Razer Blade Stealth Review (2019)

8.4 Total Score
Razer Blade Stealth Review

With a discrete graphics card and an Intel Whiskey Lake processor, the Razer Blade Stealth is a capable machine for work and gaming.

PROS
  • Sleek, attractive design
  • Powerful overall and graphics performance
  • Great Audio
  • Solid battery life
CONS
  • Undersized keys
  • Runs hot
Add your review  |  Read reviews and comments

The new Razer Blade Stealth has undergone a slight metamorphosis while retaining the insults to which we are accustomed to Razer. But that’s what the real audience draws under the hood, as it’s the first Stealth bundled with Nvidia MX150 discrete graphics. This means that you can play ordinary PC games on the fly on a system weighing less than 3 pounds. But the shock and the awe do not stop there. Today we are here to discuss this laptop with you in our Razer Blade Stealth Review.

The Stealth is also one of the first laptops to offer the new Intel Whiskey Lake chip, which gives the stunning aspirant considerable power while working for more than eight hours to charge the battery. However, an uncomfortable keyboard is the fly in an otherwise seductive ointment jar. Nevertheless, the latest version of the Razer Blade Stealth deserves a serious look.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Design

Although I really miss Razer’s brilliant logo, I can not deny the disconnected elegance of the new Stealth Blade. The tri-snake logo in light relief is subtle, bringing you closer to the black aluminum lid to admire its majestic beauty Similar to the Blade 15, the edges of the system are still slightly rounded. It’s a small detail, but it says a lot about the accuracy of the company, which I appreciate.

More obsidian metal products are waiting when you open the laptop. The keyboard floats in a sea of things with a really gigantic touchpad underneath. A loudspeaker waits on both sides to dispel the disturbances. The 13.3-inch screen is at the top, embedded in a number of absolutely thin edges. When you flip the laptop over, you will see a pair of rubber feet extending along the system chassis, with a pair of vents that provide a generous view of both fans.

Because of its relatively thin chassis, the Stealth has only a few ports. There is a USB 3.1 port (natural green) and a Thunderbolt 3 port on each side. The only difference is that you get a headphone connection on the left.

All this aluminum and some extra specs put the 12 x 8.3 x 0.6-inch Stealth on the heaviest side of the 2.9-pounds ultra-portable scale. It is similar to the Huawei MateBook X Pro (2.9 pounds, 12 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches). The Dell XPS 13 9370 (12 x 7.9 x 0.5 inches) and Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 (12.1 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches) computers are slightly lighter at 2.7 pounds.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Keyboard and TouchPad

The keyboard of the Razer Blade Stealth is the main scratching post. I was immediately irritated by the Right Shift, Enter and Backspace keys, which are completely too short on the island-shaped keyboard. I would have preferred to say that Razer had not recorded the arrow keys with those keys shrimp that forced me to be much more aware of my keystrokes. I usually talk about Razer for its shallow keyboards, but the Stealth has just been exploded enough for a comfortable and resilient experience. This actuation force of 67 grams is really a boon because the keys have a stroke of 0.8 mm (1.5 mm is our minimum).

And like any self-respecting Razer blade, the Stealth is awash with beautiful Chroma lights. But this Stealth is much more reserved with the light show. Instead of programming individual keys with RGB-goodness, this version of the Stealth has only one zone, which means that if you change the color of a button, you change all of them. It’s not the technicolor scene I’m used to, but it’s still pretty good. By the way, you can still program macros and synchronize lighting with different games.

The Stealth’s 4.3-inch touchpad is perhaps not the biggest I’ve ever used, but it’s in the top ten. The Microsoft Precision Pad is smooth, fast, and accurate, making it easy to use three or four fingers swipe with pinch-to-zoom.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Display

The Stealth’s 13.3-inch 1920×1080 screen is clear and vibrant, despite the matte, anti-reflective coating. When I watched the trailer for Captive State, I was impressed by the panel’s ability to capture the wealth of Ashton Sanders, the mahogany skin of the actor, as well as his faded red hoodie and the ominous metal collar with his various lights around his neck. The details were clear enough for me to see the torn fabric on the sides of the hood, as well as the transparent braid of the cords.

Playing Aurion: The legacy of the Kori-Odan was a colorful action carcade. The suit of the protagonist’s main ceremony seemed to shine from the screen as he launched powerful attacks against his enemies. The details were clear enough for the wind to blow in the locomotives. The screen can display 120% of the sRGB range, just like the 117% achieved by the XPS 13 and the average high-end laptops. The MateBook X was only slightly livelier with 124%, while the Laptop 2 was the most animated with 176%.

When we measured the brightness, the Stealth averaged 346 nits, which is higher than the Surface Laptop 2 (321 nits) and the average 320 nits. But the MateBook Pro turned out to be the most sparkling at 458 nits. And a hooray is certainly acceptable for the Stealth’s thin bezels, which become thinner at each side. The edges are even 60% thinner than its predecessor.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Audio

Itty, Bitty speakers, surprisingly big sound. With four speakers and a smart amplifier, the Stealth could easily fill our test room with Janelle Monae’s fluid and futuristic melodies. The strings, hi-hats and bass guitar were beautiful and clear on “I Like That”, the perfect background for the soprano and the richness of the artist. But like most laptops of this size, it did not miss the work needed to produce low-end, even though Dolby Atmos software was enabled.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Graphics and Gaming

The latest version of the Razer Blade Stealth is the first to offer discrete graphics, in addition to the Intel UHD Graphics 620 integrated graphics processor. And although it’s only an Nvidia GeForce MX150 GPU, it still has power graph much better than previous models. This system doubles the amount of VRAM to 4GB, giving it an edge over other MX GPUs on the market.

