Razer Blade 15 Quartz 2020 Pink Gaming Laptop Review

This is not a sponsored post. I purchased this laptop direct from Razer and used my own hard earned money to pay for it. I have never owned anything by Razer but the company has long been the gold standard for gaming PCs, gaming laptops, and accessories.

Here is my unboxing video:

And a bit of my “gaming history” on previous laptops, sprinkled in with some pictures of the new 2020 Razer Quartz Blade 15 Inch Laptop. Followed by some Specs, Benchmarks, and recommended accessories.

The pictures and videos sometimes don’t reflect how pink this computer really is. My own pictures, Razer official pictures, and other people’s pictures really show this laptop as more of a rose gold with a hint of pink, but in person, it’s EXTREMELY pink. Not rose gold at all. So keep that in mind :). None of my pictures or videos have any filters or editing. I tried different lighting and different camera angles to try to get a good idea of how pink it was, but no matter what I did, the laptop is much pinker in person than in the pictures lol. Which is a good thing i think :).

Prior to owning this laptop, I was most recently using an HP Spectre. It was not a gaming laptop by any means. But for me, someone who does not play twitchy games or fps games, etc, it was fine. It has an Nvidia graphics card and enough ram and so on to run the games I wanted to play – which by most people’s standards are casual games – I’m a casual gamer and I’m not ashamed to admit it lol. I love games for girls, otome games, RPGs, Strategy Games, Simulation Games, JRPGs, Visual Novels, and so on. The only time I might need a bit of OOMPH is if I decided to play an online game, like an MMORPG for example. But even then, most of them are designed to run on medium powered computers to capture more sales and reach a broader audience.

Prior to my HP Spectre I had an Asus Rog Strix. It was a nice gaming rig but it was bulky and heavy. And prior to the Asus, I had 3 Dell Alienwares. My first Alienware was my first laptop ever, probably like 20 years ago almost now when Alienware released one of its first laptops. And it lasted quite awhile. But I paid for their top of the line care package and they sent technicians to fix it a few times over the years. At one point it had to get sent in for repairs, and then it was gone for a long time, 2-3 months.

During that time I blogged about my negative experience and one of the Dell Customer Advocates at the time reached out to me “wanting to make it right”. It turned out it was so old (probably between 5-6 years at that time) they were having trouble getting components needed to fix it so they upgraded me to a brand new Alienware with better specs obviously than my outdated one. I was happy so after a few years when it was time to upgrade again I naturally bought another Dell Alienware. It too served me well. I had each Alienware for over 5 years. The only reason I moved away from Alienware was there were more options on the market at a more affordable price point.

I also realized that although I consider myself a gamer, most people would not consider me a gamer because I’m not playing FPS or Arena styled games where every millisecond of response time truly matters. Obviously for the types of games I play, I don’t need a fricken Alienware (or Razer for that matter lol).

My Asus Rog didn’t last as long as my Dell Alienwares. I’m not sure why, but after 2 or 3 years it was dead, wouldn’t even turn on – I’m guessing it was the graphics or motherboard or battery or power supply. I didn’t have any kind of care package and yeah I could have taken it to somewhere like Best Buy and had their technicians look at fixing it. But I decided to just replace it.

HP Spectre had the Nvidia graphics and RAM and Intel processors to get the job done for the types of games I play. and my HP Spectre is still fully working and functioning to this day. My HP Spectre was maybe $700. Half the price of my new Razer.

I really only bought Razer initially because it was so pink. I also know it to be a brand that can play most modern games on high settings. I know as far as specs go it will last me a long time, especially for the type of games I enjoy.

In theory as long as there’s no hardware failures, I should not need to upgrade for probably 7-8 years because I don’t play the types of games that demand the latest and greatest newest technology.

And I’m fine with that because I don’t want to upgrade away from this beautiful pink color.

Before purchasing the 2020 Razer Quartz Blade 15 inch laptop, I was also considering the MSI Prestige Pink Laptop. In all the videos I seen online, the MSI Prestige Pink Laptop looked more pink than the Razer Quartz edition laptops. But after seeing the Razer Quartz in person, I can tell you that it is more pink than it appears in any video.

I think it photographs and videographs as a metallic rose gold, but that is not how it looks in person at all. It is as pink as bubblegum, a flamingo, raspberry icecream, or whatever other pink description you could want to use lol. It’s absolutely not rose gold. It’s full on PINK. I owned a Rose Gold Iphone, and my HP Spectre was Rose Gold (just the lid though). So I know what Rose Gold is and what it isn’t. And this isn’t rose gold. It’s absolutely PINK. But I can’t really show you how Pink it is, because the metallic finish throws it off on camera, but trust me when you get your hands on one, you’re going to be blown away by how pink it actually is. If you want pink this has you covered.

So for me, personally, specs aren’t that important, give me a newish Nvidia graphics card, and a hefty amount of RAM and a decent intel processor and I’m good to go. I also have owned some Radeon computers/laptops and I prefer Nvidia. It’s a personal preference but I’ve had smoother experiences on Nvidia. I think some of Radeon’s problems come from some driver issues, but they’re both fine and acceptable graphics cards for gamers.

But for most of you, you’re going to want to know the specs.

