Pop quiz: which is the better deal, $500 off a Razer Blade laptop, or $150 off an Asus Zephyrus G14? It might hinge on whether you need a webcam, because in practically every other way the Asus is the laptop I’d buy today.
Razer’s Blade 15 Base is $500 off today, but this Asus Zephyrus G14 deal is the one I’d pick
Battle of the midrange gaming laptop discounts
Battle of the midrange gaming laptop discounts
Photo by Avery White / The Verge
is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
That’s not to say there’s anything particularly wrong with the Razer Blade 15 Base at today’s unheard of price of $1,099 at Amazon (regularly $1,599): aside from the paltry 256GB of solid state storage, you’re looking at a speedy 6-core Core i7-10750H processor, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics that should competently tackle yesteryear’s biggest titles, a 144Hz 1080p screen, plus plenty of ports packed into an attractive black CNC aluminum chassis with single-zone RGB lighting. The deal ends midnight PT Sunday.
But for just $100 more, you can currently get the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 at Best Buy for $1,199, which just so happens to be our pick for the best ultraportable gaming laptop you can buy. While its Nvidia RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics can actually be slightly slower than the 1660 Ti (depending on the game) and there’s no Thunderbolt ports, you’re likely looking at nearly double the battery life from its 8-core AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS chip — plus a 1TB SSD that should be able to actually hold a decent selection of games. It weighs far less at just over 3.5 pounds; compare to 4.7 pounds for the Razer.
That’s just based on the spec sheet: you can read our whole review for more, or our Razer Blade Stealth 13 review where the Asus still managed to blow a newer and lighter Razer laptop out of the water.
$1600
This 14-inch ROG Zephyrus is an astonishingly balanced gaming laptop for its performance and price. Its AMD Ryzen 9 CPU and Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU can push high frame rates and smooth graphics in games with its OLED display.
All that said, I could still easily see you picking the Razer for the slightly more powerful graphics, the $100 cheaper price, the sleek profile, the blacked-out design, or that all-important webcam.
And remember that neither of these machines have the latest and greatest graphics: Nvidia’s RTX 30-series laptop GPUs are only barely starting to roll out. If you don’t need a new machine soon, it might be worth waiting a while longer to see what an RTX 3060 laptop might do for you — like the upgraded Zephyrus G14, on backorder for $1,499.
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