But do not take out those AAA titles yet. The notebook has transformed older games such as Bioshock Infinite and Borderlands 2 into a dream. But on more incriminating titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, low frame rates reduced the action to a clutter stutter. But if you adjust your expectations, the Stealth can be a solid slot machine, at least until you return to your Razer Core or Core X.

Still, I was impressed by the fact that I could slide through the streets of Gotham at 59 frames per second in Batman: Arkham Origins, beating villains in a whimsical ballet of brutality at 1920 x 1080. Then I went to Aurion, the average action hack 62 fps.

At Dirt 3, the blade produced an impressive 164 fps, more than double the 74 fps average. The MateBook Pro, which has its own MX 150 GPU, was far away at a distance of 117 fps, while the Intel UHD 620 was producing GPU-powered XPS 13’s and Surface Laptop’s 67 and 82 fps. Like most gaming laptops, the Stealth switches to its integrated graphics processor when it does not perform tasks requiring a lot of graphics.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Performance

The Stealth is one of the first laptops to integrate Intel’s new Whiskey Lake processors. According to Intel, Whiskey Lake chips are twice as powerful as a five-year-old Intel processor. I streamed an episode of Voltron: Legendary Defender on Netflix with 20 additional open tabs in Google Chrome, some of which used Twitch, Tweetdeck or YouTube feeds. The Stealth and Intel Core i7-8565U 1.8 GHz processor with 16 GB of RAM is connected without problems.

Stealth continued to showcase its winning ways on our synthetic tests, starting with 15,878 on Geekbench 4, which measures overall performance. It easily beat the 12,285 average high-end notebooks and surpassed the 14,180 and 12,913 achieved by the XPS 13 and MateBook X, both equipped with Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-8550U processors. The laptop also beat the Surface Laptop 2 (12.676) and its Intel Core i5-8250U processor.

The Excel spreadsheet test was a problem. The Stealth devastated the average of 1 minute and 35 seconds with a time of 21 seconds. It was much faster than the MateBook X (1:49), the Laptop Surface 2 (1:15) and the XPS 13 (1:08).

During the file transfer test, Stealth’s NVMe M.2 256 GB PCIe SSD disk took 20 seconds to duplicate 4.77 GB of mixed media files for a transfer rate of 254 MB per second. It was enough to send the Surface Laptop 2 (203 Mbps) with the same storage space. The MateBook Pro (512GB NVMe PCIe SSD) reached 282.7 MBps, while the XPS (256GB SSD) recorded 508 MBps.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Heat

After playing Aurion for 15 minutes, I measured the most important locations in the notebook. The touchpad measured 91 degrees Fahrenheit. The center of the keyboard and the chassis reached 105 and 108 degrees respectively. Both temperatures are above our comfort threshold of 95 degrees. I have always used the notebook comfortably on my lap. The Stealth turned out to be a hot potato, even during our less demanding video streaming test, where we ran a YouTube video in full HD for 15 minutes. Once the time was up, the touchpad touched 95 degrees while the center of the keyboard and the bottom reached a hot 104 and 110 degrees.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Battery Life

Traditionally, battery life has been the biggest mistake of Razer laptops. The last Stealth I reviewed was taken from our battery test at 5 and 21 minutes. And with a separate graphics card, I had almost everything new Stealth wrote. I’m glad to say that I’m really wrong to do it. Our laptop worked 8 hours and 5 minutes on our battery test. This is less than the average 8:22 high-end laptops, but not much. It’s a big step forward, but Razer still has a long way to go before it can compete. Surface Laptop 2 and MateBook X had a time of 9:22 and 9:55, respectively. The 1080p XPS 13 was operated at 11:59, while the 4K model was recorded at 8:23.

Razer Blade Stealth Review – Conclusion

With the new Blade Stealth, Razer has finally gained a foothold in the high-end ultraportable market. For $1,599 USD, the new Razer Blade Stealth offers a laptop that supports the new Intel Whiskey Lake processor, as well as individual Nvidia graphics, making it one of the most powerful ultraportables on the market. It has excellent audio quality and a pleasant display, ideal for work or relaxation. And Razer has found a way to dramatically improve battery life over previous versions. However, some of the most important keys on the keyboard are terribly substandard.

You can purchase the Dell XPS 13 for $1,299, which offers longer battery life, better display, and an extremely comfortable keyboard. But for mobile professionals who want to play their way in their absence, the Razer Stealth Blade must be at the top of their list.

Have your say on our Razer Blade Stealth Review by dropping your comments in the comments section.

8.4 Total Score
Razer Blade Stealth Review

With a discrete graphics card and an Intel Whiskey Lake processor, the Razer Blade Stealth is a capable machine for work and gaming.

PROS
  • Sleek, attractive design
  • Powerful overall and graphics performance
  • Great Audio
  • Solid battery life
CONS
  • Undersized keys
  • Runs hot
Add your review  |  Read reviews and comments

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