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The 2022 Razer Blade 15 continues in the top tier of gaming laptops. It delivers the same quality and visuals you'd expect from a desktop computer but in a smaller, more portable package. Razer spent years fine-tuning the exceptional features of this laptop, making it feel premium and refined in every way.


Blade 15 is once again equipped with excellent hardware upgrades. Not least, a brand-new 12th-generation Alder Lake Intel Core CPU. This ensures that it will continue to be a dominant gaming laptop. Although it performs well in Default Mode, the Blade 15 is extremely fast in Boost Mode, requiring only a click to switch to.


Razer Blade 15 specifications

Razer Blade15 is available with a Core i9-12900H or Core RTX 30 Series GPU. The most powerful of these GPUs was the RTX 3080Ti which we were able to review. FHD/QHD or 4K options are available. Each display type has a different refresh rate. Here are the details of our review device:


CPU: Intel Core i7-12800H

RAM: 32GB DDR5/4800MHz

GPU: Nvidia GeForce-RTX 3080T

Display: 15.6-inch QHD (2560x1440), non-touch, 240 Hz refresh rate, G-sync

Storage: 1TB SSDPCle Gen4

Ports: 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (supports power delivery), 3 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), HDMI 2.1 output, SD card reader, 3.5mm combo port

Networking: WiFiWiFi 6E, Bluetooth 2.

Dimensions: 0.67x9.25x13.98 inches

Weight: 4.4 lbs (2.01kg).

Colour: Matte black

Battery capacity 80 WHr

Price: $3,699.99

Razer Blade 15 design and construction


Familiarity with a laptop's layout is a great thing when it's time to upgrade.



Razer Blade 15 offers a safer alternative. The Razer Blade 15 has a familiar, well-designed chassis that's been improved to near perfection in subsequent Blade 15 releases. It measures 0.67 x 9.25x 13.98 inches. This is identical to the late 2021 Blade 15 and preserves its smaller size over 15-inch gaming laptops.


It weighs just under four pounds. That makes it comparable to its predecessor. Although it's lighter than the current 14-inch gaming laptops, such as the Razer Blade 14 (3.92 lbs.) and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (3.64 lbs.), it's still easy to transport.


Blade 15 is more robust than its predecessors. The entire Blade is made of one block of CNC aluminium. From the base to all the corners, it feels excellent. My review model proved almost immovable upon my prodding. They were so tight the hinges could even hold the lid open half an inch below the base.


Blade 15 has a few of the best legacy features, giving it a polished top-end appeal. The Blade 15's 4.9mm thick display bezels and matte-black, scratch-resistant coating stand out. These appear like old friends from Razer reviews, adding to the premium feel.


It is almost unchanged in style from last year. The notebook's top cover features the fluorescent Razer Snake logo, which is bold and bright. Some gamers still prefer Razer Bladestealth, who may choose its more muted design. The two-toned logo looks a bit more office-friendly. However, the laptop's appearance is sleek, and high-end gamers will love it.


Other than the inherited features, minor modifications to last year's model make Blade 15 easier to use. First and foremost, the power key is now located in a new spot. It is directly placed at the top of the keyboard next to the "del" key. This makes it easier for people to locate. It's now also full-sized, so it's much easier to find.


The speaker grilles also have been modified. They will now be visible in the upper casing with laser perforations instead of embedded speaker-like material. It looks cleaner and more cohesive and gives users a much larger keyboard than last year's model.


Keyboard and trackpad

Razer's Chroma RGB lighting system powers the Blade 15's the backlit keyboard. With 16.8million colours available and many other effects in Razer Synapse, you can get a wide range of products from the Razer Synapse App. Razer also includes per-key illumination for colour-mapping commands in their Blade 15 base model. However, this feature is not available on higher-end gaming notebooks.


The keyboard's best feature is backlighting. It beams colour in front of users like a Fourth of July celebration. This is not to say that the keyboard doesn't have other great features. It's large and responsive. The keys are incredibly comfortable.


These are less prominent than other models but rebound quickly and feel significantly less mushy. Surprisingly the keyboards are quiet. Although this might not appeal to gamers who prefer a desktop-like experience, it's rare among gaming notebooks.


It's a fairly standard layout for a 15" laptop. F1-F12 keys are available, as is the right and left shift,' (ctrl) and 'fn' buttons. There is no Numpad. However, it will be hard to miss since everything else is there, including up-and-down arrow keys and amply proportioned critical letters for decent typing accuracy.


