when the razer blade stealth was first released several years ago i was like
wtf razer a laptop without a dedicated graphics
card i thought you guys were like four gamers by gamers
what's your excuse but then between the hardware upgrades and whether i like to
admit it or not the benefits of not having a GPU like a slimmer design and
better battery life the stealth actually grew on me to the point where for the
last year my blade stealth has been in my backpack going everywhere this job
takes me so needless to say i was stoked
about the new 2018 razer blade stealth
that is until i got one it will not be going
into my backpack and i guess we should take a look at why
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i'm still really undecided about razer's new boxy design language that's made its
way from the razer phone over to their laptops in the last year and a half on
the blade 15 it made a bit more sense to
me because there are thermal advantages oh and
i do appreciate the slimness of the bezels but on the stealth i'm gonna be
carrying it with me like in my hand a lot and the sharp edges just aren't as
comfortable in the hand subjectively though it looks damn fine
with an exceptionally rigid chassis and an overall premium feel and they've
removed the lighting on the rear razer logo a change that will help users avoid
the uh potentially embarrassing situation where they show up for an
important meeting and they've got like this weird gamery looking thing on the
table compared to last year's model there have been some sacrifices made to the i o
HDMI being the notable cut but with two
usbc connections now one with Thunderbolt 3 and both of them with
charging support along with two usb type a's and a headphone jack it's hard to
complain too much about the extra dongle that you'd have to carry
what i will complain about though is the increase in power
yes you heard me right i hate that razer made the stealth more
powerful and more power hungry by
including a dedicated GPU i mean sure
the mx 150 four gig is better than
nothing but the issue here is that it's not in an experience changing way like
casual games like rocket league and dota they will run in some cases multiple
times faster than onboard graphics but for anything
aaa you can expect to run at 720p resolution low settings
and then be thrilled if you get over 30 frames per second one of razer's other
justifications here is that it improves performance for content creators for you
know editing videos on the go and such but i just don't see it like the quad
core core i7 CPU is able to hold its own
pretty well in light video editing on the old stealth or in the surface laptop
too but our guidance has still always
been that if you want to do any serious video editing then you should consider
either the full-blown razer blade or something like the ASUS strix scar which
has six cores and a full-blown gaming
GPU for the same price
which brings us perfectly to the most offensive part of all of this the fact
that the mx 150 is a 200
upgrade option that must be selected in order to get touchscreen functionality
along with the 4k display option which adds an extra 300 on top of the already
ballooning price on that note i hate the direction that
they've gone with the display options in general here i mean sure 4k is awesome
and makes a difference on a 77-inch tv
but on a 13-inch laptop those extra pixels just
mostly reduce battery life and the most galling part of this is that razer
already had found a great balance my 2017 model has an 1800p panel that has a
noticeable boost in clarity over 1080p without the drawbacks of 4k and it has
touch i mean if they were gonna change things up why not do something good like put in
a taller display like on the new macbook air and the surface laptop to increase
productivity you know that second reason why it has a dedicated GPU i mean they
added some stuff that we've been asking for like Windows hello facial
recognition which is imho the best way to unlock a laptop
currently but then they just continue to do more
things that are frustrating like the webcam next to it
it's pretty schmidt to put it mildly and speaking of schmidt the keyboard
it's great that they were able to backlight the secondary functions i was
really excited when i saw this at ces but the layout
sucks and the switches are inconsistent
so to start again the new boxy design
means that people with larger hands will actually have their palms rest on the
sharp edge of the laptop so we're not off to a great start here and while the
switches i would say have above average stabilization and a nice tactile feel if
a little bit mushy the tactile bump happens before the actual key actuation
and the actuation force is noticeably
different from one key to the next so i
ended up having to kind of hulk mode type in order to make sure that every
stroke got registered honestly though
i could live with all of that if it wasn't for the layout like
who thought this shift key was okay
i would actually like to speak to that individual and i will personally pay for
him or her to attend both a typing and a
grammar workshop so that he or she can become more familiar with the home row
method of typing and the importance of proper capitalization
like i've gotten used to weird layouts before and i'll probably do it again but
this one is just it's worse in ways that are
just unnecessary like if they had just
kept the key layout this keyboard might have still gotten an
a minus or a b plus but as it is i think
we're in c-plus territory but let's bring it back for a moment because you
know what gets a solid a-plus this trackpad
every other Windows notebook maker should be paying close attention right
now and taking note of how razer used all of the available vertical space to
enlarge their touch pad it really does make a big difference and it's awesome
another area where razer has beaten out most of the competition is upgradability
removing the stealth's bottom gives you easy access to the solid 54 watt hour
battery which should be able to keep you going for a full work day assuming
you're not gaming or video editing haha and you can upgrade the m.2 drive as
well and i mean okay the RAM is still soldered but
that really does say more about the state of the industry as a whole than it
does about sort of razer because
i'm finding myself saying at least they didn't glue the whole thing together
microsoft bottom line though is this
i've actually been pretty hard on the stealth for this entire review and some
people at razer might even use the word unfair but there is a reason for it
the price if you're making the most expensive
Windows ultrabook you also need to be making the best
Windows ultrabook which means that we're going to go a little
harder on it doesn't it so the base price for this thing without
the GPU is 1400
and for that kind of money you could buy an xps 13 or a surface laptop too you
get the same performance along with better keyboards and screens in either
case then if you do throw the GPU in
here which i guess is razer's kind of main differentiating point you are up to
sixteen hundred dollars now for that money you can buy a surface laptop too
and a nintendo switch since then you can get a better notebook experience and a
better casual gaming experience or you could even get a 13-inch macbook pro
since somehow that's starting to look like a reasonably priced option now and
then if you upgrade to the 4k touch display which is when this thing does
finally become a very competent notebook no touch on the lower end ones come on
it's up to 1900 us dollars
at that price you could get a surface book to 13-inch with the much better gtx
1050 ti or like basically any other perfectly good
notebook a nintendo switch and take your mom to a nice dinner or something
it really does seem like a better way to spend your hard-earned dollars to me
since for my part even not having paid for either of these it's pretty clear to
me which one is going back in my backpack
at least until lg tries to knock it out with the next gram
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