The Blade 17 is one of the smallest 17-inch gaming laptops, but its mediocre battery life and over 7lbs weight mean less portability.

Despite being a very slim 17-inch gaming laptop, the Razer Blade 17 is rather heavy and has mediocre battery life, making it an excellent desktop replacement which you can occasionally take with you on the go.

Previously known as Blade Pro 17, the Razer Blade 17 is a powerful gaming laptop with a thin and relatively light-weight dark-black body. Paired with its beautiful 17-inch display, the Blade 17 can be configured with up to an Intel Core i9-12900H processor, NVIDIA RTX 3080Ti graphics card, and 64GB of RAM. That makes it capable of handling demanding games and most 3D tasks easily, though its thinner design might lead to some thermal throttling than competing gaming laptops.

While this is one of the smallest 17-inch gaming laptops available in 2023, its mediocre battery life, along with over 7lb combined weight with its charger, makes this less ideal for taking on the go. Instead, with its large, fast, and vibrant display, and its excellent port selection, the Razer Blade 17 positions itself as an expensive yet beautiful desktop replacement that you can occasionally pack up and take with you when needed.

While there are several competing 17-inch gaming laptops with similar specs available for less, for many users, the unique design of Razer's laptops, its selection of first-party accessories, and their superb software lighting integrations with other compatible devices and even Spotify music, make it worth the premium.

For $2,899.99 (normally $3,399.99), the Razer Blade 17 I'm reviewing is one of the high end models with the following specs:

The cheapest configuration starts at $2,599.99 and comes with the Intel i7-12800H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. But it's still expensive for what you're getting. At $3,299.99, there is currently only one model above my review unit, which upgrades the RAM to 32GB. Razer used to also offer the Blade 17 in an NVIDIA RTX 3080 and RTX 3080Ti variant. However, these models seem to be only available refurbished directly from Razer.

As a comparison to the model we're reviewing, you can find several competing models for about $900 less, including the MSI Raider GE77Hx (12UHS-004) with a 17.3" QHD 240Hz panel, Intel Core i7-12800HX, an NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti, 16GB DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD.

If you're willing to sacrifice display quality, the MSI Katana GF76 (12UGSK-831) is one of the best-value 17.3" gaming laptops with similar specs. It has a 144Hz FHD display, Intel Core i9-12900H, RTX 3070 Ti, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD.

The display has thin bezels on its left and right sides, with a slightly thicker top bezel that houses its cameras and sensors. There is a thicker bottom bezel which measures about 3/4", which does make the laptop look slightly less premium in a world of ultra-thin bezel laptops. Many competing brands, including MSI, have been quickly moving all of their laptops to the new 16:10 aspect ratio, which provides additional screen real estate without increasing the size of the laptop by much. It will be interesting to see if and when Razer makes this switch.

The Blade 17 is available with three displays. The most popular is the anti-glare, IPS, 240Hz QHD panel we have on our review unit. This is a great balance of resolution and refresh rate, making it a great choice for gaming and content creation. With its 100 percent DCI-P3 color gamut, this display provides excellent colors and contrast. With G-Sync, your games can match the display's frame rate to minimize screen tearing and provide a smoother experience. The screen is bright enough for indoor use and does a good job and reducing glare from the sun shining through my windows as well as my overhead lights. I could get by using it outdoors on my balcony, though it certainly was not as useable as my MacBook Pro 14's display.

For the same price, you can also choose the FHD 360Hz display, which could be a good choice if you prioritize frame rate over fidelity. While the RTX 3070Ti is a competent graphics card, unless you lower your visual settings to the lowest, it's unlikely that you hit those frame rates in most modern AAA games. Lastly, Razer also offers a 4K 144hz display for additional clarity if you don't mind sacrificing the refresh rate, making it a good choice for content creators.

Aside from its Razer name, one of the biggest selling features of the Blade 17 is its slim all-black aluminum design, which, just like the rest of the lineup, has hardly changed over the past few years. Build quality is excellent, with virtually no flex except for very little towards the top two corners of the trackpad.

The Razer Blade 17 measures 0.78" x 10.24" x 15.55" (19.9 mm x 260 mm x 395 mm), and weighs 6 pounds, 5 oz. Even with its charger, which weighs about another pound and a half, the Blade 17 is still lighter than most other 17-inch gaming laptops, which usually weigh around 7 to 9 pounds without their battery. While that's a pretty significant weight saving, it's unlikely that you'd want to carry this around all day. I see this as being a good choice for users who want the best performance in a compact form factor without sacrificing screen size.

You can still take this between your home setup to work or even a cafe, but it won't be as convenient as a smaller and lighter 15 or even 14-inch laptop.

New for this model year, there is a fingerprint-resistant coating that helps minimize stamps and smudges. It does best for taps and light touches making them hardly noticeable. To the non-gamer, the Blade looks ordinary yet still very sleek. I personally like how this doesn't scream "this is a gaming laptop", which, similar to the MSI Stealth series, allows it to be used in more professional environments too (provided you keep your RGB lighting use to a minimum).

On the lid, you'll find the iconic green and black triple-headed snake logo. With the Razer Chroma app, you can customize its LED lighting effects, including brightness and breathing, though you can't change the color.

