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Razer Blade 16 (2025): Two minute review
Weeks of stock shortages and scalping later, I can finally breathe: RTX 5000 laptops are here, offering a fresh path into Nvidia‘s glorious ray-traced future that doesn’t involve selling your soul on Ebay – though you might need to sell a kidney to afford the new Razer Blade 16, especially if you’re eyeing the top-of-the-line RTX 5090 configuration graciously provided to me for this review.
Yes, Razer is not beating the ‘pricey hardware’ allegations any time soon; the new Blade 16 starts at a wallet-battering $2,999.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$4,899.95, and the higher-spec configurations rocket beyond the four-thousand mark in the US, UK, and Europe.
Don’t get me wrong, though: the sky-high pricing is just about the only criticism I have here. Razer’s iconic 16-inch laptop has undergone a subtle redesign – and I mean subtle, bordering on indistinguishable – that provides a range of small but worthy improvements, and at the heart of it all, Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU lineup delivers boosted performance and a new wealth of features ready to do battle with the best gaming laptops.
I’ll get into the real meat of these graphics upgrades later on, but here’s the short version: this thing goes hard. Between DLSS 4, Multi Frame Generation, Reflex 2, and the general generational improvements from RTX 4000, even the most demanding titles deliver crisp, speedy frame rates on the QHD+ OLED screen – and the 240Hz refresh rate means you won’t find your game performance capped by the display.
The Razer Blade 16 isn’t all steak and no sizzle, either. This is one classy-looking gaming laptop, as I’ve come to expect from Razer, with an anodized aluminum chassis, per-key RGB lighting, and the same overall top-notch build quality any previous Razer owner will be well accustomed to. Again, scroll on down to that Design section for all the juicy deets, but I will take a quick moment here to remark on the new-and-improved keyboard, which now features greater key travel and smoother actuation than previous models to provide a more pleasant typing experience as well as responsive inputs when gaming.
With how difficult it’s proving to get your hands on a desktop RTX 5000 GPU, many will be looking towards the incoming slate of Blackwell-equipped laptops to scratch that hardware upgrade itch. If that’s you – and you can stomach the price tag – then the Razer Blade 16 is the laptop to pick.
Razer Blade 16 (2025): Price and availability
- How much is it? Starting at $2,999.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$4,899.95
- When is it available? Available now
- Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia
There’s no getting around it: this is one expensive laptop, even pricier than the previous RTX 4000 Razer Blade 16 we reviewed back in late 2023. Granted, you’re getting a hell of a lot of gaming power for your money, but it’s still pricey.
The Razer Blade 16 (2025) will cost you $2,999.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$4,899.95 for the base configuration: that gets you an RTX 5070 Ti, 10-core AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 processor, 32GB of ultra-speedy LPDDR5X 8,000MHz memory, and a 1TB SSD. That’s right – the long-standing industry baseline of 16GB of RAM is out, 32GB is the new standard for Razer.
There are a few different configurations, with more RAM or storage and an upgrade to either an RTX 5080 or 5090. The top-spec model costs a piggy-bank-busting $4,899.99 / £4,299.99 / AU$7,999.95, packing the RTX 5090 along with a 12-core Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU, 64GB of RAM, and a huge 4TB of storage (in the form of two 2TB SSDs). Every version has the same 16-inch 240Hz QHD+ OLED display; sadly, there’s no 4K model on offer, which does feel like a somewhat odd omission considering that the RTX 5090 is absolutely capable of 4K gaming.
I really can’t stress enough that this is a comically enormous amount of money for the average PC gamer. As a fun little exercise, I went looking online for used cars that cost less than the Blade 16 review unit I’m typing this review on. 47,764 results. Oof.
Still, when scalpers are selling RTX 5090 cards on Ebay for upwards of four thousand bucks, it’s not an entirely unattractive proposition. I mean, you’re getting the whole system here, while the additional cost of a full desktop PC build capable of supporting Nvidia’s latest flagship GPU without bottlenecking isn’t exactly cheap. I have no doubt there will be laptops from other manufacturers that offer the same (or at least similar) specs at a lower price, but there will be sacrifices made – whether that’s chassis materials, display quality, or memory speed.
