Razer Blade 16 (2024) laptop review: Now with super-fast Samsung OLED

[Redaktion]

Laptop manufacturers don't have it easy at the moment. Intel Gen 14 has hardly delivered any improved performance, there are no new Nvidia GPUs to install—so what reasons can you give customers to purchase your yearly laptop updates? Razer sees its answer in its display: The world's first 16-inch 240-Hz OLED made by Samsung is what the manufacturer advertizes. Is its new display truly that good and are there any other new features? Our test will find out.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer-Blade-16-2024-laptop-review-Now-with-super-fast-Samsung-OLED.804677.0.html

[NikoB]

Firstly, it is immediately clear that some of the data on the screen is fake, for example dE data before and after calibration.

Secondly, the PWM frequency of 960Hz is questionable. At this frequency, burnout accelerates.

Thirdly, and this is key, the screen panel 100% does not correspond to the True Black HDR 500 sign, because it requires a maximum black level of 0.0005 nits (displayhdr.org/#tab-true-black-500) and, accordingly, a native contrast of at least 1M:1, taking into account the division of the screen brightness of a minimum of 500 nits by the maximum black level of 0.0005 nits. According to the review, the screen has 50 times worse contrast.
Congratulations to the buyers - they have already been deceived for a lot of money. They won't have real HDR10 support like top TVs, despite the AMOLED panel. At the same time, support for HDR10+ (Dynamic HDR) is also not announced at the hardware level. However, we still need to look for movies and games with HDR10+ support.

About the processor. At the beginning of the review there is fake data PL1=60W, but the author, as follows from the article, conducts a performance test in Cinebench R15 with real PL1=126-135W, otherwise the 14900HX on 10nm cores is simply not capable of such long-term sustained performance. At 60W, only the 7945HX is capable of this level of performance. Because it is almost 2 times more energy efficient. Obviously, in new games, it will significantly lose to the 7945HX with a significant load on the cores, because...will be forced to drop to the specified PL1=60W, while simultaneously consuming 4090 175W. After all, the case is shamefully light and the cooling system simply cannot cope with cooling 300W+. Even if it was a 3kg/18" device.

RAM, however, is optimized quite well for DDR5 5600.

For the mobile 4090 (which is about 1.5 times weaker than the desktop one), everything has been clear for a long time - it will not be able to handle the new 2024 game's releases 100% at stable 60fps+ in the native screen resolution - 2.5k, especially at ultra quality (as intended by the artist-designers in the studio).

All that remains is to use DLSS(crunch for quality) or look at the cloudy picture in fhd, because 2.5k not compatible (by integer divide) with 4k/fhd resolutions.

The noise is obviously increased, but what is surprising here with such a hot filling of Intel+NVidia cheaters + lightweight case?

Here, for example, the significantly cheaper Dell G16 remained much quieter, not changing its output volume of 27 dB over the entire test run.

For a simple reason, the cheaper Dell G16 does not consume as much and weighs 300g more..

It's no longer worth mentioning the poor, abbreviated, non-classic keyboard with a numpad for 16" and the not very good arrangement of ports.

As a result, the author draws the right conclusion - it's not worth buying.

[NikoB]

Continuing the discussion about the fake True Black HDR 500 nameplate here - www.notebookchat.com/index.php?msg=578245

[lmao]

According to the review, the screen has 50 times worse contrast.

reviewer was drunk, his screenshot says o.oo black level and he puts o.o2 in table

[NikoB]

I would prefer to wait for a response from the author of the review, because... I already have questions about the data.

There are already a bunch of reviews of AMOLED laptops, whose measured (if you believe these numbers) contrast floats from the shameful (for OLED) 6000:1 to 30000:1. And all this is an order of magnitude worse than a typical AMOLED should be - 600,000:1, at least at a maximum brightness of even 300 nits. Are all these reviews also with fake data? Or in reality, when you try to raise the PWM frequency higher (which also affects the service life of OLEDs), their dynamic range and color accuracy collapse?

[lmao]

And all this is an order of magnitude worse than a typical AMOLED should be

they are not careful enough to do proper measurements sometimes, they just slap calibrator onto the screen without ensuring there's absolutely no gap between it and panel and there's no oled panel "glow" that happens if you point a light at the panel or not performing calibration in the dark.
sometimes they even manage to measure different black levels for the same panel SKU on different laptops or different black levels in several measurements in the single review.
i am always looking at grayscale calibration screenshots instead of their table

[sHaMeFuL]

I would prefer to wait for a response from the author of the review, because... I already have questions about the data.

There are already a bunch of reviews of AMOLED laptops, whose measured (if you believe these numbers) contrast floats from the shameful (for OLED) 6000:1 to 30000:1. And all this is an order of magnitude worse than a typical AMOLED should be - 600,000:1, at least at a maximum brightness of even 300 nits. Are all these reviews also with fake data? Or in reality, when you try to raise the PWM frequency higher (which also affects the service life of OLEDs), their dynamic range and color accuracy collapse?

If you'd actually read the review, you'd see this: "but in turn, it features a perfect black value and, as a result, high contrasts. It can perfectly darken individual areas on the display"

A LOT of OLED screens are 0.02 in that comparison table, regardless of what has been written by their respective author, and some are empty. They probably wanted a low enough number for infinite contrast, but didn't actually choose a low enough value.

[NikoB]

I rely on the test results in the review. According to them, the screen panel of this laptop does not correspond to the True Black HDR 500 nameplate. It is 50 times worse in contrast.

All other questions relate to the adequacy of Notebookcheck reviews, i.e. to its editors and authors.