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All text and image links lead to Amazon unless stated otherwise. All product scores are based on ProRec’s in-house scoring model
| Thumbnail | Razer Blade Music Production Laptops | ProRec Score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
 | 9.6 | Check Price on Amazon | |
 | 9.5 | Check Price on Amazon | |
 | 9 | Check Price on Amazon |
Introduction
Razer is a top competitor in the gaming laptops market today, designing slimline aluminum machines that carry powerful components. While these performance-oriented beasts fall into the higher end of laptop prices, they’re packed with premium features that are worth the investment. Razer laptops, especially from their Blade series, are on-brand for people who need a futureproof, long-term device.
While Razer Blades are typically marketed towards the gaming community, their system capabilities are a perfect fit for music production. These machines are well-built, have a strong CPU/GPU, gorgeous displays, and efficient cooling systems- all which are necessary to run taxing music production software.
However, some gaming laptops can be too noisy and disruptive, which isn’t the best for work like music production. Also, a gaming laptop with extraordinary specs can be an overkill for beginners and producers with relatively light workloads, and vice versa. So to make a worthwhile investment, it’s important to pay attention to whether or not the laptop meets all criteria in your use case.
Generally, when going for a Razer laptop for music production, you want to look for a modern processor first. An AMD Ryzen chip, or a current gen Intel i5, i7, or i9 processor is ideal for running go-to DAWs such as Ableton, FL Studio, Adobe Audition, and Pro Tools. This is especially important if you use more demanding synths such as Wavetable, or just more sessions with UVI Falcon or Serum.
You also want to ensure your laptop has sufficient RAM to keep your VSTs and plugins running. For reference, unless you’re running virtual orchestration with massive sample libraries, anywhere from 16-32GB is enough based on your production tracks. Better sample libraries can get quite heavy, so if you find yourself freezing or bouncing tracks too often, most gaming laptops have the option of upgrading down the line.
Similarly, you’ll need a fair bit of storage on your primary device to house all your sample libraries, vocals, and RAW files. Considering that each Kontakt instrument library can easily take up 10GB, you’ll want to have at least 512GB of SSD storage if you use a lot of libraries and samples, but if you can snag a machine with 1 TB or more, that’s obviously better. For old projects and lesser-used libraries, you can use a separate external HDD for cheap deep storage.
Connectivity is another factor to consider- as a producer, you’ll want a laptop with the best port selection, so you can comfortably plug in all your peripherals, including MIDI keyboards, mics, headphones, speakers, etc without a docking station, which often induce latency.
Lastly, we’ll add that the best laptop for you comes down to your needs. If you’re making beats on the side, you can get by with a lower-powered device. Alternatively, if you’re making music full time and handle tasks like video production too, then you’ll need something with extra features such as a dedicated GPU and a more advanced configuration.
Best Razer Blade Laptop for Music Production Reviews
All text and image links lead to Amazon unless stated otherwise. All product scores are based on ProRec’s in-house scoring model
The Razer Blade 18 is equipped with the ultra-powerful 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13950HX processor, with a maximum frequency of 5.5 GHz. Based on our testing, the CPU sat comfortably at 4.0 GHz frequency with no throttling- a full 1 GHz faster than the old Razer Blade 17 model.
For music production, we tested out Avid Pro Tools. While the software doesn’t require a top of the line chip like the i9-13950HX it’s the ideal machine to blaze through multiple VSTs, intensive plugins like FabFilter and iZotrope Ozone, and loaded tracks. We ran Diva, Omnisphere, and Serum simultaneously without any cutting or latency.
The larger chassis on the Blade 18 incorporates a bigger vapor chamber, so our CPU never crept over 90 degrees, even with multitasking, while the GPU stuck between 70-75 degrees. The palm rest stays cool too, and the only area we felt got slightly warm was right above the function keys. While the fans do run occasionally, they’re neither vibrating or buzzing. You can also turn on the silent mode to ensure the fans stay quiet throughout your work session.
In terms of memory, we’ve got a 32 GB DDR5 RAM. The DDR5 sticks offer higher base speed while consuming less CPU power compared to DDR4, a clear advantage for us. Our Pro Tools project size included 8 songs with 150 tracks in total, and we used a few VSTs with multiple instances of Kontakt, keeping playback at 48 KHz. And after proper track routing through buses and sends, the 32 GB memory felt more than sufficient for production.
