The Razer Blade 16 lands with trick dual-mode display

The all-new Razer Blade 16 isn’t just a slightly bigger version of the excellent Blade 15 gaming laptop – it’s a genuine first that aims to appeal to both gamers and creative types. The 16in dual-mode mini-LED display lets you swap modes on the fly depending on what you’re doing: UHD+ resolution at 120Hz while working, and Full HD+ at 240Hz for games.

An HDR-capable panel tops out at an impressive 1000nits peak brightness, so should have streaming services looking their best, and and promises a sub-3ms response time for lag-free gameplay. Naturally Nvidia’s G-Sync adaptive refresh rate tech is on-board, to ensure screen tearing doesn’t make an appearance, and the panel is factory calibrated to deliver 100% DCI-P3 colour coverage. Like a lot of 2023 laptops, Razer has also made the switch from 16:9 to a slightly taller 16:10 aspect ratio.

There’s been no skimping elsewhere on the spec sheet, with Intel’s 13th-generation Core processors providing as many as 24 cores and 32 threads of number-crunching depending on the model. You can expect a healthy amount of DDR5 memory and SSD storage, depending on how much you want to spend, and the latest 4000-series Nvidia RTX mobile graphics chips to deliver sky-high frame rates. Razer reckons the combo makes the Blade 16 more powerful than any other 16in gaming laptop – although there’s no shortage of competition coming from the likes of Asus, Alienware and Acer now that Intel, Nvidia and AMD have unleashed their latest silicon.

The Blade 16 will ship with a 95.2wHr battery and gallium nitride power brick, which should be as much as 60% smaller than a typical gaming laptop mains adaptor. That should be handy if you’ll be travelling a lot, and don’t like the idea of being weighed down by your tech.

Physically the Blade 16 is only a few millimetres deeper than the outgoing Blade 15, with thickness being largely unchanged. That means you can expect the same extensive selection of ports at the sides, saving the need to bring any dongles along for the ride.

Prices are set to start from $2700 (around £2250) when the Razer Blade 16 goes on sale in the coming months, with the US first in line and other territories to follow later.

It’ll be joined by the Blade 18, which promises to be a genuine alternative to a gaming PC. A 13th-gen Intel Core i9-13950HX CPU is free to run at desktop speeds, thanks to an overhauled 3-fan cooling system, and the Nvidia 4000-series GPU is able to operate at its maximum TDP for the best frame rates possible. It’s paired with an 18in, 16:10 aspect ratio display with 500nit brightness, 240Hz refresh rate and QHD+ resolution.

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A tech addict from about the age of three (seriously, he's got the VHS tapes to prove it), Tom's been writing about gadgets, games and everything in between for the past decade, with a slight diversion into the world of automotive in between. As Deputy Editor, Tom keeps the website ticking along, jam-packed with the hottest gadget news and reviews. When he's not on the road attending launch events, you can usually find him scouring the web for the latest news, to feed Stuff readers' insatiable appetite for tech.