Razer Blade 14 (2025) Review — High-spec hardware, mid-range mobility

As someone who’s been through the wringer with Razer laptops, my trusty 2021 Blade 14 has survived four years of coffee shop coding sessions and weekend gaming marathons. I approached the 2025 Razer Blade 14 like unboxing a new hoodie: fresh out of the package, crisp edges, and that just-right fit you can’t wait to test. My current machine? That hoodie you’ve worn threadbare—faded colors with more holes than you’d like, but still more comfortable than anything you’ve tried to replace it. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: another generation arrives, promising leaps in performance while somehow making the same promises about portability and battery life. So how does the new kid stack up against my four-year-old workhorse? Let’s just say after a few weeks with the 2025 model, I’m already having conversations with my wallet about upgrade timing.

Here’s where I try not to sound like a spec sheet, but there’s so much going on here that it’s hard not to. The 2025 Blade features the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 with 10 cores and 20 threads at a 2 GHz base clock that boosts up to 5 GHz. GPU options are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 or 5070. RAM can be configured at 16 GB, 32 GB, or 64 GB, with storage options of either a 1 TB or 2 TB SSD. The display is a stunning 14″ OLED panel running at 2880×1800 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. That’s a lot of power for just 0.62 inches thick in an aluminum case weighing only 3.6 pounds. Since we’re talking specs, my review unit had the RTX 5070 and 32 GB of RAM—I mention this so you have a reference when I go over benchmarks later. Specs look great on paper, but let’s compare it to my 2021 workhorse—four years later, is this truly worth the upgrade?

The most noticeable difference is the OLED screen. With smaller bezels, a resolution of 2880×1800, and being OLED, it’s a huge upgrade from the 2021 LCD at 2560×1440. Although the newer model has an extremely glossy screen, which is an odd choice. A much bigger trackpad gives so much room for mousing activities. The speaker cutouts are different, but I didn’t notice much of a difference whether it helped or not, since the speakers are just okay to begin with. So what’s the same? Well, it’s still a fingerprint magnet, unfortunately. It still has a great keyboard with individual LEDs and even dual LEDs for the function keys, which allows only the function icons to light up when holding down that Fn key. So we’ve got the specs, we’ve got the feel … now comes the moment of truth. Time to see if it can deliver under pressure, or if all that tech just looks good on paper.

For SSD benchmarks, I ran CrystalDiskMark and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. For CDM, I got sustained sequential reads over 7 GB/s and writes over 6.5 GB/s. Meanwhile, the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test showed large-file transfer speeds of just under 5.3 GB/s for reads and 5.4 GB/s for writes.

For gaming benchmarks, I put the system through Unigine Heaven and 3DMark Steel Nomad. Heaven returned a score of 4,943 at 196.2 FPS—ranging from 65.7 to 412.6 frames per second. Steel Nomad, meanwhile, clocked in at 2,757 on the 3DMark scale.

While benchmarking tools provide standardized scores for comparison, real game testing offers a more practical measure. I ran built-in benchmarks in Cyberpunk 2077 and Horizon Zero Dawn to see how this machine handles actual gameplay. Cyberpunk on ultra preset averaged 51 FPS during the first run-through and dropped to 28 FPS in the second identical test. Horizon Zero Dawn on high preset performed better at 63 FPS initially, but fell to 54 FPS when repeated. That’s a significant performance dip between tests despite identical settings. Plugged in, these numbers look solid. But the moment I disconnected from power? That’s when things got interesting—and concerning.