The 1 TB SSD is a highlight for us as well, providing enough space to store our DAW, tracks, Kontakt and Omnisphere libraries, and even sample-based plugins. However, if you throw music video editing programs into the mix here, then the SSD might get taxed, and an upgrade to 2 TB or offloading to a hard drive would be better.
The display on the Razer Blade 18 is a definite highlight for us. The huge 18-inch screen with QHD (2560 x 1600 pixels) resolution has great color reproduction and the 16:10 aspect ratio adds to the viewing experience. We’ve got 500 nits of brightness on the screen too, although we got up to 550 nits on testing. It’s bright enough to work on, both outdoors and in bright studios, and there’s no glare due to flashes.
Though we’ve got an 18-inch display on the machine, it’s relatively more compact than other 18-inch laptops, thanks to the narrow bezel design. The chassis here measures 15.71 x 10.84 x 0.86 inches, and weighs a solid 6.75 lbs. While this weight is nothing new for heavy-duty gaming laptops with HX and HK chips, it’s still quite heavy, and lacks portability. Still, the overall build quality is excellent- the panel has little to no movement, the keyboard doesn’t flex, and the hinges are stiff yet comfortable to open with one hand.
For the battery, we’ve got a 91.7 WHr Lithium ion, which drains pretty quickly, lasting us about 2-3 hours on CPU intensive tasks. While it’s pretty scarce by modern laptop standards, the short battery life is expected in brutish devices like the Blade 18, especially those with a 24-core processor.
The USB slots come with Razer’s signature green accents and include 3x USB Type-A, 1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB Type-C, 1x HDMI, an Ethernet port, and an SD card slot. Overall, the port selection is more than enough to hook up all your music production peripherals like MIDI keyboard, mic, headphones, and speakers, so we don’t have any faults there.
The Razer Blade 18 is packed with solid additional features too. The keyboard has minimal travel distance yet feels snappy to type on. The 5MP webcam is serviceable. The speakers are fairly loud, but are unstable and the audio pops in and out after short intervals. Updating your drivers can fix this issue. Likewise, re-plugging and tightening the speakers helps with sudden sound loss.
The Synapse app is another con. Although useful to tune components, it sometimes fails to execute, and won’t run unless the laptop is restarted. If your use case for this laptop doesn’t involve gaming, we suggest removing Synapse along with other bloatware for a smoother experience.
All things considered, the Razer Blade 18 is a powerhouse machine with high-end gaming specs that will serve professional music producers working with latest DAWs well.
Razer Blade 18 Benefits
The Core i9-13950HX is one of the fastest processors available, and can blaze through Pro Tools sessions with 150+ tracks.
The thermals on the laptop are impeccable, and the fan remains silent.
The extensive port selection is perfect for connecting all your peripherals without a latency-inducing docking hub.
Razer Blade 18 Drawbacks
The battery life is a bit disappointing, giving us only two hours upon testing, but fast charging is available.
The speakers and trackpad occasionally run into issues with stability and performance, but downloading the latest drivers fixes most of the concerns.
All text and image links lead to Amazon unless stated otherwise. All product scores are based on ProRec’s in-house scoring model
The latest Razer Blade 16 model comes with the same powerful 13th Gen Raptor Lake i9-13950HX chip as the 18-inch variant, with 24 cores clocking in at max turbo speeds of 5.5 GHz.
Despite heavy FL Studio and Reaper workloads, the device fared well and had quick audio rendering speeds. We comfortably recorded 20 tracks of simultaneous audio at 96kHz sample rate, then ran the vocals on our DAW with CPU-heavy plugins like FabFilter, Soothe, and Goodhertz without lag. And although Acustica plugins made our audio sound choppy through the 96kHz interface, loading different plugins on different channels helped a lot.
Moreover, as DAWs aren’t recognized to be a GPU-intensive app, your dedicated graphics card isn’t used. To improve GUI and avoid latency, we recommend disabling the stock GPU in the BIOS.
