Razer Blade 15 Advanced vs Sager

Aren't all these different laptops with 300hz display using the same AU Optronics screen with 3ms response time?

Battery life isn't a concern for me. I'm not gaming while on battery, and when I'm using battery on travel, I switch to optimus, as this has a mux for the g-sync off and optimus on. Battery is above average then.

DPC not a personal concern for my uses either

The review you linked is a lesser model too. I have gx502lxs-xs79.

 

Thanks for clarifying the model details. Mux switch is great, however, according to this review

https://www.ultrabookreview.com/379...G Zephyrus S15,thanks to the updated hardware.

16GB of RAM is soldered, therefore thank you very much Asus, I'm out.

 

To each their own. 32gb ram at 3200mhz stock. Works for me, I'll never need more, so no worries from me about half of it being soldered

 

You might worry more if there are any issues with the soldered RAM at some point. Nevertheless, soldering RAM in one slot down is a particularly idiotic idea, since both slots need to be populated with the same exact RAM type for best performance. They probably matcb it well in factory, but any upgradability claim would be a joke.

 

The obvious downside is upgradability, and thats the main complaint for a lot of people -- the inability to change or upgrade the ram in a way that results in "matched" ram, which like you said, provides the best performance. But what I'm saying personally (and I think this would hold true for the vast majority of people and use cases) is that I have no need to ever upgrade beyond what's there. What I'm saying is, 32gb DDR4 at 3200MHz is a LOT, and growing beyond that in size or frequency won't result in any noticeable change for most people, certainly not myself. In fact, I can't really think of many use cases where you need an ultra-thin gaming laptop and still would have an application means where you benefit from greater than 32gb of ram -- are you running 50 VMs while on travel? I don't know, maybe you have some in mind, but certainly none that would apply to me.

I understand your point about it creating difficulties if there were ever any issues with the ram, but I think there are also engineering benefits you're not considering. Soldered ram allows the manufacturer to position it intelligently, even where it can benefit within the thermal system. It decreases the parts -- you no longer have 2 PCB stacks in that spot, no plug and play connectors/sockets. You have thickness reduction, and a reduction in impact from physical shake and shock. All of this translates to less risk of issues. You also get a thinner and lighter system, not to mention cheaper to manufacture (which theoretically translates to reduced sale cost), and those are big selling points to people who want a more mobile gaming system.

I can also say that I've owned numerous gaming systems and never had a ram failure. Always something else goes first, in my experience.

Just some food for thought... if soldered ram is a dealbreaker for you among all the other (imo more important) considerations among gaming laptops, then I think we just differ in our outlook or use cases here.

 

I understand all the above and I'm still not happy with the decision to solder RAM. Time and again, a RAM upgrade has proven to be a way to breathe life into older laptops, even though at time t0, it might be a bit hard to see that a RAM upgrade might be needed in the future. Another issue is the choice of RAM - there are many RAM options, and "soldering OEMs" such as Alienware use slow RAM, taking away my choice to upgrade to premium RAM.
The rush to thin and light involves too many compromises and is not worth it for the majority of users, bar perhaps the people who would struggle handling a 3kg laptop.

 

fair enough, I think we agree then that it comes down to what characteristics of the build are important to you, and how much you care about the resulting sacrifices. Some aspects are going to weigh more than others on different people’s list of priorities

 

You’ll get a culture shock seeing Razer Bios, compared to Sager that I believe a lot setting that could be easily changed by user. Razer is kind MacBook all mostly locked, see other threads that has dozens pages from users who try getting it unlocked. There’re also some known issues like battery bloat even though I don’t have it it multiple Razer laptops. Worth 500 bucks over Sager? Not quite sure since I’m addicting to their design and not familiar with Sager. Maybe if wait Black Friday you’ll get some good deal, got 500 off last year, not blade 15 but stealth 13 late 2019. I read somewhere else that 300hz panel that Razer use is great panel with good color accuracy and brightness when I’m not wrong, and I’d go with max gpu option since it’ll outdate longer than other like I did back in 2018 with 1070mq, today still doesn’t show age on any titles 1080p.

 

A benchmarking between the Razer Blade 15 Advanced with RTX 2080Super with the latest XMG PRO 17 with RTX 3080. RBA still looks not that bad.

 

3080 is clearly better, but I wouldn’t call it a next gen leap. Nobody with a 2xxx series GPU should upgrade this gen. It’s still even debatable for 1070 owners.