The refreshed Razer Blade 18 is officially available starting today. As with all model refreshes, the 2nd generation, 18-inch desktop replacement is all up-to-date with the most powerful components currently on offer.
Specs-wise, the new Blade 18 comes with Intel’s top-tier Core i9-14900HX that, as we’ve mentioned in previous articles, is basically a refurbished version of the desktop 14900K. On that note, the “HX” moniker also means that the CPU is overclockable and can be pushed beyond its rated 5.8GHz overall boost clock.
Other internal hardware details of the Blade 18 include up to 64GB DDR5-5600MHz RAM although Razer says it can support to 96GB in capacity; up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, with the base model having an RTX 4070, bare minimum; and up to 4TB of NVMe 4.0 of storage in a dual 2TB SSD configuration.
For its 18-inch 16:10 display, Razer is offering two resolution options: a 4K+ panel with 200Hz refresh rate, or a QHD+ Mini LED panel with 2,000 dimming zones, and a maximum refresh rate of 300Hz. In this writer’s personal opinion, we’d go for the latter option any day, given its sweetspot between FHD+ and 4K+, both with regards to its PPI and amount of stress it induces on any GPU.
As an Intel-based gaming laptop, the Blade 18 is one of the few machines that can claim to truly support the chipmaker’s new Thunderbolt 5 interface and standard. This means one of the USB-C ports will be able to output to multiple display using DisplayPort 1.4 with the onboard NVIDIA GPU, as well as serve as a PD at the same time.
As for audio, the Blade 18 supports THX Spatial Audio with a 6-speaker array, comprising of two tweeters and four sub-woofers, located at the four corners of the laptop’s base. Finally, it comes with 91.7WHr battery and depending on the SKU, either a 280W or 330W GaN power adapter. On the subject of battery life, Razer claims that the laptop should be able to go for approximately four hours of use which, given its size and the chip inside, is mildly impressive.
The Razer Blade 18 will retail at a starting SRP of US$3,099.99 (~RM14,692). At the time of writing, the brand did not provide local pricing. For more details, you can check out the official product page.