Under high loads of multiple DAWs, the temperature on the Blade 16 does rise a lot. The vapor chamber dissipates heat in all directions, so the whole chassis is prone to heating up. Additionally, whenever the core heated over 90 degrees, the CPU power and performance plummeted, creating an unstable experience. Undervolting the CPU using Intel’s XTU app helps circumvent the problem. You can also run Balance or Silent mode to reduce the heating and fan noise.
The highlight for us is the memory here- you get a spacious 32 GB DDR5 RAM. When paired with the i9 chip, we had no trouble running multiple tracks along with memory-hogging VSTs like FabFilter, MassiveX, Valhalla, and Output: Substance. The onboard 2 TB SSD also gave us a lot of room to work with, and it stored our DAWs, plugins, libraries, and months of inactive files without a drop in performance.
The dual-mode mini-LED display is perhaps the main selling point of the Blade. The display lets you switch between the 4K UHD and FHD resolutions. Despite lower refresh rates, we stuck with the 4K resolution for production and enjoyed the gorgeous color calibration of 100% DCI-P3 gamut. Plus, the FHD resolution looks choppy and has an unwelcome orange tint, so it’s best to use UHD. Meanwhile, the 1K nits of brightness means the laptop is virtually usable in every environment.
Build-wise, we’ve got a 15-inch chassis size measuring 13.98 x 9.61 x 0.87 inches, and weighing roughly 5.4 lbs- on the heavier side for a 16-inch display, but expected for an i9 machine. The hinges are stable, and you can open the lid with one finger. As with other Razer Blade laptops, the battery isn’t a strong suit, but we got a bit more time than the Blade 18- around 5 hours with light use and 2-3 hours on multi-track sessions.
The port selection here is excellent- we have 1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-C, 3x USB-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x SD reader, and a 3.5mm jack- sufficient to connect all your necessary peripherals, from audio interfaces to MIDI keyboards. The extra USB-A slots are appreciated, since most speakers and interfaces still rely on it.
The compact chassis comes with a fairly decent keyboard with good backlighting. The speakers are front-facing and loud sounding, however, they lack bass and sound all over the place in stereo mode. The 1080p webcam has good clarity, but the color deviates a bit too much into blue tones.
There’s not much bloatware here, but we do recommend deleting Synapse to elevate the performance. We used Revo Uninstaller to make sure there were no leftovers from Synapse.
Overall, the Razer Blade 16 is a great pick for music production, successfully running DAWs and storing a large number of RAW files. Any nifty features, like the UHD display, simply add to the experience.
Razer Blade 16 Benefits
The powerful Core i9-13950HX chip runs DAWs with intensive VSTs without breaking a sweat.
The onboard 2 TB SSD is future-proof and can store tons of sample libraries, RAW tracks, and inactive files.
A wide selection of USB port types lets you connect all peripherals needed for production.
Razer Blade 16 Drawbacks
The thermals on the laptop aren’t the best and the fans can be a bit noisy for music production, but undervolting the CPU and running Balanced or Silent modes can help.
Synapse is a bloatware that affects your Blade’s performance, but it can be removed using Revo Uninstaller.
All text and image links lead to Amazon unless stated otherwise. All product scores are based on ProRec’s in-house scoring model
The Razer Blade 15 is an advanced config of the base 15-inch model, carrying the 14-core Intel Core i7-13800H chip that clocks in at 5.2 GHz Turbo speed. Compared to the 2022 version’s i9-12900H, we not only get better multi-core performance, but a 4% boost in Turbo speeds. However, it’s 6% slower than the Blade 18 and 16.
Testing the machine with Ableton Live, it effortlessly handled large projects with 100+ tracks with a few dozen instruments and effects. However, there’s no built-in low latency audio driver, and pairing a generic ASIO driver with the sound card gave us some latency. We used the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface, since it’s equipped with better ASIO drivers.
The Blade 15 heats up quite easily, hitting 100 degrees on intensive tasks and throttling. The fans are also loud, though less than the predecessor models. As this is a hardware issue, the only viable solution is to use Throttlestop and disable Turbo mode. DAWs like Ableton don’t need your CPU at 4 GHz or above to function, and giving up some speed in exchange for no throttling is a solid trade. For better control over the clock speeds, you can also use PowerCFG and set the max temps to 85-90 degrees.
