The Razer Blade Stealth Review: Razer Takes On The Ultrabook
by Brett Howse on March 29, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Razer
- Skylake
- Razer Blade Stealth
- eGFX
- Razer Core
- Skylake-U
Final Words
So what is the verdict on Razer’s first step into the Ultrabook world. As with most devices, they’ve done some things well, some things great, and some things not so great. The first great part is the design. The Stealth is basically a mini-version of the Blade 14, with an almost identical look and feel. The matte black finish looks wonderful on the CNC aluminum chassis, at least until it gets a few fingerprints. Razer has put their same hidden cooling vent into the hinge of the notebook, concealing it from view for a cleaner overall look, and other than the green Razer light-up logo, the design is very understated which is something that has its own appeal.
The keyboard is a marvel of engineering. Razer is certainly not the first company to do a backlit notebook keyboard, or even a backlit keyboard that can change color, but they are the first to do individual backlit RGB keys on an Ultrabook, and the result is spectacular. The Razer software lets you pick several stock options for colors and patterns, or you can use the Chroma Configurator to set pretty much anything you want. It is completely customizable, and this is something that’s been on the desktop space for some time, and it’s great to see it come to the notebook.
Razer has also outfitted the Stealth with one of the highest density displays around. Packing a UHD resolution into a 12.5-inch panel may seem like overkill, but side by side with the QHD version the difference is very apparent. It is also a full Adobe RGB gamut panel, which has an up-side in a much wider color gamut, but is also a downside due to the lack of good software support from Windows.
The performance of the Intel Core i7-6500U CPU is very good, and with the Stealth there are no lower tiers in terms of performance. Most devices charge a lot more for the Core i7 model, so it’s great to see Razer include it across all models. I do feel that an Iris based processor would have been nice, even as a more expensive option, but that is not in the cards with the first generation, at least for now. Otherwise the 8 GB of RAM is adequate for today, but with Skylake’s support of DDR4, 16 GB of RAM in an Ultrabook is quickly becoming the new normal. Storage performance is very good across the range, with all Stealths coming with NVMe PCIe storage. It’s a slower TLC SSD, but it still outclasses the SATA drives of last year.
Meanwhile Razer has also put a lot of engineering into the Stealth so that it could be used in conjunction with the Razer Core. This will be the world’s first external graphics dock over Thunderbolt 3, and they had to work closely with the entire Windows ecosystem crew – AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, and Microsoft – to enable this functionality in as seamless a method as possible. The Core is coming out this month, and will give a single-cable docking solution to significantly increase the graphical power of this device. At CES, I was able to see the Stealth attached to Core running Fallout 4, and it was a great experience. That said, I’m curious to see how much the U series processors hold back a really fast GPU, but regardless the experience is going to be a lot better than the limited graphics power you can fit in an Ultrabook.
In terms of construction, the Razer Blade Stealth really has everything done well. A great aluminum chassis, a thin and light design, and a top notch display. It has a great new keyboard lighting system, and support for external graphics over Thunderbolt 3. It even uses USB-C as the charging port, meaning the same cable that can charge your phone can charge the Stealth. There’s just one issue with it, and unfortunately it’s a big one.
Simply put, the battery life of the Stealth is not up to snuff with the rest of the Ultrabook competition. I knew going in that a UHD display with Adobe RGB support was going to hit the battery life hard, but I was a bit surprised just how poorly it fared. Even switching out displays for the lower-resolution sRGB QHD panel can't fully close the gap. If Razer wants to compete against the big OEMs in the Ultrabook space, they need to look at every single component in the Stealth, and find ways to save power on all of them. Eight hours is really the minimum on our light test for 2016, and even the QHD version falls well short of that.
It's really too bad, because the rest of the Stealth is a top notch laptop. Which does't have us writing off the laptop entirely – there are plenty of cases where it might still be a great machine – but if any scenario involves long periods away from a power outlet, it’s going to be an issue. Sure you can supplant it with USB battery packs, or find a place to plug in, but that’s not always a practical option.
