Razer Blade 15 Ultimate Battery Test

The Razer Blade lineup of laptops has had one main complaint (besides the size of the bezels on the older models) and that is the battery life.

Now, I just recently got the new Razer Blade 15 (which you can check out my walkthrough on here if interested) and decided it was a good opportunity to see if Razer made any improvements in the battery department and ended up going down a rabbit hole of experiments really because of the different power modes in Windows and the performance modes in Razer’s own Synapse app that can all affect the battery life and performance.

Needless to say, I finally got enough results to present the findings to you guys and I’ll explain in more detail as we go.

So first up, let’s just have Premiere open because that alone generally drains more battery from a laptop than anything else that I do on it.

I did it with the device on Best Performance mode with Gaming Mode enabled in Razer’s own Synapse app as well, I left the Chroma keys flashing away and left the screen refresh at 144hz and brightness at 50%.

Then did it again with it on Better Battery mode, Balanced mode in Synapse, Chroma off, screen refresh at 60hz and brightness at 50%.

And finally, did it on Battery Saver mode, Balanced mode in Synapse, Chroma off, screen refresh at 60hz, and screen brightness at 50%.

Here are the results:

Okay, so the difference between Better Battery and Best Performance isn’t much but Battery Saver is a decent chunk longer.

Next, I tried the manufacturer recommended test: the internal looping video test.

I left all of the settings identical as to the last test but this time I just played a 1080P video and had it loop endlessly in full screen until the Razer Blade died.

Here’s how that went:

Okay, so lasted longer than the Premiere Pro test, as expected, and the results were pretty much the same as far as how Better Balanced, Best Performance, and Battery Saver did.

Now, that got me wondering, you definitely get a lot more battery life out of using Battery Saver mode but how much does it (and the other modes) affect the performance. For me, since I edit mostly on here, figured I’d render the same video on the laptop using the exact same settings as the other tests and see how the end render times compared.

Here’s how that went:

Now, that’s confusing to me for a number of reasons. Firstly, and I’m sure its the same thing you’re thinking, if Battery Saver is that much more battery life but only a hair less performance (at least in this test) why wouldn’t you just leave it on Battery Saver permanently, right? And then, the whole Premiere being open on Battery Saver lasting 9 hours, I know that me actually editing on the computer never got anywhere near that on any mode so something has to change in Battery Saver mode when you are actually using the laptop.

So, there was one last test then. I had to sit and edit in Premiere on Battery Saver (and on Best Performance for a control) until it died. And here’s how that went:

And as expected, they are near as makes no difference the same. So it turns out that despite the supposed function of the power modes to limit CPU speed, etc. they’ll all boost the performance (and thereby kill the battery) if an application is really needed it.

So to conclude, if you’re editing on Premiere or another heavy use application, you’ll get about an hour and a half of battery on the Razer Blade 15 (regardless of your settings it seems) and you’ll get about 3 and half hours of using much less intensive apps (web browsing, playing a video, etc.) on Balanced mode but can almost double that to 7 hours or so by turning on Battery Saver and it’ll just boost speed as needed anyway so maybe just leave Battery Saver on when not plugged in?

Let me know what you guys think of the test and this situation with the power modes, love to hear from you guys, in the comments below and be sure to subscribe to the channel and turn on the bell to be notified when I do new videos.