittedly subjective, con I can really come up with is that there is no 32GB memory option and there is no way to upgrade the memory yourself, as it is soldered onto the motherboard. I have no "dire" need for more than 16GB right now, but that may change in the near future. That and no SD card reader... c'mon people. Outside of that, the 2016 Blade 14 is an absolutely stunning piece of hardware, and a rare gem in the really rough sea that is the "performance" mobile computing market. I was so happy to see Best Buy picking this item up for sale.

Other than a few lemon problems I had ( where screen flickers ) the product has overperformed all my expectations, runs almost any game I can think of at ultra, good product small profile

This is in a class of its own, when it comes to power and asthetics. The portable gaming and processing capability is why I bought it, I am sure you can find cheaper versions of the same build in other laptops but when you get this you will know why it's different from the crowd.

it a best laptop for everyone like playing game online.

Bought this laptop after trying a few others that all had things that were a deal breaker for me. This laptop is beautifully designed, sound is phenomenal, keyboard is every chroma fans dream in a laptop and for how great it is it's still so slim no one would know your a hard core gamer.

I bought this laptop because of it's speed and the graphics quality. I am very much enjoying the product and have recommended my friends to buy it. I am enjoying playing all my video games.

Went on site they did not have it I stick. Sales person help order on line and get it to me before xmas. Son loves his gift.

The laptop I received had a problem with its screen. The screen kept flickering, so I tried to get replaced unit. However, the customer service said, since my laptop was 15 days older, they were not able to replace it, but they could fix it for free. How ridiculous it is.

So... I tried 3 of these, not 1, or 2, but 3. Long story short, you end up putting your money on a system that's not worth it. If you are coming from a macbook pro, you will love it, if you have any idea what a gaming portable machine should work/look like, you will realize you are just wasting money. There are many premium level systems which are cheaper than this so I can settle for "better" components when in reality their are par to their competitors and the performance (differentiating factor) is not there. Why am I disappointed? Easy, the laptop is expensive and it doesn't perform, so it is not a gaming laptop as advertised. I paid 2.3k for it and: 1) the first one was having a screen issue where the screen would only light up when the mouse was working (bad motherboard) 2) the second one would not game at all, games would be choppy and the performance not consistent with other GTX 160 laptops, at all. Not even close. 3) Razer released a "fix" which removed a CPU problem which would produce the aforementioned choppiness, yet the laptop would not game as an Asus / MSI which are from 3 to 5 hundred dollars less. What I did like about the laptop: -Aluminium build is good, slim and very very portable. -The screen is at par with high end IPS panels, although some backlight bleed is perceived. This is not the case in other ~300 nits displays out there. -The speakers are ok, although they distort at high volume if the enhancer (Dolby) is on ... aceptable and good quality for 14 inches. -The LIGHTS (only the lights) on the keyboard. What I did not like: - Gaming experience for the price is not cool, at all. Sure, people can "settle" on less performance for form factor, but many other 14 inches (which there are) and slim 15.6 inches game 5-10% more than this. - Fans are LOUD, all the way, even on low load, they are always on, buzzing all over the room. I guess you can brain-cancel them after a couple of hours though. - Keyboard is shallow, th typing experience is not satisfying for me. - Lack of ports... no Ethernet, no mini display, no sd card, no nothing... 3 usbs and a thunderbolt which is still not even widely used. - Storage is mediocre for the price, speeds are not good from stock, you need to either buy the 1 TB model or upgrade a single option drive with NVME. - HOURS AND HOURS of technical troubleshooting to either install a fix, overclock the system to game semi-decently, deal with other bugs such as low battery life which can be resolved etc... Finally, Razer support did came up with a pseudo fix (which is disabling a CPU signal coming from their own Firmware) after people complained and returned all the "wave 1" units, but in the meantime, they did not declarations nor helped people. The fix, finally, is nothing but a patch which will make your 2.3k laptop perform way subpar.