Razer Blade 15 Debuts a 240 Hz OLED Laptop Panel
The 15-inch panel features 2560 x 1440 pixels, 100% DCI-P3.
Razer will add a fast, vivid new display option to its Razer Blade 15 laptop lineup later this year: an OLED QHD display with a 240 Hz refresh rate According to Razer, this is the world's first laptop to feature this particular 15.6 inch 2560 x 1440 pixels fast refresh OLED display panel. Razer is pitching the new display for photo and video editing, watching movies, or playing AAA games – at both creators and gamers alike.
Readers should be pretty familiar with the current Razer Blade 15 lineup. We reviewed one of the 2022 configurations of the Blade 15 only last month. This new model with OLED QHD 240 Hz display has similar specs to the one we had in the labs, with a few minor but higher spec changes, in addition to the display panel change.
Razer already offers a 15-inch OLED model, but it uses a UHD screen with a max refresh of 60 Hz. The new device is quite a different beast, with its OLED screen matching the existing 1440p IPS models with a max refresh rate of 240 Hz.
The company also claims that this new OLED panel has a 1 ms response time – good specs for fast paced gaming or high frame rate video. The screen offers the inherent deep blacks of OLED technology, and on the other side of the scale, bright whites in images can register up to 400 nits. A color gamut of 100% DCI-P3 is delivered by the new OLED screen. The 1440p IPS model we reviewed disappointed with its max brightness of just 232 nits, but its 87.1% DCI-P3 was not bad.
CPU |
Intel Core i9-12900H |
Graphics |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (8GB GDDR6 VRAM) |
Memory |
32GB DDR5 |
Storage |
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe 4.0 SSD + spare M.2 slot |
Display |
15.6 inches, 2560 x 1440, OLED 240 Hz, 1ms, 400nits, 100% DCI-P3 color |
Ports |
Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, USB-A, full-sized SD card reader and an HDMI port |
Operating System |
Windows 11 Home |
Price (as configured) |
$3,499.99 |
This 15-inch QHD OLED model features an Intel Alder Lake Core i9-12900H processor as well as an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti laptop GPU and 32GB of DDR5 RAM on board. Razer also confirmed the new model would use the same "tried-and-true CNC-milled aluminum chassis, and laser cut speaker grills," as the rest of the range.
These specs, and the display panel, are a little bit better than our $2,999 review model, which featured a Intel Core i7-12800H, the same Nvidia GPU, but only 16GB of DDR5 and a QHD IPS 240 Hz display.
The Razer Blade 15 OLED QHD 240Hz model isn't listed online at the time of writing. It is still a few months away from shipping, as we have been told it will only become available via Razer direct and authorized retailers in Q4 this year. The MSRP for the QHD OLED will cost $3,499.99.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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Exploding PSU As someone who doesn't follow the industry closely, I still wonder why OLED screens haen't gone mainstream on laptops, as it have on phones. Nowadays, even budget phones sport OLED screens, unlike pre-2015 times where you can only find them in Samsung's or Nokia's flagships.Reply
If it's a matter of size or yield, I've seen more OLED TVs than laptops / monitors. If they could make TV sized OLEDs, why couldn't they produce more medium-sized panel? Not hating at all, just curious. -
Alvar "Miles" Udell Easy pass. OLED panels weren't designed for static images, be it a computer desktop or game UI elements, and at 282 nits of brightness that panel doesn't have nearly the kind of wear leveling and damage mitigation as a television or smartphone display.Reply -
coloradoblah exploding_psu said:As someone who doesn't follow the industry closely, I still wonder why OLED screens haen't gone mainstream on laptops, as it have on phones. Nowadays, even budget phones sport OLED screens, unlike pre-2015 times where you can only find them in Samsung's or Nokia's flagships.
If it's a matter of size or yield, I've seen more OLED TVs than laptops / monitors. If they could make TV sized OLEDs, why couldn't they produce more medium-sized panel? Not hating at all, just curious.
Im also curious how the newer oled tech will perform, my guess is that it’s still the organic nature of the tech. Im on my 2nd oled panel , granted I have a 2017 era panel but definitely has image degradation after babying it the past 4 years. My first panel had major burn in after 12 months and was replaced by lg. the replacement was never on high brightness but even still I can see issues, that being said for video it’s still amazing but as a pc monitor It would definitely make me opt for the longest warranty possible. That being said I’ve also had lcd monitors crap out on me over time. Hopefully the newer oleds can go the distance. -
jacob249358
pretty sure they are bad for battery life. And with how thin phones are with big screens oled wouldn't be good I don't think.exploding_psu said:As someone who doesn't follow the industry closely, I still wonder why OLED screens haen't gone mainstream on laptops, as it have on phones. Nowadays, even budget phones sport OLED screens, unlike pre-2015 times where you can only find them in Samsung's or Nokia's flagships.
If it's a matter of size or yield, I've seen more OLED TVs than laptops / monitors. If they could make TV sized OLEDs, why couldn't they produce more medium-sized panel? Not hating at all, just curious.