Razer has revealed this year's version of the Blade, its flagship gaming laptop, which it says is the smallest gaming laptop with a 15.6-in display. The 2018 Razer Blade boasts some pretty beefy innards, but that can be bumped up even further with a new edition of the external graphics-boosting box, the Razer Core X.
The IPS display on the new Razer Blade is a step up from last year's 14-in model, but it's not just bigger. Users can choose between a Full HD screen with a zippy 144 Hz refresh rate for more fluid motion, or upgrade to a 4K touchscreen capable of displaying 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space.
On the inside, the beastly Blades are powered by an 8th Gen Intel Core i7 Processor, the choice of a GeForce GTX 1060 or 1070 GPU, 16 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of SSD storage. For those wanting to do a little customization, the rigs also support up to 32 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage.
This is encased in an aluminum chassis that Razer says makes it the smallest gaming laptop with a 15.6-in screen. At its thinnest, the machine is only 0.66 in (16.8 mm) thick, and weighs just over 4.5 lb (2 kg). Following the smartphone design trend, Razer has done its best to banish the bezels from around the display, shrinking them to 0.2 in (4.9 mm).
The 2018 Razer Blade can output to three external displays at once, through the Mini Display Port, HDMI and Thunderbolt 3 ports. To sweeten the deal, Razer says it's throwing in a free bundle of games and software, including the likes of zany platformer Cuphead, the VR zombie shooter Arizona Sunshine, and the music production suite FL Studio Producer Edition.
Razer has also announced the Razer Core X, the newest version of a device it calls an "external graphics enclosure." That basically means it's a big empty shell that can hold extra graphics cards, if you want to boost the performance of the Razer Blade – or other Windows or Mac laptops, for that matter.
Inside a box measuring 12.99 x 6.29 x 2.36 in (330 x 160 x 60 mm), the Razer Core X has space for three GPUs. These are powered by a 650 W power supply that can also charge the device it's connected to, which it does via a Thunderbolt 3 port.
The 2018 Razer Blade and Core X lines are already available on the company's online store in some countries, and will be released worldwide in early June. The Razer Blade starts at US$1,899, while the Core X will be cheaper than last year's model, at $299.
