I Can’t Stop Using This Flawed Gaming Laptop

[00:01] know that there is one laptop that I have this love-hate relationship with, the Razer Blade 16. It has so many issues, but I'm not going to lie to you. I can't stop freaking using it. Guys, a laptop is a personal device, and

[00:16] sometimes you just have this personal connection to it. I'd like you to think of the Blade as a McLaren. It looks stunning. It is super fast, and it is super expensive. But just like a McLaren, at least from what I've heard,

[00:28] there's a lot of issues you have to deal with. There is a huge maintenance cost describe its main competitor, the Zephyrus G16, as more of a Porsche or a high-end Audi. So, not quite as rare and as flashy, but still flashy enough, and

[00:42] a lot more reliable. Well, today I'm going to go through why I love the Blade going to go through what's new this year, then I'll go through all the issues that you'll need to deal with if you buy one. Now, as per usual, all the

[00:56] this video, as well as on our website bestlaptops.deals. Over there, we track prices right across retailers to ensure that you're getting the best deal. Guys, I love the Blade's form factor. It is very thin and light

[01:10] for how powerful it is. It looks stunning, not only the chassis, but the perky RGB. Razer is the best in the business when it comes to RGB. It shines doesn't bleed around them like the Legions do. The Blade looks so unique.

[01:25] It's literally a conversation starter. Like the other day, I was working out of a coffee store, and a girl was using a Blade 14. And we just got chatting. You don't get that with a MacBook. Also, I love how pressing the function button or

[01:37] lights up the secondary functions or symbols, makes it so easy to find them. like how comfortable the key press is. I wouldn't say it's quite as satisfying as my Yoga Slim 7X's keyboard. Typing on

[01:51] that, it's a 10 out of 10. But the Blade, it's a close nine. In fact, this is a big reason that I prefer it over the Zephyrus. The Zephyrus' key press, like. Some people do like more

[02:03] Sierra. They prefer the Zephyrus. As I said, it's a personal thing. Now, another big win is that this laptop feels very cool to the touch for casual use. Even in gaming, it barely feels

[02:15] warm, at least where your hands are. And since this is a thin gaming laptop, its edge just doesn't bite into your wrist, which really annoys me about thicker gaming laptops. Now, this year, Razer has addressed one of the biggest

[02:27] downsides of last year's Blade. It's horrendously bad processor. In all configurations, you got a Ryzen 9 365 CPU other than the 5090, which had a slightly faster 370. In an ultrabook, these are very good

[02:40] CPUs, but paired with high-end GPUs, a complete joke. The CPU, it literally holds back the laptop. You can see this clearly in Time Spy. Our new Zephyrus G16 has the same 5080 that our Blade did from last year. The G16's overall GPU

[02:55] performance is worse, but because its CPU is so much better than the Blade from last year, it ends up ahead. And you can just really see the effects of that AMD processor in a CPU-bound game like Marvel Rivals, where the older

[03:08] Blade, it falls very far behind the Zephyrus that has the same GPU. So, we are super glad to see that Razer has switched to the same Intel Panther Lake CPU that the G16 has. In Geekbench, a CPU benchmark, the new Blade now

[03:21] performs noticeably better than last year's and similar to the new Zephyrus. Same goes for Cinebench, within acceptable variance to the Zephyrus. But more importantly, how does this laptop game? Very well. The best thin and light

[03:34] gaming laptop that we've tested. You're going to have an enjoyable experience here regardless of the games. You'll have access to high settings, high frame Unfortunately, it's kind of hard for us

[03:46] to compare this new model to last year's and our Zephyrus because our new Blade, it has a 5090, not a 5080. Razer did send us this unit and manufacturers they configuration, you know, to present their laptops in the best possible

[03:59] light. I don't like this because I don't think many of you guys are buying a 50 90 laptop, but it's unfortunately what we have to work with. Okay, so in Time Spy, our new Blade does much better. Funnily enough, the GPU it's only 11%

[04:12] faster in this test, but because the CPU is 63% faster, the total score is 22% When we test still no mad, which is a GP bound you can see that our 50 90 Blade again, it's not that much further ahead than our 50 80, 9% here. So, similar to

[04:28] what we saw in Time Spy. It's quite a bit behind our full fat gaming laptop the Legion Pro 7i. So, for the increase in cost of a 50 90 in this laptop, probably not worth it for most people. If like a lot of folks, you are choosing

[04:41] between this laptop and the Zephyrus, we believe the Blade will perform better with the same hardware because of its better power allocation. A laptop has a total amount of power you see that it can feed to its CPU and GPU. We found

[04:54] that for both the Blade and the Zephyrus, it's around 175 watts. The fact that Razer and Asus are advertising that these laptops can feed their GPUs almost that amount alone, not including the CPU is completely misleading.

