(For DJs and Producers?) A review of the Razer Blade QHD+ laptop.

Yes, this is a review of a laptop, which is really unusual for these parts. Most DJs just buy the newest MacBook and call it a day. What else is there to review? Well, Steve Jobs's company, which used to be different, is becoming more like Microsoft, and some manufacturers prefer to use Windows machines, so you might want to look for processing power somewhere other than the bright apple. The razor blade 15in laptop caught my eye as a good option for DJing and making music. It has good specs and a black finish that looks great on stage and in the studio. As a longtime Apple user who is stuck with Ableton Live, I wonder what life would be like if I left my silver cloud.

In this review, I'll talk about three things that a DJ or producer usually cares about the most when looking for a new laptop.  Keep in mind that this is all from the point of view of a Mac user who is thinking about moving Ableton Live to a Windows PC. For those who currently use Microsoft, stay tuned for a review that focuses more on FL Studio.

• The hardware is sleek and has enough power. It's like a Macbook Pro that runs Windows.

• Performance: The CPUs were more than good enough for most audio processing, but the drivers left me wanting more.

• Software: It's a pain if you only have a Mac, but it's not that big of a deal once you get beyond the operating system and into the production and DJ apps.

The Razer Blade QHD+ model has specs that are as good as a top-of-the-line Macbook Pro:

• 14.0′′ IGZO QHD+ 16:9 Ratio, 32001800, capacitive multi-touch, LED backlight; • NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M (3GB GDDR5 VRAM)

• Intel® CoreTM i7–4720HQ: quad-core processor with Hyper Threading 2.6GHZ / 3.6GHz (Base / Turbo)

• 16GB of built-in RAM with two channels

• Windows® 10 (64-Bit)

• HDMI 1.4a audio and video output • 3.5mm port for headphones and microphone

• It's 13.6" (345mm) wide, 0.70" (17.9mm) tall, and 9.3" (235mm) deep. • It weighs 4.47lbs (2.03kg).

Razer Blade's Hardware

Throughout this review, I compare and contrast the Razer Blade with a MacBook Pro, which is probably another product you would consider for composing music or at least use as a point of comparison.

This Keyboard Is Cool

For DJs and producers, the Razer keyboard has both perks and cons. In a nutshell, it is imaginative and entertaining, but not really useful.

• The keyboard works like a Macbook. It's neat, easy to type, and has enough space between words.

• Great backlighting on the keyboard making it easy to see the keys even when it's dark. Even in the dark, you can switch on the backlighting on MacBooks. The green-on-black keys on the Razer Blade are easy to see.

• Type of keyboard: The font on the Razer is cool and "technical." It makes me think of hackers from the 1990s, early DOS work, or the Matrix movies. In summary, it doesn't appear like a normal keyboard at all. It's great for people that want something new and edgy. The Razer Blade Stealth, Razer's newest laptop, has a keyboard with a more classic font that makes it much easier to get used to.  Maybe in the future, all notebooks will have this new font.

The Display

The Razer Blade has a 14-inch screen, which is a terrific size for a stage laptop. Probably a little too small for serious music production or graphics work, but ideal for bringing a solid laptop on the road and doing gigs. The screen was bright, crisp, and easy to view from a long way out.

The fact that the Blade's screen may be used as a capacitive touch screen is an interesting feature. Even though I didn't use it much (maybe out of habit), it could be a great feature for other people. It does function well with multiple touches and some movements. It would be fascinating if the screen was fully movable and could be turned into a tablet, since many performers these days would like the computer to disappear (at least from the crowd's view).

The Harbors

The Blade is relatively simple, as it just has a few I/O ports.

• HDMI out • 3 USB 3.0 ports • 1 audio jack combo in/out

That covers 90% of usage, but I found myself wanting for tiny extras like an SD card reader or Thunderbolt. Those won't matter much if this is only a music machine, but they are nice for other daily duties like editing photos and moving videos.

One of the best things about this computer is that it has three USB ports that are made to work with controls for other devices. These days, many laptops only have two USB ports, and I find that three is a good quantity for most controller situations. Having three fully powered ports will be quite handy for people who don't like to bring extra cables or hubs.

