CES 2024: First Look At The New 4k Razer Blade 18
At Razer’s booth during CES 2024, the center attraction piece was none other than the upcoming refreshed, Razer Blade 18 laptop. This beauty has Razer’s largest screen size available and will get a bit of a resolution bump in a tradeoff with the refresh rate numbers. At 18-inches with a 4K display and a 165Hz refresh rate, Razer says this is the world’s first display with this combination of specs. The brand new Thunderbolt 5 connection will also upgrade the Blade’s connectivity performance to offer a variety of improved functionality.
The Blade 18 display is Calman Verified, which guarantees a certain characteristic of color calibration. Seeing the display in person validates the additional effort Razer put into this refresh as it was easily the best looking laptop screen I had seen on the showfloor the entire day at CES 2024. All of this is compounded with a 3ms pixel response time in combination with Nvidia G-Sync to help with screen tearing woes. Unlike the new Blade 16 and the previous Blade 18, the drop from a boundary-pushing 240Hz down to 165Hz might be beneficial for the new Blade 18. Hitting that 4K resolution number is sure to attract a certain crowd of gamers or power users who have been wanting a Razer laptop with a 4K display.
While the company didn’t give us additional information regarding what CPU and GPU configurations will be offered with the Blade 18, I would be shocked if we didn’t see at least the same configurations of either Intel and/or AMD products that the 2024 Blade 14 and 16 will utilize. While we didn’t know the spec of the display model at the booth, we were told that the game was legitimately running off of the Razer Blade 18 hooked up to triple-monitors through a single Thunderbolt 5 cable. I believe the game running was Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Benny spent a few minutes roaming around the city. It legitimately was a satisfying gaming experience and I’m excited to get the full spec sheet and pricing when the Blade 18 gets closer to release later this year.
Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!