Even with an imperfect trackpad, Razer’s new 14-inch gaming laptop has tons of performance to meet all your needs.
There has to be a laptop that does it all and won’t break my back as I haul it around town. I’m sure every mobile-minded gamer has asked themselves that question and come away without a good answer. The one arena I keep coming back to is the 14-inch gaming laptop. Today’s tiny beasts have the performance necessary to keep up with 16- or 18-inch laptop without needing to lug around a huge chunk of aluminum. What’s not to like? Here’s the kicker: it’s only getting more expensive to achieve the perfect compact gaming laptop. The 2025 edition of the Razer Blade 14 is our latest and best example of how improved design is engendering ever-higher prices for already expensive products.
Today’s best compact gaming laptops now cost closer to what we used to spend for larger, hardier portable machines just a few years ago. Razer’s Blade 14 (2025) is the epitome of today’s tariffs-enabled price gouging. The laptop starts at $2,300 MSRP with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060. The model you want, with a GPU capable of maxing out some demanding games at the laptop’s peak resolution, demands $2,600. That’s $100 more than the starting price of the 2024 Blade 14. Currently, the Blade 14 (2025) is on sale through Razer’s website for closer to $2,300. It could stay at that price permanently, but I can only suspect that with Trump’s asinine tariff talk, gadgets can only ever get more expensive.
The Razer Blade 14’s main competition is last year’s favorite, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop, now with Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs. Last year’s version asked for around $2,000 with a GeForce RTX 4070. Today’s latest Zephyrus model will demand the same price for a better RTX 5070 Ti GPU and an AMD Ryzen AI 9 270. The two 14-inch gaming laptops are neck and neck, but the Blade 14 (2025) muscles space for itself in a crowded market due to a few quality-of-life features and excellent thermal management. We can have nice things and the Blade 14 (2025) proves that. We’ll just have to spend more and more every year to cling onto our quality computers. If you’re looking for something that may cost less, you could search for an Asus TUF Gaming A14 that could clock in at less than $2,000.
Despite the recent controversy with buggy hardware and software on the Razer Blade 16, I experienced little of the claimed performance issues with the Blade 14 (2025). However, I had noticed crashes when exiting games before I made sure to download the latest firmware. After that, the laptop was smooth sailing save for all the regular issues I have with Windows 11. There’s a part of me that wishes Razer would step out of its comfort zone. The gaming brand refuses to make another Blade Stealth with that calming pink tone, so we’re left with the company’s usual black box and its big, glowing Razer logo stenciled on the lid. Past 14-inch models like the 2021 design could pack up to an RTX 3080-level GPU (and those cost less than today’s RTX 5070 model). For such a slim design, the performance you get with the modern $2,300 model is exactly what you need for a device of this size.The Blade 14 takes some getting used to
The new Razer Blade 14 is smaller than last year’s model, but by such a minimal degree you’d have to squint to tell the difference. It’s 0.66 inches at its thickest point. Slipping this laptop into a backpack is likely one of my greatest pleasures despite the fact you’ll still need to haul around the hefty 200W power brick if you plan to play your favorite games. Though the Blade 14 (2025) weighs in at 3.59 pounds, it will feel slightly heavier than many other thin-and-light laptop designs. That’s to be expected, and it’s a tradeoff I’d take with a smile on my face. The new Blade 14 is the kind of device that offers the mobility you can only dream of when trying to haul a 16-inch beast around.
The Blade 14 (2025)is a more subtle notebook than either the Razer Blade 16 or Blade 18. Yes, the rear panel and the triple-snake logo glow nuclear green during use, but without any bottom RGB you can get away with keeping it next to you in a crowded college auditorium so long as you remember to turn off the bright, per-key RGB lights. Using the Blade 14 (2025) would be smooth sailing after that if only Razer would spend more time paying attention to the overall feel of its personal computers. Like all its other anodized aluminum matte black laptops, the new Blade 14 is a smudge magnet. The lid and palm rests will be first to look grody with enough manhandling. The keys will soon develop unsightly smears, whether or not you dip your digits into the odd Fritos bag. At the very least, the Blade 14 (2025) comes with a great selection of I/O ports. Besides the proprietary charging port and headphone jack, you’ll get a USB 4 Type-C and USB-A on either side of the device. There’s an additional HDMI 2.1 and microSD card slot, which came in handy for on-the-go video editing.
It took me longer to get used to the feel of both the keyboard and trackpad.