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How Well Razer Blade Does Its Job

At the end of the day, a powerful laptop like the Razer Blade is here to accomplish a hard job, which is to analyse billions of data points every minute. The tool needs to be strong enough to do the job. I put the Razer to the test in two ways:

1) From my TR-8, I can use Ableton Live to handle 12 digital audio channels in real time.

Using the laptop's native ASIO drivers for simple audio tasks, the CPUs operated quite well and seemed to be on level with my typical studio machine, a Macbook Pro with identical specs. When I tried to take it a step further and run my live production set up, that's when I first ran into trouble. This is done by having 12 channels of digital audio stream into the computer at the same time and be processed by Ableton Live in real time. This is a hard test, but it's not impossible with these requirements.

You can't utilise ASIO drivers to use one audio device as an input and a different one as an output. In this scenario, I had to use the audio interface inputs on my TR-8 and listen to the results on the studio speakers through a separate sound card. Core Audio on my Mac gives me basic functionality, but ASIO on Windows doesn't.

2) Traktor DJing a set using all four decks and a lot of effects.

The laptop did a great job in this area and was able to handle anything we could throw at it and more. It was easy to DJ, and it worked with all the standard hardware. The audio drivers are the main thing I worry about for people who want to create a fast laptop. It's quite widely known that Core Audio is better than ASIO in many ways, and everything else is built on those strengths. Here is only one example:

The firm that made the audio interface needs to write the ASIO drivers. Some people are incredibly good drivers, and some are really poor drivers. You won't know which is which until things become really bad, which hopefully won't be on stage. Still, there are supposedly some high-end ASIO drivers that were created specifically for Windows and that work extremely well. You simply need to do your study to be sure.

Using Windows on a Razer Blade (Software)

The least amount of time should be spent in this evaluation talking about the Windows OS as a whole. Operating systems are a touchy subject that doesn't really matter much, unless you're switching from OS X to Windows. So, here are my main opinions about the whole thing.

(Note: The Blade we used for this evaluation came with Windows 8, which a lot of people found hard to operate and annoying. The free update to Windows 10 made a tremendous impact in how easy it was to use.)

During setup, the Windows installer took a long time and asked a lot of personal questions. For someone like me who was used to OS X, it was a terribly bad first time with Windows. It was a lot harder to find apps, files, and directories than on OS X. I'm sure that anyone can become just as good with Windows with a little effort, but there is a learning curve at first.

Design and Look: The bonus section is rather superficial

DJs and producers who care about how things look are sometimes finicky about how things seem. So, let's take a look at some of the Razer's more obvious features:

How the Computer Looks

I loved the black 13-inch MacBook back in 2010. It was little, simple, and incredibly useful. Almost everything a Serato, Traktor, etc. DJ would require. Today, we can only pick between silver or gold models, and I miss being able to choose black. The Razer steps in and gives us the 2015 version of that original ultimate DJ black MacBook.

At 14 inches, the Blade is small but still big enough to show a lot of software. It's about one inch smaller than the 15-inch MacBook Pro and weighs 1 pound less. The matte black finish is incredibly hot. With some gaffer's tape over the green logo, you'll have a sleek laptop for the stage that doesn't scream "I'm checking my emails!"

A Windows laptop that is great for DJs and producers?

There are a lot of incredibly interesting young producers who only use FL Studio as their DAW. For those who have to have a PC, the Razer Blade is perhaps the greatest piece of hardware to buy. For that reason alone, we can endorse the hardware without any reservations. Should anyone else think about getting rid of their Mac or using this to run Ableton Live? Most likely not. The price is too high to make the problems worth it. You would be better off keeping with a Macbook Pro.

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I was actually thinking about acquiring my own Razer Blade to use on stage, since being an Apple fanboy isn't as cool as it used to be, and I miss my 13-inch black MacBook Pro. The costs of switching are just too enormous, though. Between driver problems and a difficult user interface (UI), I just can't give up how well my MacBook works. Still, I haven't said the last word yet. Razer might surprise me with something fresh that changes my mind.