Razer Blade 18 (2025) Review: An 18-inch Gaming Laptop That Does The Most

As nan 7-pound Razer Blade 18 sat connected my desk, its all-black unibody lawsuit and enormous 18-inch screen towering earlier maine for illustration nan monolith from 2001, I couldn’t thief but think, “Who nan hellhole needs specified a big-ass computer?” I’m judge they’re retired location — nan gamers pinch heavy pockets and small respect for portability, nan video editors who request arsenic overmuch surface abstraction arsenic possible. But connected nan whole, nan marketplace for nan Blade 18 is beautiful small, particularly whenRazer’s Blade 14 and 16 onslaught a acold amended equilibrium of price, capacity and weight.

What nan Razer Blade 18 promises, if you take to judge its gargantuan proportions, is unbridled powerfulness and surface existent estate. It’s moving Intel’s caller Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, a 24-core beast pinch a maximum velocity of 5.4GHz. Its 18-inch surface tin scope up to 240Hz astatine somewhat complete 4K (3,840 by 2,400 pixels) and 440Hz erstwhile downscaled to 1080p+ (1,920 by 1,200). And of course, you tin equip it pinch NVIDIA’s fastest mobile GPU, nan GeForce RTX 5090. Given everything nether nan hood, it’s honestly awesome it weighs just 7 pounds, alongside a 2.1-pound powerfulness adapter. (In comparison, nan likewise premium 18-inch Alienware Area 51 comes successful astatine 9.5 pounds pinch a 2.2-pound powerfulness adapter.)

When we past reviewed the Razer Blade 18 a fewer years ago, my workfellow Sam Rutherford bristled astatine nan laptop’s size, artillery life and precocious costs (which could scope upwards of $5,000 erstwhile afloat decked out). All of those points are perfectly fair, but this clip astir it’s easier to spot what Razer is trying to do pinch nan Blade 18: It’s simply doing nan astir for nan group who request it. And it’s doing truthful pinch nan fantabulous build value we’ve travel to expect from Razer (albeit pinch a precocious $2,799 starting price).

If you’re still trying to wrap your caput astir why an 18-inch laptop moreover exists, nan Razer Blade 18 isn’t for you. And honestly, nan conception isn’t moreover that farfetched. Given nan move towards thinner show bezels and different refinements, laptop makers person been capable to compression successful larger screens wrong of their emblematic lawsuit sizes. The Razer Blade 16 was a spot heavier than nan Blade 15 erstwhile it launched, but now Razer has slimmed its lawsuit down considerably. The Blade 18 likewise serves arsenic an upgrade to nan aged Blade 17 — and what an upgrade it is. 

My reappraisal unit, which was equipped pinch that caller Intel chip, an RTX 5090, 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD tackled Cyberpunk 2077 pinch each of its settings cranked without a sweat. At its autochthonal resolution, which again is simply a spot higher than 4K, it reached 131 fps pinch 4X framework procreation (which uses DLSS 4’s upscaling to interpolate further frames). That’s astir half arsenic accelerated arsenic nan desktop RTX 5090 moving successful 4K pinch nan aforesaid settings — but don’t forget, that GPU unsocial typically runs betwixt $2,000 to $3,000 these days. Razer charges an further $1,400 to upgrade nan Blade 18 from an RTX 5070 Ti to nan 5090. (And for nan record, nan full costs for our afloat decked retired testing portion was $4,599.)

Beyond framework rates, Cyberpunk 2077 simply looked awesome connected nan Blade 18’s 240Hz IPS LED display. It’s not arsenic agleam arsenic nan MiniLED screens Razer offers connected nan Blade 16, and it doesn’t connection nan insane opposition levels of an OLED screen, but it does nan occupation well. For nan price, though, it would person been bully to spot much modern surface technology. Like nan Blade 16, nan 18 besides offers a dual-mode display, which is really it reaches those higher 440Hz refresh rates successful 1080p+. 

It worked arsenic advertised successful Overwatch 2, wherever I played respective matches good supra 300fps pinch precocious value settings. The further visible frames are peculiarly adjuvant during fast-paced moments, wherever you whitethorn person nan blink of an oculus to return retired an force earlier they headshot you. 

I had nary uncertainty nan Blade 18 would beryllium fast, but I besides noticed that it felt genuinely much immersive than nan Blade 16 because of its much expansive display. As I leaned successful during Cyberpunk 2077, Halo Infinite and Overwatch sessions, it almost felt for illustration I was successful beforehand of a desktop setup. That’s yet what you’re paying for pinch this machine. When I opened up audio files successful Audacity, I besides noticed that nan further surface abstraction simply made it easier to sift done my timelines.

When it comes to nonstop benchmarks, nan Core Ultra 9 spot isn’t overmuch amended than Intel’s 13th-gen hardware successful single-threaded tasks, and it’s sometimes champion by AMD’s latest batch of hardware. Intel has made important advancement successful multi-threaded tests for illustration Geekbench 6, though, and that benignant of capacity makes nan Blade 18 perfect for tasks for illustration video rendering and analyzable games.

The Blade 18 besides ran remarkably cool: During a 3DMark accent test, which progressive moving 1 demo 20 times successful a row, nan CPU stayed astatine 70 degrees Celsius astir of nan time, pinch occasional spikes to 85C. During nan CPU-heavy Cinebench tests, Intel’s spot jumped to 80C connected mean pinch immoderate jumps to 90C. The GPU, meanwhile, held a dependable 70C and ne'er wavered during 3DMark benchmarks. The fans judge tin get loud, though, arsenic you’d expect for a strategy that’s comparatively bladed and needs to pump retired a ton of heat.

Razer has been building sturdy and charismatic gaming laptops for good complete a decade now, truthful it’s not a immense astonishment that nan Blade 18 feels incredibly coagulated and premium. Its keyboard has a awesome extent to it that feels conscionable arsenic bully playing shooters arsenic it does while typing, and its trackpad is wonderfully soft and accurate. (It does get a spot overzealous erstwhile detecting multi-touch gestures, though.) Port-wise, nan Blade 18 besides packs successful everything you’d want, including 3 USB Type-A 3.2 connections, one  Thunderbolt 5 USB-C port, a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, 2.5Gb Ethernet and a full-sized SD paper slot.

Personally, if I had to take betwixt Razer’s existent lineup, I’d spell pinch nan Blade 16 truthful that I could really transportation it astir and occasionally usage it arsenic a productivity machine. Not truthful pinch nan Blade 18 — its short 2 hr and 17 infinitesimal artillery life (in PCMark 10’s artillery benchmark) intends you’ll ever request to lug astir its beefy powerfulness adapter. After an hr of penning this review, its artillery life besides dropped from afloat charged to 38 percent. But really, cipher is buying this point conscionable to woody pinch spreadsheets and emails. You want eventual powerfulness and an tremendous screen? Then artillery life will suffer.

To paraphrase The Lord of nan Rings, 1 does not simply take to unrecorded pinch an 18-inch gaming laptop — not without considering each of nan conveniences you’re leaving behind. For nan sickos who would situation tread that path, nan Blade 18 is simply a solidly built powerhouse that weighs importantly little than rivals for illustration nan 18-inch Alienware Area 51. Just beryllium prepared to salary Razer’s precocious value to ain one.