[05:09] Anyway, what you'll notice is that the Blade can allocate its CPU more of its matters a lot. When pairing high-end GPUs with mid-range performing CPUs, the CPU can be the bottleneck. Here's an example

[05:23] that Sam put together just to demonstrate this. You can see here that the Blade 16, it cannot generate more than 100 frames per second in Marvel Rivals regardless of how much you lower its base render resolution. The CPU is

[05:37] the bottleneck. So, with laptops like this one and the Zephyrus, which don't have more powerful Intel HX processors, you don't want to skimp feeding the CPU enough power. Now, another thing in favor of the Blade over the Zephyrus is

[05:50] that if you buy Razer's cooling pad, the Blade's 16's total power envelope is actually raised by around 10 to 15 watts. Other YouTubers have demonstrated this. I'll link their videos down below. So, with its cooling pad, the Blade

[06:02] should consistently outperform the Zephyrus. All right, let's now move benefit of the Blade's new CPU, its improved battery life. It is so much better this year, almost double what it was before. Battery life, it's always

[06:16] laptops and it's really nice to see an improvement. I think a lot of you guys I'm showing you on screen, they are in controlled environments. We did recently up its difficulty, but for my real-world use, guys, I get about half of what I'm

[06:30] Now, if you are considering the Zephyrus, it still has an edge here over the Blade. The Blade's CPU performance is actually throttled when you unplug it. The Zephyrus's is not. Rounding out the stuff I love about the Blade, I

[06:43] really like its screen. I am a pixel peeper and I thought 2560 by 1600 resolution just wouldn't be enough for me, but it is. This panel, it ticks all the boxes. It is bright, it's color accurate, it's an OLED, it's got a high

[06:56] refresh rate, advanced Optimus, G-Sync, minimal screen door effect, and I didn't have any issues with PWM. I also really like the Blade's ports, best of any laptop. You've got all the different ports you'd need, including an

[07:09] SD card reader. They're all super fast and they're all just well laid out. They're in the back half of the laptop, so cables don't get in your way. You have USB-C ports on either side, so you can always find one close to your dock

[07:21] or power outlet. I also really like that one goes directly to the dedicated GPU and the other via the integrated, so you have the choice. If I'm just docked and dedicated GPU enabled warming up my

[07:35] laptop and causing fan noise. And this year, the right side USB-C port is now Thunderbolt 5. Unfortunately, it doesn't support 240 W charging. We did test this with both a Thunderbolt 5 dock and the Framework 16's 240 W USB-C charger. This

[07:50] is a shame, but you still have Thunderbolt 5 data transfer speeds. The speakers on this new Blade for 2026 noticeably improved over last year's more full with better bass, although we did hear some clipping at high volumes.

[08:03] did hear some clipping at high volumes. Take a listen.

[08:26] like on the new Blade for 2026. It's actually pretty good. It's better than I Windows Hello facial recognition, too, to get you locked in fast. Now, just as a point of comparison, here I am using the webcam on last year's Blade 16. Now,

[08:39] what it looks and sounds like in a difficult lighting condition, dimmer house lights and a well-lit background. For Linux, we booted up Ubuntu 26.04, and almost everything worked. Speakers, webcam, mic, trackpad, keyboard

[08:53] work is changing the display's brightness, but we were testing from a USB drive. With a full install and driver update, perhaps this will work. Big thanks to our Linux backers over on Patreon and right here on YouTube. If we

[09:07] will do full installs with driver updates. Inside the laptop, upgradeability is pretty good for what this laptop is. You have easy access to two SSD slots, one is populated and one is empty. The battery is replaceable,

[09:20] and Wi-Fi is also upgradeable, which is important because, unfortunately, Razer included an Intel card that does not support 320 Hz channels. So, you won't get the full Wi-Fi 7 speeds on your new expensive laptop, but at least you can

[09:34] upgrade it. This is the same issue that we've seen with Wi-Fi 7 on Apple's new MacBooks, but those you can't upgrade. All right, so far everything sounds really good, but it's time to talk about the Blade's issues. Last year, when I

[09:46] first opened up my Blade and started using it, key presses were double registered. I kid you not. That happened when Synapse was open, and it made the laptop just completely unusable. I had to close Synapse every time, which meant