Ultimately the Razer Blade Stealth is so close to being an awesome Ultrabook. If you don’t need battery life, you’ll want to check it out, but if you do value longer run times off of the battery, the Stealth is likely not the laptop for you.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
66 Comments
View All Comments
forgot2yield28 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
Won't benefit the end user? Are you kidding? If you do any kind of work viewing fine vector images, such as architectural displays, a high DPI display is a godsend. For productivity software, if you have good eyesight and don't mind shrunken UI elements, you fit your work on more of the screen. It's obviously a tradeoff against battery life, but it's a tradeoff some would gladly make. It's simply not true to state there are zero use cases where a high DPI display provides a tangible benefit.niva - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link
You can disagree all you want, but anything below 1080p should be immediately disqualified from being purchased 5 years ago. An argument about 1080p for the sake of efficiency can be made, but discouraging companies from adopting higher resolution standards is just wrong. The UHD display can be ran as a 1080 for performance purposes.moozooh - Saturday, April 2, 2016 - link
> An Intel GPU in a 12.5 inch laptop display that is unable to drive games at much lower resolutions should be paired with a 1366x768 panel of decent quality with good viewing angles.That is just silly. Gaming performance is never a goal with laptops of this form-factor, not even a secondary one. If you're looking for any kind of decent gaming performance you shouldn't be considering an Ultrabook at all. Their primary task is the ability to handle large amounts of text, non-computanionally-intensive media work, and internet browsing/media consumption on-the-go for as long as possible without having to be plugged in. The difference between a 120 dpi panel and a 190+ dpi panel when working with text or photos is MASSIVE. They aren't even comparable, not if you value your eyesight and comfort at all. Had you experienced that you would never write the nonsense about 768p panels.
deeps6x - Wednesday, April 6, 2016 - link
Which is why they should have had a 1080P option with a nice Matte IPS screen. 13.3", not the micro size they went with. It fits. Use it Razor. You build this fine ass machine then gimp it with the large bezels. If Dell can do it you can do it as well, if not better.Why 1080P? Because it uses less power than 3k or 4k, and extends battery life. Why matte screen? Because touch is Intel forced cow poop, and I like to be able to use my laptops with windows behind me. Or even outside. I don't know what kind of profit Intel makes by insisting touch screens are part of the 'Ultrabook' spec, but it is one of their dumbest ideas ever. Touch on a tablet? Of course. Touch on a laptop? Useless.
jlabelle - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - link
- Higher resolution displays, while nice looking, offer little to no added functionality after reaching the point -So...it does !
And let's be honest, we are still far from smartphone resolution. I am not pushing for 4K display on a 12" screen but there is a CLEAR difference between 768p and QHD on such size.
- after reaching the point where it becomes necessary to scale the interface in order to retain visibility of objects displayed in it -
Which is not a issue per see. Windows Store applications and UI just scaled perfectly. It is old legacy software that needs to be adapted for that so indeed, it is a good thing to evolve in this direction to force the software manufacturer to make their homework as high DPI support exists on Windows since more than 7 years.
- Anything more than that won't benefit the end user regardless of how much they think they need more pixels.-
It does. What does NOT is the aRGB screen, which, as explained, for most of the operation is detrimental to the user experience.
mikesackett.85 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link
768 is awful, 1080p should be the minimum. Having been spoiled by nice high DPI screens (1600-1700p) I'll never go back to anything less than FHD. For me the QHD model hits the sweet spot at $999.99, for that you get an i7, 8GB Ram, 128GB SSD, and QHD touchscreen, which is higher specs than the similarly priced XPS 13 (i5, 1080p, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, non-touch) and a similar specced MBP is $1299. This laptop also has the added bonus of having a thunderbolt connected dGPU which none of the other options have (Though the Razer dock should work on other pc's with thunderbolt ports, including the Dell XPS 13). This laptop has the ability to serve both as a road warrior and in-home gaming machine, for that I feel it is absolutely worth the price of admission.Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, March 29, 2016 - link
I agree. The battery life is a big drawback considering that the competitors offer nearly twice the battery life.A part of my wonders why won't Razer offer a model for the normal consumer. Kill the fancy keyboard backlight and offer i3 and i5 CPUs, and the Stealth could be very competitive against the likes of Dell and ASUS. I know Razer is all about gamers, but the Stealth looks like a very solid machine and given Razer's higher-end brand status and quality I'm sure they could reach a wider audience with just a few small tweaks.
zeroqw - Tuesday, March 29, 2016 - link
Exactly. I have been monitoring the ultrabook market for 2 years and to be honest this laptop could have been a big hit with real battery life. It feels like all the ultrabook laptops got some smaller or bigger drawbacks and you just cant get what you pay for. I just hope they consider moving closer to a wider audience in the future.nerd1 - Tuesday, March 29, 2016 - link
They can provide FHD (matte) screen with i5 version at $799, which should last twice longer than this.ImSpartacus - Tuesday, March 29, 2016 - link
Since at first glance, it appears that Razer is emulating parts of Apple's strategy, I would guess that Razer is ensuring that every modern system in the Razer "ecosystem" can have a satisfactory experience with their Core.The Blade 14 & 17 are both easily up for the task. And Razer at least attempted to ensure that every Stealth will be a good match for the Core. However, if they put a weaker 15W CPU in there, then it might not perform as well with the Core.
Is that the right thing to do? Objectively no, but I wonder if that kinda of Apple-esque way of thinking of part of the reason why the Blade laptops seem to be so cool in the first place. You take the good with the bad, I guess.