Here’s the link to the 2020 Limited Edition Razer Blade Quartz laptop so you can see the specs for yourself: https://www.razer.com/gaming-laptops/Razer-Blade-15/RZ09-03289EQ1-R3U1

And these specs were pulled right off that page:

Specifications

• 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-10750H 6 Core (2.6GHz/5.0GHz)
• Windows 10 Home
• 15.6″ Full HD 144Hz, 100% sRGB, 4.9 mm bezel, factory calibrated
• NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (6GB GDDR6 VRAM)
• 256GB SSD (M.2 NVMe)
• 16GB Dual-Channel (8GB x 2) DDR4-2933MHz
• Single-zone RGB Powered by Razer Chroma™ anti-ghosting keyboard

Given the portability of the Razer Blade, connection to online gaming is always a concern. As long as you’ve got a strong enough internet connection and a reasonably good router you should always be ready to game. The Razer Blade features Intel’s new flawless Wi-Fi 6E so it’s important to ensure you have a good internet speed to make the most of it. You can compare broadband deals if your speeds just aren’t cutting it.

The only thing I didn’t like was the small hard drive. I have over 1,000 steam games and I am also a graphic artist and work with large files all day. But I learned a trick: You can play steam games on an external hard drive. So I bought an 8 TB external hard drive at Best Buy that was on sale for $139 regularly $199. And I’m good to go. Things I don’t like about my external hard drive, it’s big, it’s heavy, the cords both the power adapter and usb cable are short, so how could I play it in bed or on the couch. I probably at some point will get a portable external hard drive. They make them as small as a credit card these days up to 2-3TB which is plenty. I think they also make wireless external hard drives… I probably bought mine too soon without really researching what I was buying. Also it’s not pink lol. I have seen pink external hard drives, especially the small portable kinds. But whatever, it works lol. As long as I’m at a desk or a table or have an outlet close to the bed or couch it’s fine.

This was the external hard drive I purchased here from Best Buy:

This is not the first time Razer has released a pink laptop and probably won’t be the last. But each time they launch the Razer Quartz it sells out quickly as it is a limited edition. Older even used Razer Quartz laptops still resell for their original price or even higher on sites like Ebay because it’s so highly sought after.

Other than MSI Prestige Pink there is no other gaming laptop in this color. Some might have colored lids, but the keyboard and bezel is grey or white or black. These two, MSI and Razer are the only ones that are fully from edge to edge truly pink.

There are other Pink laptops out there sure, don’t get me wrong, but not ones designed for gaming. Most other Pink Laptops you see like HP Stream or cheap laptops on sites like aliexpress, have onboard graphics. Intel graphics MIGHT be fine for the types of games I play, maybe, I dunno. I’ve never owned a laptop with onboard intel graphic cards. I hear they’ve gotten better in recent years too, but still light years behind Nvidia when it comes to gaming. But since I play lower end games with less demanding graphics, it might work for me. lol If Microsoft or Intel want to send me one to test, I’d be happy to test it for them and do a nice review :). But until then, I’m gonna stick to Nvidia because it’s made for gamers.

So I know that the pink is pretty and all, but can you play games on this laptop? The answer is yes. Yes you can. Here are some benchmark tests I did to prove that you can play games on the Razer Blade Quartz laptop.

First I tried UserBenchmark.

Here’s a screenshot:

Here’s the text from the test:

UserBenchmarks: Game 63%, Desk 97%, Work 56%
CPU: Intel Core i7-10750H – 88.5%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti (Mobile) – 65.1%
SSD: Nvme CA5-8D256 256GB – 202.6%
RAM: Samsung M471A1K43DB1-CWE 2x8GB – 83.9%
MBD: Razer Blade 15 Base Model (Early 2020) – RZ09-0328

Next I ran a test with Novabench. Here are the screenshots from that test. As you can see it is 3% slower than the standard “high end gaming PC” which I’m guessing is comparing desktop specs. So not bad for a laptop. It’s moderately higher than a mid-level gaming PC – again am assuming the benchmark is using desktop specs. And is more than double the recommended specs to run VR. The laptop is labeled as VR ready, which it clearly is capable of here.

Lastly, I tried Passmark benchmarking software. It scored the lowest on this benchmark. The palm rests got a LITTLE warm, but not hot, and the fans sped up to where you could hear them a little, but not like super loud. Could still hear the TV in the next room, etc.

Again it is probably comparing it also to desktop machines which isn’t really fair or accurate because desktop is always going to win. But for me, personally, I wouldn’t want a desktop. I travel and I need to be mobile. I don’t like hunching over a desk all day, etc. I need to be comfortable when I game. I game to relax.

Speaking of that, I ordered a few accessories to help me relax with my new laptop.

I ordered a pink fan to help dissipate heat. It just sits right under the laptop. It plugs into the USB and it’s pretty quiet. It does have a switch to turn up the fan speed. It has six fans, it’s pink, and quiet, it has a nice ledge that helps my laptop not slide forward too when on my lap.

It’s this one from amazon:

I ordered also a large pink lap desk with room for a mouse and my external hard drive. It hasn’t arrived yet. Hopefully it will be large enough for my needs. I chose this one.

link

I haven’t ordered a mouse yet. I have a cheap walmart wireless mouse that’s already pink. I know I want wireless which is what my current mouse is. I’m thinking of ordering the razer quartz atheris mouse although ideally I think I would like Razer Viper Ultimate Quartz wireless mouse. But that price is crazy. And I worry it would be too big and/or heavy. I think I’ll just stick with my little walmart mouse for now.

Someday maybe buy one of these two:

That’s it for my review of my new Razer Quartz 2020 Blade 15 Inch Laptop.

Thanks for reading. I’ll leave you with this video of my cat making biscuits next to my laptop this morning :).