Razer has once again included a Microsoft Precision Glass Trackpad. This trackpad was large and very smooth. It was the fastest in both the Razer Blade 17 and Razer Blade14 reviews. And it is even faster in Blade 15. It allows your fingers to glide across it with minimal contact, just as if it were a windowpane.



Display

The Blade 15 offers a range of display options. These include a top-end 4K at 144 Hz and Full HD options with 360 Hz refresh rates. QHD (2560x1440-pixel) was our review unit. With a refresh rate of 240 Hz, it delivers images in fine detail while maintaining the responsiveness one would expect in a premium laptop.


Sniper Elite 5 was used to test the display for colour balance and detail. The IPS 100 per cent DCI P3 colour panel looked terrific and could render complex shapes with great precision. Its colour reproduction was also excellent. Reds looked more true than orange, and whites had a less blue tinge. This is both a good result for gamers and creative professionals.



I was able to confirm these results by running an EIZO Monitor test. It also gave me insight into how the panel rendered patterns or colour gradients. The frequency patterns Razer created showed well-defined and precise lines, even though they were small. Additionally, there were no apparent breakages or bonding in colour gradients. This proves that the panel can produce detailed text and pictures.


G-Sync technology allows screen tearing to disappear completely, keeping videos and animations running smoothly. This is an excellent addition that gives the display a polished look.



However, one minor issue is that it could be a bit brighter. According to my LUX meter, my research unit achieved a peak brightness level of 315nits. This was sufficient for indoor contrast. It was much worse outside. The display became a little less visible under the glare, making it more difficult to see.


An even more minor complaint is that the 16:9 ratio of the panel remains unchanged. While the change didn't affect my gaming, it would have been handy to have a higher 16:10 display for comparing Excel spreadsheets. This would have increased the Blade 15's versatility and productivity. I did like the minimal distraction that the ultra-thin edges provided.


Webcams and audio

More gamers stream 'let's play' and upload videos to social media, so it is no surprise that some manufacturers have chosen FHD 1080p webcams instead of HD720p. Razer is one. For example, my group chats in Microsoft Teams have seen the Blade 15's more high-resolution camera provide a welcome boost in brightness and image clarity.


Windows Hello compatibility on the webcam made it easy to log in daily. I was granted quick password-free access in less than a minute. Plus, biometrics made protecting my laptop's security a lot easier.



With the Blade 15 having sleeker, laser-cut grilles for speakers, I was keen to hear if the audio had changed. The sound is similar to the late 2021 Razer15 in that it produces naturally-sounding highs and mids. But the bass tones sound very ordinary.


After just reviewing the Razer 17 Blade, there is no doubt that its bass is top-notch. It gives off a feeling more similar to a desktop laptop. The Blade 15 can still produce decent audio, despite its slim chassis.


Furthermore, the Blade 15's surround sound experience, 7.1-channel THX Spatial, works flawlessly with headphones or via speakers.


Connectivity

Blade 15 boasts a fully-modern collection of ports. It will delight creative professionals and gamers seeking I/O options across multiple devices. There are two USB-C and three USB-A ports along with a Thunderbolt 4 connector, so there are many options for USB drives and phone chargers.




The Razer Blade 15's left side ports.


Dominic Bayley/IDG


The USB A ports provide power delivery. An HDMI 2.1 port is used for video output. Thunderbolt 4 can connect up to 2 x 4K or additional 8K displays at 60 Hz refresh.



The Razer Blade 15's right-side ports.


Dominic Bayley/IDG


Blade 15 features wireless connectivity options. The WiFiWiFi 6 standard Wi-Fi6E is now available in the Blade 15. It offers 14 x 80 MHz, 7 x 160MHz, and 6 x 512 MHz channels on 6 GHz WIFI bands. This means that there will be less interference and WiFiWiFi latency.


Bluetooth 5.2 support means you can also benefit from the latest Bluetooth efficiency enhancements, such as faster pairing than in laptops using Bluetooth Bluetooth.


Performance of the CPU

The latest Intel Core i7-12800H processor was used in our review unit. It also had 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a stock speed of up to 4800 MHz and a top speed of 4800 MHz. These specifications should appeal to tech-savvy gamers.



