An 18-inch gaming laptop that makes the most of it

Like 7 pounds Razer Blade 18 He sat on my desk, his all-black clipboard Huge 18-inch screen Towering before me like a monolith of 2001I couldn’t help but think, “Who the hell needs such a huge computer?” I’m sure they’re out there – gamers with deep pockets who don’t care much about portability, and video editors who demand as much screen real estate as possible. But on the whole, the market for the Blade 18 is very small, especially when it is…Razer blade 14 and 16 Achieving a much better balance between price, performance and weight.

What the Razer Blade 18 promises, if you choose to accept its massive dimensions, is unbridled power and screen real estate. It’s powered by the new Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, which is a 24-core beast with a top speed of 5.4GHz. Its 18-inch display can reach up to 240Hz at a resolution of just over 4K (3840 x 2400 pixels) and 440Hz when scaled down to 1080p+ (1920 x 1200). And of course, you can equip it with NVIDIA’s fastest mobile GPU, the GeForce RTX 5090. Considering everything that’s under the hood, it’s a really impressive weight only Seven pounds, along with a 2.1-pound power adapter. (In comparison, the premium 18-inch Alienware Area 51 comes in at 9.5 pounds with a 2.2-pound power adapter.)

When we last checked Razer Blade 18 A few years ago, my colleague Sam Rutherford was bothered by a laptop’s size, battery life, and high cost (which can reach upwards of $5,000 when fully equipped). All of these points are perfectly fair, but this time it’s easier to see what Razer is trying to do with the Blade 18: simply deliver the most bang for the buck for the people who demand it. And it does so with the excellent build quality we’ve come to expect from Razer (albeit at a high starting price of $2,799).

If you’re still trying to understand why an 18-inch laptop exists, the Razer Blade 18 isn’t for you. Frankly, the concept is not that far-fetched. Due to the move toward thinner display bezels and other improvements, laptop makers have been able to squeeze larger screens into their typical case sizes. The Razer Blade 16 was slightly heavier than the Blade 15 when it launched, but now Razer has slimmed down its chassis significantly. The Blade 18 similarly serves as an upgrade to the old Blade 17 – and what an upgrade it is.

My review unit, which was equipped with the new Intel chip, RTX 5090, 64GB of RAM, and a 4TB SSD, handled Cyberpunk 2077 With all its settings cranked without a sweat. At native resolution, which again is slightly higher than 4K, it reached 131fps with 4X frame generation (which uses DLSS 4 upscaling to supplement the extra frames). That’s roughly half the speed of an RTX 5090 desktop running at 4K at the same settings — but don’t forget that the GPU alone typically ranges between $2,000 and $3,000 these days. Razer charges an additional $1,400 to upgrade the Blade 18 from an RTX 5070 Ti to a 5090. (For the record, the total cost of our fully equipped test unit was $4,599.)

beyond frame rates, Cyberpunk 2077 It looked simply gorgeous on the Blade 18’s 240Hz IPS LED display. It’s not as bright as the MiniLED displays Razer offers on the Blade 16, and it doesn’t offer the crazy contrast levels of an OLED display, but it does the job well. However, for the price, it would have been nice to see more modern screen technology. Like the Blade 16, the 18 also offers a dual-mode display, which is how it reaches the higher refresh rates of 440Hz at 1080p+.

Worked as advertised Monitoring 2where I played many matches at well above 300 fps at high quality settings. The extra visual frames are especially useful during fast-paced moments, where you may have the blink of an eye to eliminate an opponent before they shoot you.

I had no doubt that the Blade 18 would be fast, but I also noticed that it felt more truly immersive than the Blade 16 due to its wider display. As he leaned over Cyberpunk 2077, Halo Infinite and Monitoring Sessions, it almost felt like I was in front of a desktop setup. This is ultimately what you pay for with this device. When I opened audio files in Audacity, I also noticed that the extra screen real estate made it easier to scrutinize my timelines.

When it comes to live benchmarks, the Core Ultra 9 chip isn’t much better than Intel’s 13th generation hardware on single-threaded tasks, and is sometimes even bettered by AMD’s latest crop of hardware. Intel has made significant progress in multi-threaded tests like Geekbench 6, and this kind of performance makes the Blade 18 ideal for tasks like video rendering and complex gaming.

The Blade 18’s performance was also noticeably great: during our 3DMark stress test, which involved running a single demo 20 times in a row, the CPU stayed at 70°C most of the time, with occasional spikes to 85°C. During our CPU-based Cinebench tests, the Intel chip’s temperature jumped to 80°C on average with some jumps to 90°C. Meanwhile, the GPU maintained a consistent temperature of 70°C and never fluctuated during the 3DMark benchmarks. Sure, the fans can get loud, as you’d expect for a system that’s relatively thin and needs to pump out a lot of heat.

Razer has been designing powerful, engaging gaming laptops for more than a decade, so it’s no surprise that the Blade 18 is incredibly durable and premium. Its keyboard has plenty of depth, making it feel just as good while playing shooters as it does while typing, and its trackpad is wonderfully smooth and precise. (It does get a bit excessive, though, when multitouch gestures are detected.) In terms of port, the Blade 18 also packs everything you’d want, including three USB Type-A 3.2 connections, a Thunderbolt 5 USB-C port, a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, 2.5GbE and a full SD card slot Size.

Personally, if I had to choose between Razer’s current lineup, I’d choose the Blade 16 so I could carry it and use it occasionally as a productivity machine. Not so with the Blade 18 – its short battery life of 2 hours and 17 minutes (in the PCMark 10 battery benchmark) means you’ll always need to use its beefy power adapter. An hour after writing this review, the battery life had also dropped from fully charged to 38 percent. But in reality, no one buys this thing just to deal with spreadsheets and emails. Want ultimate power and a massive screen? Then battery life will suffer.

To paraphrase Lord of the RingsOne does not simply choose to live with an 18-inch gaming laptop – not without considering all the conveniences it leaves behind. For patients who dare to go that route, the Blade 18 is a powerhouse that weighs significantly less than competitors like the 18-inch Alienware Area 51. Just be prepared to pay Razer’s high price to own one.