Razer Blade 16 (2025): Specs
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
Razer Blade 16 (2025) Base Config |
Razer Blade 16 (2025) Review Config |
Razer Blade 14 (2023) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Price |
$2,999.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$4,899.95 |
$4,499.99 / £3,899.99 / AU$7,199.95 |
$4,899.99 / £4,299.99 / AU$7,999.95 |
|
CPU |
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 |
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 |
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 |
|
GPU |
Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti |
Nvidia RTX 5090 |
Nvidia RTX 5090 |
|
RAM |
32GB LPDDR5X |
32GB LPDDR5X |
64GB LPDDR5X |
|
Storage |
1TB PCIe SSD |
2TB PCIe SSD |
4TB (2TB+2TB) PCIe SSD |
|
Display |
16-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600), 240Hz, up to 100% DCI-P3, HDR 500, 2ms response, Calman Verified, 400 nits |
16-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600), 240Hz, up to 100% DCI-P3, HDR 500, 2ms response, Calman Verified, 400 nits |
16-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600), 240Hz, up to 100% DCI-P3, HDR 500, 2ms response, Calman Verified, 400 nits |
|
Ports |
1x USB4 Type-C, 1x USB3.2 Type-C, 3x USB-A, 1x HDMI, 1x SD card reader, 1x 3.5mm combi audio jack |
1x USB4 Type-C, 1x USB3.2 Type-C, 3x USB-A, 1x HDMI, 1x SD card reader, 1x 3.5mm combi audio jack |
1x USB4 Type-C, 1x USB3.2 Type-C, 3x USB-A, 1x HDMI, 1x SD card reader, 1x 3.5mm combi audio jack |
|
Battery |
90 WHr |
90 WHr |
90 WHr |
|
Dimensions |
17.4 x 250.5 x 355 mm | 0.69 x 9.86 x 13.98 inches |
17.4 x 250.5 x 355 mm | 0.69 x 9.86 x 13.98 inches |
17.4 x 250.5 x 355 mm | 0.69 x 9.86 x 13.98 inches |
|
Weight |
2.14 kg / 4.72 lbs |
2.14 kg / 4.72 lbs |
2.14 kg / 4.72 lbs |
Razer Blade 16 (2025): Design
- Same classic Blade finish with premium-feel anodized metal casing
- New keyboard design is a real improvement
- Chassis is lighter and more compact than previous models
Razer has long held a reputation as a company known for using premium materials for its hardware, and the new Blade 16 certainly doesn’t buck this trend: every Blade begins life as a singular slab of tempered aluminum, which is then precision-milled into shape and electrochemically anodized to create a wear-resistant color finish designed to last.
Although the overall aesthetic of Razer’s modern Blade lineup has changed very little over the years – compare this laptop side-by-side with the Razer Blade we reviewed back in 2018, and you’ll see what I mean – there have been some small adjustments this time around, and all of them are good changes.
For starters, the laptop has been retooled to reduce the overall weight and size; there’s a limit to this, especially with a 16-inch display, but Razer has managed to cut down the total package volume by almost 30%. It’s almost half a centimetre thinner than the previous-gen Blade 16 (4.59mm, to be precise), and it adds that half-centimete to the length of the laptop instead – in practice, this doesn’t make the Blade 16’s footprint any appreciably larger, but does make it look and feel a lot thinner. It’s also 310 grams lighter than the previous model.
Razer has also seen fit to improve the keyboard this time around, and it makes for a more satisfying typing experience than previous Blades. The key travel has been increased by 50%, and the actuation force sits at a finely-tuned 63G, providing a good amount of physical feedback that helped me avoid misinputs while both gaming and typing. The keys are quite widely spaced, which makes it comfortable to use even for long periods.
Naturally, this Blade now comes with a dedicated button for Copilot, Microsoft‘s AI assistant for Windows, though I doubt most buyers will have much cause to use that. More interesting is the new row of five programmable macro keys, giving you instant access to the functions you use most often.
Additionally, this ain’t your daddy’s backlit RGB keyboard: not only does the full layout have per-key RGB lighting, but multiple keys actually feature two LEDs beneath the keycap, enabling a nifty feature where holding down Fn or Shift switches the illumination to instantly highlight the relevant keys. You can see what I mean in the GIF below – it’s a small bonus, but I rather like it.