[09:58] I couldn't access performance controls. It was just annoying. Good news here, this isn't an issue on this latest Blade. Next, the notorious didn't happen at all on this new model, either. But, there are a ton of issues

[10:11] addressed. When I close my Blade and put it in my backpack, it almost never turns off. It just sits there and cooks itself. This Windows laptops, but today, the Blade,

[10:24] it's one of the only ones that still has it. I literally have to shut down the Blade before I close its screen. It is ridiculous and very annoying. Next, See, with this laptop, it is completely iffy. Sometimes it works perfectly, but

[10:39] on occasion it doesn't. On the video I'm showing you, the Blade screen appears like I'm being logged in, but the external monitor is already logged in. And the opposite happens, too. Here's an example where the external monitor shows

[10:51] me logged out, but the Blade screen appears like I'm logged in. What is going on? Next, the trackpad palm rejection continues to be brutal on this laptop. The Blade has this massive trackpad, and

[11:03] guys, your palms are going to touch it. And when they do, the cursor just jumps to a place you don't expect. It is super distracting and annoying. I have to carry a mouse with me with this laptop. Luckily, Razer does make it easy to

[11:16] disable the trackpad. You just hold down the function key and shortcuts light up, on and off. Another big annoyance for me with this laptop is its keyboard layout. The entire keyboard is shifted to the left

[11:28] to make room for a column of special keys. If you are swapping between another keyboard on this one, you are going to mispress keys. Speaking personally, I frequently hit the mic mute button because I expect it to be

[11:40] the right arrow key, and it isn't. Next, the screen, although amazing, is Other laptops with glossy screens, they have better anti-reflective coatings. the panel is quite bright, so you can combat this. But, I would have liked to

[11:56] see an improvement here from Razer. Next, when I plug the laptop into my dock using a single USB-C cable for that clean setup where the laptop is charging from the same cable, Synapse won't let me select silent mode. It's permanently

[12:09] it's not fed enough power to change modes. But guys, silent mode uses less power than balance. So, why can't I change it to that mode? On that note, the Blade is never completely silent. I definitely would not call this a loud

[12:23] laptop, but it does have a little bit of fan noise even in light use, even on its silent mode, when you can actually turn on its silent mode. Also, when you finally engage this performance mode and you are doing something intensive on the

[12:35] vibrations. That's through the left side of the keyboard deck. It's not terrible, but it is there, just like it was on the 2025 model. And on the chassis, when you do close the lid, it is not rigid. You need to be careful what you stack on top

[12:49] of this laptop. Also, the USB-C ports, they're a bit loose, which just doesn't make me feel good given this laptop's price. And if you have any issues with the Blade, dealing with their customer support is a nightmare. I have a very

[13:04] funny video out of my experience on that. You guys go watch it, have a good laugh at my misery. I'll link it down below. And be aware, by the way, Razer's return period is just 14 days. So, you may not catch all the issues during that

[13:17] period. Overall, the experience of owning a Blade it just doesn't match its high price. Razer really needs to stop spending all that money that we're paying for these expensive laptops, sponsoring YouTubers and e-sports teams,

[13:30] and instead actually invest it into solving their bugs and customer support issues. But, I think we all know that they won't do that. So, let's wrap. For most buyers of a thin and light gaming laptop, even though the Blade can

[13:43] perform a little better than the Zephyrus, the G16 it is a safer recommendation. It just doesn't have the issues that the Blade has. And when my best friend asked me for a gaming laptop recommendation, I told him to get the

[13:55] Zephyrus. But, for me personally, for Josh, I'd buy the Blade. As I said, buying a laptop is a personal thing. And using this Razer personal thing. And using this Razer Blade 16, it just makes me feel special.

[14:08] For both of them, the Zephyrus and the Blade, the 4070 Ti model, guys, that's the sweet spot. I can see a case of getting the Blade with a 4080, particularly if you're getting the cooling pad. On the flip side, do not

[14:20] buy the Blade 16 with a 4060 or 4070. That still has that crappy Ryzen 9 7365 Now, I went through this video pretty fast. I didn't go through all the testing that we normally do or all our graphs. On our website though, if you

[14:33] search for the Blade 16, you'll find our full graph set there. That includes today, like how the Blade compares to Apple's highest-end MacBook Pro in I'm off. I was going to say I'm going to go play games on the Blade, but we are

[14:47] way too busy. There are so many new laptops that have come into the studio. Let me know with a comment below what you think of this new Razer Blade 16. Zephyrus? Until next time, I'll catch you later.