The onboard 16 GB DDR5 RAM is great for beginners and can comfortably run most DAW platforms with multiple plugins and loaded tracks. Still, the 16 GB is not as roomy as a 32 or 64 GB RAM, though you can upgrade it easily as your work demands increase. Similarly, the 1TB SSD is enough to store most of your data and heavy RAW files initially, but you may need to expand it later using the free M2 slot.
In terms of display, we get a 15-inch with a good QHD (2560 x 1440) resolution. It’s a serviceable IPS/G-Sync screen that has no tearing, decent backlight, and good frame rates. The color profile isn’t uniform though, and calibration is needed. The brightness is also a bit below the belt for outdoor use, averaging on 300-350 nits, but it’s sufficient for use in cafes or normally lit studios. For us, the OLED screen on the previous model gave better color accuracy and brightness.
The aluminum chassis on the Blade 15 measures 13.98 x 9.25 x 0.67 inches, weighing about 4.5 lbs. While it’s the lightest offering on our list, it’s still not the most portable. Battery-wise, it’s fairly disappointing, giving us 4-5 hours of juice on power saving mode with simple browsing and no background apps. Using Ableton and turning on Balanced mode brings it down to around the 2-hour mark. However, the lighting- fast charging makes up for some of it.
The best part of the Blade 15 for us is the port selection. Despite being more slim and compact, it retains all its ports, giving us 1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-C, 3x USB-A, 1x HDMI, 1x SD reader, and a 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack. The connectivity was sufficient for our peripherals and we didn’t have to use a docking hub.
The speakers on the Blade 15 have surround sound and are quite loud, the subwoofers are bad with lows and give no bass response under 300 Hz. The overall sound quality is okay at best. The keyboard is nice- not as good as a mechanical one, but gets the tasks done. The webcam and mic are also unremarkable.
All in all, if you’re looking for a more less costly Razer Blade laptop that maintains a strong processor, GPU, and connectivity features for efficient music production sessions, then we recommend the Blade 15.
Razer Blade 15 Benefits
The onboard i7-13800H chip clocks at high speeds on Turbo mode and powers through heavy 100+ track projects with ease.
The port selection is rich and lets you connect multiple peripherals along with a fast charger.
The IPS G-Sync screen has a good QHD resolution and offers higher refresh rates synced with the GPU output.
Razer Blade 15 Drawbacks
The laptop is prone to throttling due to a high core temperature, but using Throttlestop can keep your device cooler.
We found some latency using Ableton on a generic ASIO driver with the built-in sound card, but plugging-in our USB audio interface fixed it.
Verdict
Based on our scoring model, you can see the highest variance is in the RAM, Storage, and Additional Features categories. The Razer Blade 18 offers the best bang for your buck, with the Blade 16 and 15 trailing right behind. It also leads in Connectivity and Additional Features, although falls behind the Blade 16 in terms of Storage. While the Blade 15 has a competitive Price to Performance ratio and a solid Connectivity score, it’s the weakest link in the bunch.
The Razer Blade 18 fares exceptionally across the board, not scoring below a 9/10 in any category. Its i9-13950HX chip trumps the Blade 15’s i7-13800H, and the presence of an Ethernet port boosts its overall Connectivity score. The Blade 18 also takes the lead with solid Additional Features, including a well-calibrated 18-inch display, great thermals, and solid keyboard and webcam, though the Blade 16 isn’t that far behind, with the 15 in last with a decent feature set.
Despite carrying the same powerful chip and 32 GB RAM as the Blade 18, the Razer Blade 16 has a heftier price tag, resulting in a slightly lower Price to Performance score. However, it takes the lead in the Storage department, with double the storage of both the Blade 15 and 16. The Connectivity is solid here too, though an Ethernet port is missing, as with the Blade 15. Since there’s minimal average score difference between the Blade 18 and 16, we recommend opting for whichever laptop build fits your budget and use case.
That being said, the overall best Razer Blade laptop for music production is the Razer Blade 18 with the highest average score of 9.6. The high-end gaming machine is a beast and handles just about any multitrack sessions with a ton of FX and synths without stutters. With its bigger vapor chamber cooling, it powers through most CPU-intensive tasks, without burning up or thotting. And we’ve got a great large display and excellent port selection to pair with it too. For us, the Blade 18 is simply a well-built, reliable workstation that’s suitable for most, if not all, of your music production needs.
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