The touchpad is nothing to write home about (let’s be honest, you’ll be using a mouse anyway), but it is nice and large with a firm click to it. There’s also a pretty straightforward 1080p webcam and microphone array, both of which work fine.
More impressive are the speakers: a six-speaker array with THX Spatial Audio support makes for one of the best audio experiences I’ve seen on a laptop. It’s no secret that laptop makers often skimp on speaker quality because so many people will simply connect a headset anyway, but that’s certainly not the case here. The bass is rich and punchy, and the midrange is crystal clear; high pitches are a little bit thin, but it’s still a strong showing overall.
I’m not going to dedicate a huge amount of time here to the pre-loaded Razer Synapse software package, but I will say that there are some welcome improvements over the old (and rather wonky) version. Tweaking your system performance and lighting effects is nice and straightforward, as well as syncing and modifying any Razer peripherals you want to use.
I can’t not talk about the screen, of course. Razer’s hardware lineup has always offered high-end display configurations, often employing OLED panels, which remains the case here – though as I mentioned further up in this review, there’s strangely no 4K configuration available this time around. Instead, every 2025 Blade 16 model comes with the exact same 16-inch 240Hz OLED display, with a resolution of 2560×1600. That’s a 16:10 aspect ratio, which I’m personally a big fan of on laptops.
Still, it’s an undeniably gorgeous screen: colors are bright and vibrant, contrast is sharp, and blacks are deep. It looks fantastic in motion while playing games like Cyberpunk 2077; the rainy, neon-splattered streets of Night City after dark are vividly colorful and realistic on this display.
One feature that I’m always happy to see is upgradability. Unfortunately, the RAM in the Razer Blade 16 is soldered, but the SSD is user-upgradable. In fact, anything less than the 4TB configuration (which uses two 2TB SSDs) comes with an empty NVMe slot for you to easily plug in a second drive if you want to expand the storage yourself.
Lastly, we’ve got a nice broad port selection here, with two USB-C ports, three USB-As, an HDMI port for connecting a second display, the omnipresent 3.5mm headphone jack, and finally a full-size SD card reader for creative users – a wise inclusion considering that this laptop can comfortably pull double duty as a work system (more on that later).
Razer Blade 16 (2025): Performance
- Best-in-class performance
- RTX 5090 and Ryzen 9 AI HX 370 are a deadly combo
- New Nvidia features offer a huge performance boost
Enough about aesthetics: this is a gaming laptop, so how well does it run games? The answer is: extremely well, especially once you factor in Nvidia’s DLSS and frame-gen tech.
Our standard testing process involves running games without using any form of upscaling or frame-gen tech, and you can see the results below. It’s worth noting that the 2024 Razer Blade 16 with RTX 4090 I’ve used for comparative purposes has an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, which quite literally has double the core count of the Ryzen 9 AI HX 370 chip in this laptop, so without implementing Nvidia’s latest goodies, the differences are relatively minor in many games.
Performance is still strong, make no mistake – but if you’re aiming to play the latest games at maximum graphical settings on this laptop’s native 1600p resolution, you’re going to want to use DLSS.
Kick DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation (MFG) into gear, and it’s a totally different story. I tested a few different supported titles at their respective maximum presets with ray tracing enabled, and both enjoyed a serious performance bump with Nvidia’s fancy AI-powered software enabled.
There’s been quite some debate about tools such as resolution upscaling and frame generation, not least due to the use of AI for both, and I admit I’ve been skeptical in the past. Here, it’s a revelation. Earlier iterations of DLSS – and the frame-gen model seen in the previous RTX 4000 generation – were imperfect, prone to impact lag and visual glitching, especially on hardware that would struggle to hit 60fps without any AI-assisted add-ons. But DLSS 4 and MFG work phenomenally well on a laptop packing an RTX 5090; in Alan Wake 2, a thoroughly beautiful (and therefore demanding) game, I was lucky to reach above the 60fps mark without any upscaling or frame-gen enabled. With those settings turned on? 200fps, easy.
Meanwhile, Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal saw similarly massive framerate bumps. In Cyberpunk, the maxed-out ray-tracing preset struggled a bit at native resolution, scoring a meager average of 43 fps. With DLSS 4 and MFG, it averaged 217fps while still looking absolutely stunning. In Returnal, 113fps went to 240fps (which was the active cap) at 1440p – it refused to run at the Blade 16’s 1600p 16:10 resolution, but still, you get the idea.
