Many manufacturers have tried in the past to combine a high level of performance with decent portability and a sophisticated design, and Razer was one of them. Last year, their 14-inch Blade hit all the right spots. It featured a Kaby Lake CPU combined with a GTX 1060 GPU, and it scored very well not just on Notebookcheck.

This year’s 15.6-inch Blade is the spiritual successor to this 14-inch gaming powerhouse. Thanks to its very narrow bezels, its footprint is almost on a par with regular 14-inch notebooks.

However, a brand-new gaming notebook needs to offer much more - especially when it is carrying the Razer name. Accordingly, the manufacturer has opted to equip the Blade 15 with Intel’s latest Coffee Lake CPU with six cores, and offers two GPUs to choose from: a GTX 1060 Max-Q and a GTX 1070 Max-Q. In the display department, the available options include an FHD and a 4K panel - just like last year. Unlike last year, this year’s panel choices include a 144 Hz option.

The competition is fierce, to say the least. MSI’s GS65 8RF Stealth Thin for example, which is equipped almost identically, Gigabyte’s Aero 15X v8, or the new Schenker Key 15 (Clevo P955ER). All competitors are slim & light gamers - they are less than 20 mm (~0.8”) thick and between 1-2 mm (~0.04” – 0.08”) thicker than the Blade 15.

As is quite common these days the Razer 15 is offered in various configurations. The base model starts at $1,899 and can be purchased on razer.com, as well as several retailers in Germany, France, Great Britain, the USA, Canada, and China. Our review unit was the more expensive better equipped $2,599 model.