The Core Intel Alder Lake chip, the Core I7-12800H, has a hybrid Core arrangement that consists of 6 Performance cores and eight efficient cores. Past benchmark results have shown it can outperform Intel's zippy Intel 11th gen i9–11980HK processor.


The Blade 15 was placed against the Alienware 15" x15 R2 laptop for $3350 and the Razer Blade 17 17" laptop for $4,000, both of which have powerful i7-12700H processing units and similar-power GPUs.


These laptops are similar to the Blade 15 in that they are ultra-thin, powerful, and cool enough for AAA gaming. They are recent top performers in our synthetic benchmarks, precisely the type of performance we were looking for in our first round Razer 15 test.


We first ran Maxon's Cinebench R20 One-Threaded benchmark. This benchmark only tested one core of the 14 Core CPU. As expected, our standard was easily beaten by the Blade 15's powerful processor. The Razer Blade 15 excels at running everyday tasks such as apps and simple desktop applications.



Dominic Bayley / IDG


Cinebench R20 Multi-Threaded benchmark, which tests all the cores and CPUs of the laptop, was next. Unfortunately, the result was not as impressive. But, the Razer Blade 15 scores of 4,234 are consistent with those of the 2022 best-performing laptops. They show that the Blade 15 can handle high-end games and CPU-demanding tasks like video editing.



Dominic Bayley/IDG


Our final CPU benchmark uses the Handbrake utility. The utility provides information about how fast a laptop can complete a CPU-intensive task before it needs throttle performance. This benchmark was performed by our Razer Blade 15 and required it to convert a 30GB MP4 file to MP4 via the Android Tablet preset.



Dominic Bayley/IDG


The graph shows it took the Blade 15 significantly longer than the Razer Blade 17 time to complete the test. However, the MSI GE76 Raider (Asus ROG Zephyrus G14) was slightly ahead. The Razer Synapse software did not allow for Boost Mode to be used. However, Handbrake revealed an entirely new result. The Razer Blade 15's CPU finished the task in 1095 less time than previously, resulting in a faster finish.


Gaming performance

We can now assess the GPU's performance with laptops like the Razer Blade 17 and know its capabilities. We expected solid gaming performance because we were presented with the Blade 15's same GPU and the Blade 15's new hybrid Alder Lake CPU.


We ran 3DMark Time Spy to gauge our laptop's GPU performance. The Blade 15 scored higher than most of the comparisons.



Dominic Bayle y / IDG


The Metro Exodus/Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks had more consistency than our HandBrake benchmark result. This was due to the notebook being a bit slower than the Alienware X15 R2 & Razer Blade 17 (based on its lower frame rate per second scores).



Dominic Bayley/IDG


But that doesn't mean our Blade failed to produce decent results. They showed the Razer 15 as one of the top-performing gaming notebooks of the year. The kind that can compete with any modern video game.



Dominic Bayley/IDG


It's possible that our review unit could have outperformed other comparisons when each laptop had its CPU set to Performance Mode. However, we don't know enough data to make this determination.


Nevertheless, due to our review unit's slightly slower result with Balanced Mode, I reran Metro Exodus (and RoTTR) benchmarks in Blade 15's Boost Mode. This was to verify that it could achieve comparable framerates to Razer Blade 17's default CPU modes. The result? The answer is yes, it can. The Razer Blade 15 scored a respectable 45 FPS in Metro Exodus, while the RoTTR score was a staggering 154 FPS.


These results indicate that Blade 15's CPU has been optimized for Boost Mode. The Blade 15 can reach clock speeds of up 4.8 GHz and can perform more CPU-intensive tasks. Throttling is possible.


Summary: The Razer Blade's Balanced Mode performance is still quite good. But switching up Boost to the laptop is where it truly shines. It is highly recommended if your goal is to get as fast framerates and performance as the best laptops this year.


Battery life

The battery life for the full notebooks can range from one hour to about eight hours. When gaming with friends, a longer battery life is more desirable. Our Razer Blade 15's average battery life measured just over five hours during our battery rundown. You can expect around three hours of gaming if you are not connected.



Dominic Bayley/IDG


Conclusion

Razer Blade 15 exudes a comforting familiarity and sturdiness in its design, supported by a long list of premium features. It is incredibly comfortable to use. Although the 12th-generation Intel processor upgrade can provide good gaming performance; however, our testing revealed that power users would be more interested in switching to Boost Mode to make use of the extra powerfully.
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