Razer is teasing a slew of display upgrades for its Blade 16 and Blade 18 gaming laptops ahead of the full reveal of the updated laptops next week at CES.
The Blade 16 gets what Razer says is the world's first 16-inch 240Hz OLED panel, co-developed with Samsung, while the Blade 18 will get a 165Hz 4K LED panel with G-Sync. Both teams will be Kalman verified And individually factory calibrated. Like the Blade's current display options, it will display 100 percent of the DCI-P3 range.
The Blade 16 currently comes with two display options: There's a dual-mode Mini-LED panel that can run at either 1920 x 1200 at 240Hz or 4K at 120Hz, or it can come with a 240Hz 2560 x 1600 LED panel.
The Blade 18's panel refresh is a more obvious trade-off of refresh rate for accuracy. The current Blade 18 has a 2560 x 1600, 240Hz panel with G-Sync; The upgraded panel increases the resolution to 4K but lowers the refresh rate to 165Hz. Very good trade, imo. The high refresh rate, 3ms response time and G-Sync support should eliminate screen tearing and enable smooth gameplay even at 4K resolution, which is great.
Blade's idea has always been, “What if there was a gaming laptop that looked like a MacBook Pro?” By factory calibrating each panel, reducing motion blur, and emphasizing 100 percent DCI-P3 support, Razer may be trying to entice people who want a single rig for gaming And Edit photos or video for Apple Switch.
This may be difficult for several reasons. First, it gets the MacBook Pro shining — Up to 600 nits in normal use with a peak of up to 1,600 nits in HDR mode. Razer didn't provide brightness information for either display, but True Black 500 certification on the 16-inch OLED display only calls for 300 nits of maximum overall brightness and 500 nits of center peak brightness. Most of Razer's current display options max out at 500 nits. Also, the Razer Blades run hot and loud, while the MacBook Pro doesn't.
Razer is set to announce more updates for the Blade 16 and 18 at CES 2024.