The Razer Blade 14 has everything I look for in a modern gaming laptop. It has a powerful CPU, a powerful graphics chip, a gorgeous high-resolution, high-refresh rate screen, and fast storage. But best of all, the Blade 14 offers real portability. It's something that many gaming laptops shy away from in favor of a larger screen area and a sturdier keyboard. [But they don't have to, because the 14-inch form factor nails it all. Because who needs a big display when you're on the go? I don't know anyone who, when lugging their laptop from place to place, wished they had chosen a larger, heavier laptop.

And if you want a laptop that fits the minimalist desktop aesthetic at home, but need a bigger screen when you're wearing a black polo neck and drinking espresso, there are plenty of virtually bezel-less gaming monitors are aplenty.

That said, it is understandable why the 14-inch form factor has not caught on in the past. The smaller the laptop, the less space there is for cooling and enjoying the fruits of powerful graphics silicon. Battery life is also greatly reduced.

Unlike desktop models, however, the components in modern gaming notebooks are better able to cope with the limitations of smaller form factors than in previous generations. This makes 14-inch gaming laptops both ultra-desirable and ultra-performing devices.

However, Razer did not set the stage for this, and Asus must be commended for taking on a smaller scale with its superb ROG Zephyrus G14 (open in new tab) The G14 has a sleek chassis, smart cooling, and powerful gaming components. And for reasons yet to be revealed, it has an LED light display baked into the back of the lid.

It was also a surprisingly affordable device at launch; given the changing market in 2022, that has changed a bit, making the G14 a more premium-priced device, but the actual design remains largely unchanged.

Razer wanted to get a piece of this G14 pie, so it launched the Blade 14 last year, not only as the first 14-inch notebook in a long time, but also as the first AMD gaming laptop ever. But for the most part, it was a machine designed to beat Asus' Zephyrus G14.

This 2022 version features the latest Ryzen 6000 series CPUs and adds the newer RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti to the family. But other than that, we are looking at functionally identical machines. The only problem for me is that the lid still has the big green backlit logo. I much prefer the subtle styling of the Blade 13 Stealth (opens in new tab).

However, this head-to-head matchup between Asus and Razer has divided PC Gamer's hardware team, and while Jacob is firmly in the plastic-heavy G14 camp, I've always been drawn to the Blade 14's understated black aluminum aesthetic. Both are great machines. Both are great machines, and I would have no problem taking either home to meet my family, but clearly Jacob is wrong; the Razer is a much more appealing machine to me, but that is probably more due to my personal aesthetic preferences than anything else.

Certainly not in terms of benchmarking. While close, the Asus machine is more powerful in terms of raw frame rate and memory bandwidth.

However, the Blade 14 is a more expensive machine, more expensive in the UK than in the US. And when you look at the benchmark performance side-by-side, it is hard to swallow.

These frustrations are exacerbated by the fact that the 16GB of soldered memory and 1TB are not customizable on the Razer like on Asus machines. Nevertheless, it is sometimes puzzling. That said, the G14 with 40GB of RAM is odd.

The AMD RX 6800S on the G14 we tested is a perfect match for the RTX 3070 Ti on the Razer machine, providing performance within a few frames. Both offer excellent 1080p gaming performance and can deliver frame rates high enough to game at their respective native resolutions.

1080p gaming performance

The G14's resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 is slightly higher than the Blade 14's native resolution of 2,560 x 1,440, but both GPUs will let you game at speeds that will make you feel you are running on a slim mobile machine.

That said, we honestly wouldn't recommend buying either system with the graphics cards we reviewed; we were impressed that the Razer chassis cooled the Nvidia GPUs well, running at much cooler temperatures than the G14's RX 6800S, but the MSI GS 66 Stealth (open in new tab) is still toast than the RTX 3070 Ti, which is actually running at a higher TDP of 105W. For reference, Razer's RTX 3070 Ti is set at 100W.

And since performance is inextricably linked to heat, this means that Blade 14 runs a bit slower than an MSI machine, which is itself a fairly slim system.

System Performance

Personally, I preferred the RTX 3060 version of the Blade 14 that I checked out last year (opens in new tab). It was a touch cooler, didn't require the fan to spin as much, and the lower spec GPU didn't leave as much performance on the shelf due to its size. It is also less expensive, which is worth considering since it saves $600, compared to this version's price of $2,600 (open in new tab) (£2,700 (open in new tab)). [However, the battery performance of the 2022 Blade 14 is impressive, offering about twice the gaming uptime of the Asus G14 and slightly longer than the MSI GS66. However, the battery performance is impressive, providing almost twice as much gaming uptime as the Asus G14 and a bit longer than the MSI GS66...You might point out that the Steam Deck's battery life (opens in a new tab) only allows for 3 hours of gaming, but it still does most gaming laptops can do, which is far beyond what most gaming laptops can do.

Also, this version of the Blade 14 has a 165Hz QHD screen, while the RTX 3060 machine has only a 144Hz 1080p panel.

And it is worth talking about the 1440p Razer screens. It has the typical IPS weaknesses when it comes to black levels, but aside from that it's fantastic, and it's hard to believe that it took so long for the 14-inch form factor to become so popular, even though 4K laptops have been around for years and 1440p panels have been available on PC laptops for It's amazing that it's only recently that they've been available on PC laptops; 1440p panels are perfect for smaller designs because of their wide pixel pitch, and they don't have the extra GPU burden that 4K panels have.

As an all-around package, the Razer Blade 14 is a beautiful machine, but if you're going to pay this kind of money, we'd say we don't know why you'd pay nearly $3,000 for only 16GB of memory and a 1TB SSD The RAM is also soldered in. So there is no hope of upgrading; 32GB of RAM may not be necessary, but I would definitely want a 2TB SSD at this price.

The Blade14's pricing is, as usual with Razer gaming laptops, painful. However, it's hard not to love this little machine as a mobile device, and I personally think it's the most desirable gaming laptop on the market.

The GPU may be a bit rich for my blood, but there's no denying that it delivers great gaming performance at the native resolution of this pin-sharp screen. And the fact that such a powerful GPU can be cooled in this slim form factor will definitely appeal to many. For me, the overall balance is off with this particular spec, but if I were to buy a gaming laptop, I would definitely choose from the Blade 14 family.