Razer Blade 14in (2014) vs Retina Macbook Pro 15in (2012)

[ChrisWKuiper]

Ok. Here is my delema.

Right now I have a Retina Macbook Pro 15in. (late 2012)

I am trying to decide if I want to keep it, or if I want to sell it and get a Razer Blade 14in (2014). I never use the Mac OS, and I alwase run the mac in bootcamp on windows anyway. I use it for gaming when I am not at my desktop, and I want to keep the slim metal form factor, so the only other laptop that I am considering is the Blade. The macbook pro only has a 650m graphics card, and heats up like a bitch outa hell even with both fans at full when I am gaming. The Blade has a 870m, which is better, and It also has a much beefer cooling system (2 heatpipes instead of one), although its intake vents are on the bottom of the laptop. Both laptops have 8 gigs of ram, almost the same resolution screen and quad core cpu's with hyperthreding.

Has anyone owned both of these computers? What would you reccomend? How is the build quality of the Razer Blade? I have heard that it likes fingerprints, and that the keyboard keys are aparentally painted and the letters might wear off? The Macbook Pro's build quality is exellent, my main problem with it is that the graphics card is not powerful enough, and it dosent have proper cooling for gameing. I am really just worried that the Blade might start to fall apart on me after a year.

Thanks.

 

[stokieben]

Hi chris I can give you some good advice here coming from somebody who currently owns a blade 2014 and had a few laptops in the past few years.

In terms of looks and build quality I can assure you the Blade can go toe to toe with the MBP. I had a MSI GS series before my blade and also used macs in the past and the blade really is built well. My green painted keys haven't faded and I have been using my blade for a few months and yes it is prone to fingerprints especially on the lid but some good screen wipes keep it clean and fresh.

The cooling can get loud to avoid thermal throttling in demanding games but for less demanding games my blade isn't very hot and is quiet, if you plan to play AAA games I would get a keyboard and mouse though as the 870M under heavy load heats the laptop up to the point you'll get very sweaty palms. If you want Apple build quality in a gaming oriented laptop then the blade will fit your needs very well, if you can get a used or fork out the extra asking price for the 2015 version the cooling and heat is much better with the 970M.

The screen is very nice I wouldn't say it is as good as a MBP but for daily use it is really nice, but as it is a 3k screen you'll need aggressive windows scaling to use it. You'll also have to run everything in full-screen 1080p for gaming but that's not too much of an issue for me.

Hope this has helped you.