One-handed laptop opening is possible, though I find it more difficult. Compared to laptops like the MacBook Pro, which I can easily open with one thumb, I instead have to use two or three fingers and get my nails under the lip to get the screen to open.

Interestingly, despite the extra space of its larger chassis, Razer has opted for a more compact keyboard deck which you'd find on a smaller 15-inch design. This allows them to fit two large THQ speakers on either side, though I think I would have preferred a different compromise. With a nearly identical size to my MacBook Pro 14, the keyboard looks and feels laughably small on this behemoth.

More than likely, most users will have an external mouse and keyboard connected at most times, but if you're like me and find yourself gaming on the go a lot, you might just be using an external mouse. Key travel is decent, though not particularly impressive for this category. In this case, using the WASD keys is fine; however, its placement feels a little awkward as it's closer to the left side of the trackpad than I'm used to. While it wasn't too frequent, there were times when the right side of my thumb would brush against the trackpad and get registered as unwanted input.

Another issue I ran into more frequently, though, was hitting the caps lock key while using the WASD keys. This is also the case while typing, where I would reach for the Left Shift, and instead hit Caps. Despite hours of using this, I still can't get used to the more compact size.

Just as important, the arrow keys are mini-sized, and a number pad is absent, something very uncommon for laptops of this size. The Escape, Tab, Caps Lock, and Shift keys are all larger on the MacBook Pro 14.

While I appreciate the large top-firing speakers of the Blade 17, Razer could have reduced the spacing surrounding them to fit in larger keys and improve ergonomics.

The trackpad extends the width of the space bar to the right of the FN key. It's about the same size as the MacBook Pro 14 and has a similar feel too. The only major difference is that with the Blade 17, the trackpad supports clicking to about 80% of its height, whereas the MacBook can click even in the top corners.

Complementing its sleek looks, the Blade 17 has squared-off edges with minimally rounded corners. If you plan on using the keyboard a lot, the sharper edges might be noticeable while typing for extended periods of time, especially if you let your wrists lean against it.

While the Razer Blade 17 can get warm with extended use, it has never gotten hot or uncomfortable to the touch. The palm rest and keyboard deck stay cool, with most of the heat being directed toward the top and sides. Any heat is expelled from the rear, right below the hinge. Compared to laptops that exhaust on the sides, this keeps your hands cooler when using an external mouse. The bottom where the intake fans are located gets warm, so keeping this on a table or lap desk is best, though surprisingly, I haven't noticed it ever get too hot.

As with most gaming laptops, its fans quickly kick in, even as soon as a game is launched. They get loud, but they never sound quite as bad as a jet taking off. That said, it is loud enough that you'll probably still want to use a good pair of headphones to block out the unwanted noise.

The Razer Blade 17 uses Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 for fast wireless connectivity. Despite its thin profile, it also offers an excellent port selection for connecting your displays, accessories, and peripherals.

On the left side, you'll find: power, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB-A), Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C; DisplayPort, Power Delivery), and an audio combination jack.

On the right side: storage card reader (SD), Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C; DisplayPort, Power Delivery), USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB-A), HDMI 2.1, and Kensington lock slot.

Razer Chroma Studio is a software suite that allows users to customize the lighting effects on their Razer gaming peripherals, including keyboards, mice, headsets, and more. With Chroma Studio, you can choose from a variety of lighting presets, such as static colors, breathing effects, and reactive lighting, and create custom lighting profiles which you can easily save and switch between.

When you first open it up, the software presents you with a quick overview/tutorial that explains how the customization tools work. It's a little complicated at first, especially with the number of options presented to you. You can synchronize the Blade 17's lighting effects across multiple Razer devices, including compatible headsets and peripherals. Whether you're a streamer or you just love creating a cohesive and immersive lighting setup Chroma Studio is one of the best and most customizable tools that I've tested.

This configuration of the Razer Blade 17 boasts top-of-the-line performance thanks to its powerful Intel Core i9-12900H processor and Nvidia RTX 3070Ti graphics card. The i9-12900H provides fast processing power for demanding tasks, while the RTX 3070Ti offers excellent graphics performance for gaming and creative work.

As with many Windows gaming laptops, the Blade 17 sees a significant performance decrease when unplugged.

For real world gaming 1920x1080p Ultra, we saw an average of 68FPS in Batman Arkham Knight. We also used 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy for comparisons.

Compared to the MSI Z16P, which has 64GB of RAM and the more powerful RTX 3080Ti, the Blade 17 has very similar results in Davinci Resolve.

The Blade 17 has rather disappointing battery life, though it's not particularly surprising for this category. When not gaming, enabling NVidia Optimus automatically switches to integrated graphics and limits the display to 60Hz, which helps improve efficiency. You can expect 3-4 hours with mixed use at about 50% screen brightness.

As a premium desktop replacement that can occasionally be taken on the go, the Razer Blade 17 is one of the best-looking 17-inch gaming laptops with excellent customization and integration with peripherals. The screen and build quality are all excellent, though its keyboard feels cramped, and its battery life is mediocre. Several competing models offer similar or better hardware for less, yet for those wanting that exclusive Razer experience, the Blade 17 might be worth the extra cash.

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