It looks so good now, too; gone are the tearing and blurring I noted in my early experiments with DLSS, without any appreciable amount of input latency either. I imagine it’s still there, perhaps noticable to a pro esports gamer playing a twitchy shooter like Counter-Strike or Valorant, but I certainly wasn’t able to detect it.
Of course, DLSS 4 and MFG aren’t available universally. Developers have to add support for the functionality, although there’s also a new DLSS Override option for ‘force-enabling’ it in unsupported games, which I deployed for Returnal – as far as I could tell, it worked without issues, though of course that’s just for one modern game.
Performance in synthetic tests was also strong, with good – though not world-beating – performance across both gaming and creative workloads. If you’re hoping to use this laptop for professional creative work, it won’t let you down. In fact, the performance it offers compared to the weight of the laptop is among the best I’ve ever seen, making it ideal for working on the go.
It’s worth noting here that the 2024 Blade 16 actually outperforms the new model across several of our tests, but again, we can put that down to the significantly more powerful CPU found in the 2024 model. The power efficiency of the Ryzen chip is not to be understated, though – take a look at the battery life section, and you’ll see what I mean.
Razer Blade 16 (2025): Battery life
- Surprisingly good battery life
- Almost a full day’s regular use, about two and a half hours of gaming
- Charges fast but uses a proprietary charger
Battery life is rarely a selling point of gaming laptops, but I was pleasantly surprised with the battery life on the Razer Blade 16. In the PCMark 10 Gaming battery test, it lasted for almost two and a half hours; in real-world tests, I found this figure highly accurate, assuming you’re playing with the battery efficiency preset on in Windows and brightness at 50% or lower.
Outside of gaming and running similarly demanding software, the Blade 16 offers some impressive longevity for a gaming laptop. The 90Whr battery lasted for almost seven and a half hours in our Battery Informant Web Surfing test, and it also holds charge remarkably well when not in use. This is likely due to the improved Nvidia Optimus tech, which offloads graphical processing to the Ryzen CPU’s integrated graphics when you’re not playing games or running GPU-intensive apps. Razer claims that the new Blade 16 offers ‘up to 11 hours’ of use, which is probably true if you really try to squeeze the battery with minimum brightness and power-saving mode turned on.
Although it needs a fairly chunky power adapter with a proprietary Razer connector, the Blade 16 also charges very quickly, charging up to 50% in about 30 minutes and 100% in just over an hour.
Should you buy the Razer Blade 16 (2025)?
|
Value |
It’s undeniably expensive, which will place it out of reach for some gamers, although you do get plenty of bang for your buck. |
2.5 / 5 |
|
Design |
Still one of the sleekest and most visually pleasing laptop designs out there, with a great screen and newly upgraded keyboard. |
5 / 5 |
|
Performance |
Very few laptops will measure up against the RTX 5090 version of the Blade 16 when it comes to gaming performance – and those that can will inevitably be bulkier. |
5 / 5 |
|
Battery Life |
Gaming laptops rarely offer good battery life, but the new Blade 16 surprised me with its power-efficiency. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Total |
The Razer Blade 16 (2025) is the best gaming laptop I’ve reviewed in ages, and I don’t see it getting dethroned from that position any time soon. |
4.25 / 5 |
Buy the Razer Blade 16 (2025) if…
Don’t buy it if…
Also consider
If my Razer Blade 16 (2025) review has you considering other options, here is another laptop to consider:
How I tested the Razer Blade 16 (2025)
I spent just over a week with the Razer Blade 16 (2025), using it almost every day for both work and gaming. I don’t always love working, but damn, if this didn’t make it more pleasant.
Naturally, we ran plenty of performance tests on the Blade 16, taking additional time to test out the new DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation features on a handful of supported titles. What I played the most was Warframe, which isn’t in our testing suite but look, I’m an addict.
In terms of work, I used the Blade 16 for everything from word processing to web browsing to image editing, and even took it out into my garden to work in the sun and put the battery life and display to the test in a real-world setting – both held up great.
- First reviewed March 2025
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christian.guyton@futurenet.com (Christian Guyton)
