Razer Blade Pro 17

Published on 03 Mar 2019 4 mins reading time Categories: Laptops

Not long ago gaming laptops were big, bulky beasts that were more akin to a portable PC tower than a sexy, sleek laptop. However, companies like Razer have made leaps and bounds in the laptop design department over the past few years and now offer products that are both powerful and sleek.

Razer’s Blade Pro 17 is the company’s top-of-the-line 17.3in laptop for gamers, offering desktop-level graphics in a chassis that’s not only 25 percent thinner than its predecessor, but small enough to fit in most 15in laptop bags too. Is it enough to solidify its place amongst the best gaming laptops available? We think so.

We’ve spent some time gaming on the Razer Blade Pro 17, and here’s our full review. Blade Pro 17 - Price & Availability

If you thought the £1,699/$1,899 starting price of the standard Razer Blade 15 was high, you might wince at the £2,399/$2,499 starting price for the Razer Blade Pro. It doesn’t end there either, as you can pick up the mid-range model for £2,679/$2,799 and the high-end model for £3,079/$3,199.

Those interested in buying the Razer Blade Pro 17 can do so from Razer along with the likes of Amazon, Scan and Currys PC World.

The high-end price tag puts it in direct competition not only with Razer’s own high-end Blade 15 (2019), but the likes of the Alienware Area 51M (from £1,948) and budget-friendly Aorus 15 X9 (from £1,999).

Here’s a breakdown of the Razer Blade Pro 17 pricing to give you a better idea of what’s on offer:

144Hz FHD display, 16GB RAM, 512GB, RTX 2060 – £2,399 / $2,499 / €2,669
144Hz FHD display, 16GB RAM, 512GB, RTX 2070 Max-Q – £2,679 / $2,799 / €3,049
144Hz FHD display, 16GB RAM, 512GB, RTX 2080 Max-Q – £3,079 / $3,199 / €3,499

Blade Pro 17 - Design & Build

The Razer Blade Pro 17 follows a similar design aesthetic to the rest of the Razer collection, including the Razer Blade 15 and even the Razer Phone 2, complete with a black-and-green colour scheme and a bold, angular design that looks sleek. It’s certainly a step away from the in-your-face gaming laptop design on offer by the likes of Alienware, with the understated Razer Blade Pro 17 looking just as good at the office as it does playing games at home.

The chassis of the Razer Blade Pro 17 features an anodized matte black finish which in addition to looking good and keeping fingerprints at bay, helps the laptop stay scratch- and scuff-free, although we’re not in the position to start defacing it in the name of testing. It should also prove quite sturdy, as the entire chassis is milled from a single block of aluminium.

Despite featuring a 17.3in display, the 0.6mm bezels that surround it allow the chassis to stay relatively small – in fact, the Razer Blade Pro 17 is 25% smaller than the last-gen Pro and boasts similar dimensions to 15in laptops we’ve used in the past, measuring in at 395 x 360 x 19.9mm and weighing 2.75kg. We can confirm that it’ll just about fit into a 15in laptop bag too, making it easier to transport between home and work.

Despite the chassis magic, the Razer Blade Pro 17 has a larger surface for cooling when compared to the 2018 variant, which translates to better heat dissipation and better performance during long, intense gaming sessions.

Blade Pro 17 - Specs & Performance

Much like with the display, regardless of the model you choose, you’re going to get a 9th-gen six-core i7-9750H processor with a 2.6GHz base speed, boosted to 4.5GHz with Max Turbo. It’s the same story with RAM and storage, with all variants boasting 16GB Dual-Channel DDR4 2667MHz RAM and a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD alongside an additional M.2 slot to further upgrade the storage post-purchase.

The only real difference is in terms of graphics; all feature Nvidia RTX cards, but only the mid and top tier laptops feature Max-Q cards. The base model comes with the RTX 2060, while the mid-tier option boasts the RTX 2070 Max-Q and the top-tier sports the RTX 2080 Max-Q. If that’s not enough, you could always pick up Razer’s Core X eGPU to house a desktop card.

For reference, we’ve been testing the base model with a 9th-gen core i7, 16GB of DDR4 RAM and an Nvidia RTX 2060 GPU, and performance is what we’d expect from an entry-level RTX, although there are cheaper, more powerful options on the market if you can do without the Blade Pro 17’s sleek design.