CES 2024: Razer announces three cutting-edge Blade gaming laptops

The announcements from CES 2024 continue to flood in, and this time we’ve got a trio of new gaming laptops from one of the industry’s biggest players, Razer. The Singaporean brand has revealed the next generation of its Razer Blade 14, Razer Blade 16 and Razer Blade 18 lines and we’re here to bring you the lowdown on each of them.

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But instead of running through these sequentially, let’s start with the Razer Blade 16, as this one was given the most prominence in the announcement, and is also the first of the three to hit shelves. The headline here is that the Razer Blade 16 will be the first gaming laptop in the world to offer a 16in OLED display that refreshes up to 240Hz.

Paired with QHD+ (2,560 x 1,600) resolution and the near-perfect black and contrast levels of an OLED panel, this display looks primed to deliver visuals as smooth as they are striking.

Keeping the lights on behind that pretty display are the brand-new Intel Core i9-14900HX processor – a 24-core chipset that Razer praises as the world’s fastest mobile processor – and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU. With the latter, Razer claims that the Blade 16 can unlock up to 175W Total Graphics Power (TGP), effectively delivering more graphics power per cubic inch than any other gaming laptop on the market.

How valid that claim is will have to be judged when we come to review the Razer Blade 16, but it certainly makes a strong first impression. Users won’t have long to wait to find out for themselves, either, as the Blade 16 is available for preorder right now, with prices starting at an eye-watering £3,100.

Next up, the Razer Blade 14 is the smallest and most portable of the trio. We were very impressed with last year’s Razer Blade 14, but we did take issue with the price and the fact that the soldered-in RAM could not be upgraded. Pricing for this year’s model hasn’t been announced yet, so we don’t know how things are going to look on that front, but Razer has confirmed that the DDR5 memory will be upgradable this time around.

The Razer Blade 14 is just as portable as its predecessor, at just 18mm thick and weighing a little over 1.8kg, which is still reasonably light for a gaming laptop. If you do decide to take the Blade 14 on the go, Razer says you can expect up to ten hours of battery life.

Inside the Blade 14, you’ll find the new AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor, which brings along Ryzen AI for performance enhancement, boosting AI workloads in Microsoft Copilot and the Windows Studio webcam effects, for example. This can be paired with Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics up to 4070, with a maximum TGP of 140W.

Rounding out the features announced here are a 16:10 14in display that offers QHD+ resolution and refreshes up to 240HZ, as well as support for USB 4 and Wi-Fi 7. Preorders are set to open on 23 January, so it won’t be long before we hear how much the Razer Blade 14 will set you back.

Details are especially light on the Razer Blade 18, as it’s not due to hit the market until later in 2024. Razer did divulge a couple of tidbits, however, starting with the fact that it will come with a 4K 18in display that refreshes at up to 165Hz – another world-first, according to Razer. The Blade 18 will also support Intel’s lastest Thunderbolt 5 interconnect, which will allow users to connect multiple high-resolution displays, high-speed external storage and more.

We’ll have more information on each of the new Blade devices as we get closer to their respective release dates, and keep an eye out for our full reviews to see if we think they’re worth the price tags. In the meantime, there are lots more announcements to come from CES 2024 this week, so stick with us to catch all the biggest highlights.