2025
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.
Razer Blade 14 (2025) The Razer Blade 14 (2025) is so slim and still packs strong gaming/non-gaming performance. You'll just have to get used to its odd trackpad first. Pros Performance for what you need
Performance for what you need Slim body
Slim body Great thermal design
Great thermal design Nice I/O port selection
Nice I/O port selection Nice screen and audio
Nice screen and audio Limited fan noise Cons Odd and off-putting trackpad
Odd and off-putting trackpad Screen isn't the brightest
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