The Blade 14 is an all-new gaming-laptop design for Razer, bringing the trademark premium build (and AMD CPU power!) to a size and component sweet spot between the Blade Stealth 13 and Blade 15.
 
Razer's Blade family of gaming laptops is among our favorite notebook lines: not cheap, but elegant powerhouses for hardcore gamers. We've reviewed and applauded 13-, 15-, and 17-inch models, and the new Blade 14 (starts at $1,799; $2,199 as tested) hits the power and portability sweet spot. Its compact chassis is just 0.66 inch thick but packs in an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics. (Our test model has an RTX 3070 and a 1440p panel.) That’s a head-turning proposition for gamers on the go, and our testing confirms it hits top-end frame rates at high settings. Its performance, premium build, long battery life, and high-refresh display make the Blade 14 a trailblazer as a 14-inch powerhouse, earning an Editors’ Choice award for its all-around excellence and unique positioning.
 
This style has been a trend-setter among vendors creating trimmer and classier gaming laptops, and it's nice to see it at this size. The all-black paint job, modern squared-off design, thin screen bezels, and RGB-backlit keyboard are all present, and in some ways even easier to appreciate in a more compact chassis.
 
As with the Blade Stealth 13, you can really tuck this system under your arm and take it on the go, which feels extra-satisfying considering its full-fledged features and gaming power. (More on that in a moment.) 
 
To be specific, the Blade 14 measures 0.66 by 12.6 by 8.7 inches (HWD), an impressively compact volume in any laptop category. Our favorite 14-inch competitors are the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which are plenty thin at 0.7 inch each, but the Blade 14 has them beat in overall footprint. The margins are small—differences so minor really shouldn't sway your buying decision—but the dimensions are impressive and easy to appreciate.
 
Speaking of small margins, the Blade 14 is a touch heavier than the others, at 3.92 pounds, but by less than half a pound. All are still light for gaming machines.
 
Configuration Options: AMD and Nvidia Bring the Heat
Of course, it's not all about the size. Given the Blade 14's premium price, you'd hope for and expect a fast and feature-filled, as well as highly portable, laptop. Available components and features are tied to certain configurations, so before we discuss them, let's take a look at the models offered. 
 
The Component Deep Dive
For anyone who hasn't been paying attention to the processor world in recent years, the Ryzen 9 5900HX is a very exciting inclusion for two reasons. Ryzen chips have proven extremely fast and efficient (in both laptops and desktops), and this is a departure from the Intel-only solutions that Razer has previously employed.
 
It should be said that gaming is one area where there isn't much of an AMD advantage, if any, but we've repeatedly seen Ryzen 5, 7, and 9 CPUs best their Core i5, i7, and i9 counterparts in multitasking and media editing. Expect this machine to be very snappy.
 
The graphics options deserve some focus as well. For a system this compact, you'd be forgiven for assuming Nvidia's most powerful GPUs aren't available, but Razer's offering of the RTX 3070 and 3080 is impressive. It's a big contrast with the 14-inch competition: The Zephyrus G14 maxed out at the previous-generation RTX 3060 (the version we reviewed used a 2060, but the newer model has been updated), and the Predator Triton 300 SE stops at the RTX 3060. The fact that you can go up to an RTX 3080 on the Blade 14—again, even smaller than these rivals—is a head-turner for mobile gamers.
There is a caveat to that, however. As we've seen with numerous laptops with RTX 30 Series GPUs we've tested so far, there can be a lot of variation in performance even between, say, two RTX 3070 notebooks. The reason is that Nvidia allows manufacturers to set the GPU wattage that best fits their laptop, dictating the power that a given GPU can push.
 
This is a handy way to obtain as much power as a laptop can take without going beyond its thermal restrictions, but unraveling the real-world results can be confusing. For example, a lower-wattage RTX 3080 may perform like (or even lose to) a higher-wattage RTX 3070. It's important to pay attention to wattage when studying laptop specs and to look carefully at the results of hands-on testing like ours.
 
QHD FTW: Display, Keyboard, and Ports
The good news is that any of these GPUs will make good use of the Razer's high-refresh-rate display. To reiterate, our model comes with the QHD (2,560-by-1,440-pixel) 165Hz display. For the base model, competitive multiplayer games will run at high frame rates, and even the RTX 3060 should be capable of AAA gaming at 60fps. The base RTX 3060 GPU might be a bit underpowered for 1440p resolution, but Razer wisely paired it up with the 1080p screen option, so that won't be an issue.
 
The combination in our review unit, meanwhile, is pretty mouth-watering for enthusiasts, and we’ll see how far it can push frame rates in the testing section. The screen looks bright, sharp, and vibrant. A 14-inch display, of course, could be small for some, especially if you're used to playing on a big monitor. If you've read this far, though, you're likely at least considering it, and smaller screens are a necessity for portability. Once you're playing, as long as you're in a comfortable setup, the difference between it and a 15-inch screen isn't too noticeable.