For non-gamers

A laptop for non-gamers

By David Pierce

I've always had trouble recommending "gaming laptops" to anyone but the hardest of hardcore gamers. Alienware, Asus, Toshiba, even Lenovo all cram incredible power into their gaming notebooks, and do so no matter the tradeoffs. That's why Alienware unabashedly sells a 14-inch laptop that's nearly 2 inches thick, and why flames, racing stripes, and vaguely terrifying logos are commonplace.

Only Razer's trademark green logo gives the true purpose away

The latest Blade is really the first gaming laptop I wouldn't immediately classify as a "gaming laptop." The all-black aluminum body looks a bit like the black MacBook that Apple has sadly forgotten, with a matte shell that attracts and prominently displays fingerprints but is otherwise quite sleek and refined. Only Razer's trademark green logo gives the device’s true purpose away — otherwise you might be fooled by its 0.66-inch thickness into believing this is just an ordinary Windows 8 ultrabook.

In some ways, and for many users, it is just an ordinary ultrabook. A good one, too. Even though the anti-ghosting keyboard is still a bit stiff, it's plenty comfortable, and it's far better spaced and more accurate than the previous, larger models. As ever, each key is completely programmable — you can even map complex macros to certain key combinations, and use Razer's Synapse software to sync your customizations to other devices.

In a concession either to size or familiarity, the 14-inch Blade doesn't feature Razer's Switchblade UI, which uses a touchscreen and a handful of customizable buttons to give you even more things to do from the keyboard – the larger Blade is a shortcut-lover’s dream, but removing it makes the smaller model much cleaner and simpler, and gives it more room for that roomy keyboard. That's a good tradeoff.

The trackpad is one place where Razer caters to gamers while casting the rest of us aside. It's smooth and glassy, and normally works fine, but it can be incredibly finicky — the cursor would occasionally simply stop moving, forcing me to take my finger off and pause a moment before trying again. That's infuriating in regular use, and a nonstarter in a game; most gamers will simply use an external mouse and never be the wiser, but in everyday use I had to reboot the Blade and hope for the best. The trackpad doesn't click, either, instead relying on two tiny buttons underneath — even if those can come in handy for gamers in a pinch, the clickpad has become so standard it feels odd to use a machine without one.

A green keyboard backlight gives the Blade a unique glow, accenting the black beautifully — just as red is a ThinkPad's distinct beacon of color, green does the same for Razer. The logos, keyboard lights, and even the USB ports are all green. It's unique without being ostentatious, and quite attractive to boot — it looks a little like the rebellious, street-racing sibling of the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It has the same flat edges with rounded corners, the same lip at the front to help you lift the lid — at 4.1 pounds, this 14-inch mode practically sits right between the 13- and 15-inch Pros, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The Blade’s incredibly well-built, too, rock-solid and with clear attention to design. Even the hinge is perfect: it's pliable enough to open with just one finger, but sturdy enough to not wobble in place once you find the right viewing angle. It'd be a great hinge for a touchscreen machine, except Razer didn't include one on this new Blade. A touchscreen would add thickness, and Razer’s obviously steering clear.

Not only is its 14-inch, 1600 x 900 display not a touchscreen, it's just not a very good display. The size actually makes perfect sense for a Windows gaming laptop — Windows 8 doesn't handle high-resolution screens very well, and the Blade would undoubtedly have trouble playing some high-end games at 1080p or higher. None of that excuses the screen's poor viewing angles, though, or the sheen that makes the whole thing appear to glitter. It almost looks as if there's a cheap screen protector on the Blade, which is not how a $1,799 laptop ought to appear.

Razer still has some kinks to work out and a new screen supplier to find, but it's achieved something I didn't think was possible: it built a gaming laptop that looks nothing like a gaming laptop. It's the first Windows device I've seen that would be equally at home in an arcade or a boardroom, playing Crysis or just running the hell out of some Excel spreadsheets. It has long battery life, a good keyboard, and power to spare inside a thin chassis. That such a thing is even possible leaves me incredibly excited about how good our laptops could really be.