I’ve spent a brief period with the new Razer Blade 16, though my initial review unit had significant hardware issues and was replaced by Nvidia, who provided the Blades for RTX 5090 evaluation. The replacement unit has been with me only a short while, and while it does not suffer from the same performance problems or speaker issues, it has experienced a couple of unexpected bluescreens. I’m in discussions with Razer for troubleshooting, but as that continues, I’m still assessing this laptop and forming my opinions about it. Think of this as sharing my thought process — a small insight into my reflections. (You’re welcome. And, perhaps, I apologize?)

I’m fond of most of the hardware on the new Blade — most. Its 16-inch, 2560 x 1600 OLED screen with a 240Hz refresh rate is as delightful for work and gaming as its previous model. The keyboard and trackpad are generally quite good. My main issue with the keyboard is the newly added column of macro keys on the right, which frequently leads me to mute the microphone instead of pressing the right arrow. This could have been avoided by adopting the conventional inverted-T arrow key layout that’s easier to navigate by touch. Will Windows laptop designers ever take this into account?

The thinner and lighter chassis is a welcome change (it shaves off a whole 7mm and 0.8 pounds), though I need to do more thermal testing to see if it’s as good at cooling as the last model. There’s also Razer’s Laptop Cooling Pad, which can give the Blade 16’s GPU and CPU up to 25W more power each. I have it here, so I’ll see if HyperBoost is worth the added noise and extra $150. I also wonder whether thicker gaming laptops might eke out more juice from the RTX 5090.

As I’ve already written, the RTX 5090 GPU in the Blade 16 is a fine upgrade if you enjoy DLSS and frame generation. I’m going to continue testing it, including more gaming while on battery power. Nvidia’s made some big claims about how powerful yet power-efficient the 50-series laptop cards are, and in my early testing, the 5090 is about 20 percent more efficient than the 4090, so I’m intrigued.

But I’m skeptical, because when I’m not gaming, the Blade 16 struggles to get through a basic work day on battery, even while using productivity apps like Slack, Chrome, and Google Docs on the integrated graphics. Its AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 “Strix Point” CPU can easily stretch beyond eight hours of work in other gaming laptops, like the 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G16, but I can’t get five and a half hours with the Blade, despite enabling Advanced Optimus and triple-checking the graphics settings in Nvidia Control Panel, Windows Settings, and Synapse. (Maybe there’s something misconfigured somewhere, so I’ll continue testing this too.)

This laptop is supposed to be great for productivity, creative apps, and gaming. It costs four-and-a-half thousand dollars. Part of me really likes what it has to offer, and I’m downright impressed with how cool it can run under load, but another part of me thinks the price is outlandish if things are randomly crashing under light loads and you have to charge multiple times a day. For that money, you can buy a $2,000 MacBook Pro that can handle creative workflows and last well over a whole day (if you don’t mind MacOS, of course). And you’d have another $2,500 to spend on a respectable gaming laptop, or even a more powerful desktop.

However, I’ll concede that having one device to do it all is a slick proposition. I keep coming back to how nice this laptop looks and feels. And boy does it make games look pretty and run them smoothly, either on its brilliant OLED or on an external 4K monitor. It is, after all, meant for games.

I can still see myself loving the Blade 16. But we’ll have to see in the full review, after a whole bunch more testing that’s hopefully (fingers crossed) devoid of any further technical hangups.

What do you think? Does any laptop actually make sense for nearly five grand? Let me know in the comments, and if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see tested on the Blade 16 for the full review.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge