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Customers have good things to say about the Blade 15 Base's performance, build quality, keyboard, graphics card, and display, frequently praising its ability to run games smoothly and its solid construction. However, some customers reported issues with battery life, noting that it depletes quickly, especially during gaming, and that the laptop can get hot during extended use. The keyboard's customizable lighting was also a positive feature for some users. Concerns were raised about potential battery swelling and its impact on other components.
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The Razer Blade 15 is an excellent laptop with a few quirks. It comes with a midrange graphics card and 16 gigabytes of memory, which is perfect for gaming and intensive work (AutoCAD, Cad, and Adobe Suite) and multitasking. For gaming it has all the necessary features for you including a 1080p display, 120 hertz refresh rate; and most importantly, a 1660ti graphics card with 6 gigabytes of video ram. All of which are nice to have for me. for someone one who uses multitasks with google chrome and gaming, the laptop does not slow down or hiccup; it performs well under heavy loads (provided you are mindful of the amount of ram your using). While gaming the Blade performs well during Destiny and Watch Dogs 2; as long as the Blade is plugged in during intensive gaming or working then it should not bottleneck (slowdown in performance) most of the time I keep my charger plugged in while playing after class, because of the battery drain it has while running heavy applications. After around an hour of gaming it does become uncomfortably hot; so, I would just suggest you keep it indoors and on a cool surface. On battery power the applications can start throttling after a certain while to preserve power; The windows power settings however can be altered to use more or less power; I prefer to use razer’s default power plan. For productivity this is where the razer shines its best, with the correct power plan enabled I had 9-10 hours of battery, more than enough for the school day. While on Microsoft Word with Chrome up the fan noise was nonexistent, in fact the fan is very silent (unless you are doing intensive tasks). so, there is no worry for that. the keyboard takes a while to get used to but once you master it, you will be breezing through it, its quick, snappy, and has a short travel time; Although, this is a very subjective opinion of mine and can differ depending on your preference. Microsoft office applications run great and you can have them switch between each other fast. The CPU is strong enough to handle multitasking and runs cool. Physically the hardware does have expandable storage and an extra ram slot; The laptop does have a tendency to attract fingerprints due to the aluminum chassis, which is a negative while a positive would be the hard casing and durable shell. It resembles a MacBook in a way and that is something that I prefer since this is my first laptop since my MacBook (2019). The ports are all I need, although I would prefer Thunderbolt Compatibility and a SD card port. The backplate has a glowing Razer logo that may not be office friendly but I am ok with it personally. It is 15 inches and pretty light. The lid feels great to close unlike other laptops, because of the quality. In conclusion, most of the features are helpful but if you are professionally working or a serious gamer, I would recommend a Razer blade 14 (2020). It is just like this laptop but has the 2000 or 3000 Series. For the price point of $1299 (which was on sale) this laptop meshes quality with performance and durability. I highly recommend this to any STEM college majors or even high schoolers who would like to game and work on school. Just the only negative is fingerprints on the chassis so get a different color if that bothers you. The Razer Blade 15 proves to be yet another reliable workstation and gaming rig, this gets a 10/10 from me!
Posted by Maligent
The trackpad click, tap, and gestures stopped working after 2 years. I verified all of the trackpad settings were correct and also tried reinstalling the drivers. I tried to get help from Razer support, but since the laptop was outside the 1 year warranty they would charge a $100 diagnostic fee plus repair costs. Additional research shows these laptops experience battery swelling which can cause trackpad issues. So it appears trackpad issues are not uncommon for Razer. One other complaint is the laptop edges are pretty sharp so is uncomfortable on your wrists if you rest them on the laptop when typing. The performance is fine and it is a good looking laptop, but you can find better spec devices for the same price so it’s not worth the extra cost. Very disappointed in this purchase. I will not be purchasing a Razer again.
Posted by BradK
This is a really solid laptop, however it's a bit misleading how it's positioned in the Razer Base line... It's not really a Base model... It's Base Entry model. Meaning it does not have thunderbolt which is a bummer because you cannot use it with the external GPU housing (Core X) they make... A laptop 3 years older than this will work and this one won't.... That's silly. Also this unit does not have an ethernet port like it's cousin. The one good thing though is that is uses a more traditional power adapter versus the Razer proprietary connection on the other models. Performance wise, the machine is really nice... It does not have RTX, but it plays most modern titles no problem on high settings... Even 2077 it handles pretty solid. The build is what you expect, very solid. For the price I got it for its a great machine.
Posted by Studer