Razer Blade 18 Gaming Laptop: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090-13th Gen Intel 24-Core i9 HX CPU - 18" QHD+ 240Hz - 32GB RAM - 2TB SSD - CNC Aluminum - Compact GaN Charger - Windows 11 - Chroma RGB

So I debated for months about what laptop to get to replace my trusty surface book 2. I simply could not find something that hit all the points that it had but I narrowed my search down to the razer 17 (4k 3080ti), the MSI z17 (3080ti), and the Gigabyte AERO 17 (3080ti). The MSI and Gigabyte had the downside of only being 90w and 105w gpus respectively. The MSI brought touch screen that I desperately wanted but lost out because it only ran at 1440p and I did not want to step down in resolution. So that left the Gigabyte in the running and it is significantly less expensive but lost out because they dropped all the ports off the laptop like some fruity company I know of. So we had the winner of the Razer from the selection. I also knew that I would be upgrading the unit right out of the gate as the storage and ram would need to be bumped up to better cover my software needs. So I booted the laptop to make sure that everything was working and then popped the cover off to swap the ram for a 64GB kit from Kingston (KF548S38IBK2-64) and a 4TB ssd from sabrent. The cover had a bit of a learning curve as you needed to slide it to the front of the laptop to get it to lift off but otherwise was easy to get into. I was disappointed to find a tamper seal on the boot ssd but it did not say warranty void so I will not dock it too hard here. I had some difficulty with the OS clone so I did a clean install from the recovery media from razers webpage (only accessible after you register the laptop). Everything came up and worked no problems when working from the recovery media (I do not recommend a truly clean windows install as there is no page to pull razers software and drivers from). The laptop is a joy to work with as it has tons of power ontap and after the upgrades the ability to replace my desktop in a pinch.

This is my 2nd Razer laptop and both have run flawlessly. Build quality and quality control is amazing compared to an Asus or MSI. With that being said, every laptop manufacturer has their share of lemons. Buy the Asurion protection if you feel the need for added peace of mind. I always do.

Pretty great laptop, however, the battery life is a bit short. Other then that, no complaints.