Razer Blade Stealth Review – A Regular Powerful Laptop from Gamer
Razer is a well-known company which brings out keyboards and exciting gaming accessories. Very recently they saw an edge in the laptop manufacturing. When they launched Razer Stealth Blade at the CES 2016, everyone expected something huge from Razer. The predecessors of Razer Blade Stealth were powerful gaming laptops, but this one is not. It’s just a powerful but normal laptop suitable for ordinary use. The most important feature of Razer Blade Stealth is the Razer Core, which is an external box holding graphics card.
Design
On measuring Razer Blade Stealth comes to be 12.6*8.1*0.52 inches and it weighs nearly 2.75 pounds. The device is bit heavier and wider than its competitors in the market like Samsung Ativ Book 9 with 2.09 pounds and 11.2*8.4*0.46 inches and Apple Macbook 12-inch Retina with 2 pounds and 11.8*7.6*0.68 inches. But it is lighter than touch enabled XPS 13 with 2.9 pounds and 12*8*0.33 inches. The case having the logo of three snakes is quite fascinating. Razer Blade Stealth holds a backlit keyboard, two speakers placed to each side, power button placed just below the hinge and touchpad.
Display
Razer Blade Stealth is featured with 12.5 inches touch enabled display. This display is having a resolution of 3840*2160 pixels. While watching a 4K video, this display gives you an enchanting experience by displaying every bit of detail. While viewing a 4K video I could clearly see the scales of snake so vividly.But when I looked at the display panel, it reflected my image so often, but I am impressed by its wide viewing angles. The display screen of Razer Blade Stealth maintained its brightness, no matter whichever way I tilted the handset. The bezel appeared to be little bulgy, but it doesn’t matter at all. Razer Blade Stealth delivers a gamut of 173%, but with a score of 4.2 on Delta-E-Test, it gives better color accuracy. With 402 nits the device delivers better brightness when compared to its competitors in the market and this actually far above the market average of 309 nits. The 10 point capacitive touch screen is responsive to multi-touch. I could zoom-in the documents, images and web images quite easily.
Audio
Razer is having svelte speakers supported by Dolby’s Digital Plus Audio software along with its four profiles namely Movie, Game, Music and Voice. Users are allowed to make their own profiles with the help of Intelligent Equalizer and Surround Virtualizer. When I tried to play some of the Eminem favorites, I was extremely delighted by the boom-boom sound effect and clarity. While playing some of the tracks, I found Music Profile with adequate sound balancing and precision. Rest are good but doesn’t deliver the same effect as Music Profile does.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Razer Blade Stealth’s keyboard is lighted with Chroma lighting which can invariably produce 16.8 million colors with the help of Razer Synapse Software. This feature makes the Stealth’s keyboard undoubtedly special. But this comfort is not supported when it comes to typing. The island-style keyboard has only 1mm key travel along with just 55 grams actuation which is quite below the average. This will reduce the typing speed and when I tried typing I was totally disappointed. The Synaptics Touchpad covers an area of 4.2*2.5 inches of the palm rest. The Touchpad delivers a better response to touch of fingers and rejects your palm and wrist touch with the help of SmartSense Palm-Rejection Software. Thus the touchpad guarantees that you are never irritated because of accidental touches caused by your palm and wrist.
Processor and Storage
Razer Blade Stealth is powered by Intel Core i7-6500U processor which clocks a processing speed of 2.5GHz. This processor is equipped with a RAM of 8GB, which ensures that the processor doesn’t suffer from processing lags. The processor seems to be superior when compared to its competitors like XPS 13 with Intel Core i5-2467 processor with just 1.6GHz, MacBook with Dual Core Intel Core M processor with only 1.1GHz and Ativ Book with Intel Core M-5Y10c with barely 1GHz. On testing the processor could handle upto 8 Google Chrome tabs opened with live streaming of Black Mirror. The graphics for the device is handled by Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU. With this the officials promises that you will be able to play high end games as well as high definition videos. But when played some highly graphics supported games, I was quite disappointed.
The device can hold data upto 256GB on PCIe Solid State Disk. When checked with File Transfer Test, Stealth was capable of transferring 4.97GB multimedia files in just 28 seconds @181.8Mbps. Interestingly industry average is just 162.2Mbps. The competitors like Ativ Book and XPS 13 stands far below this. But MacBook remains superior with 254.5Mbps. When Razer Blade Stealth is tested on OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro test, the device could pair 20,000 names and addresses within 4:08 minutes.
Performance
| Apple MacBook 12 | Dell XPS 13 | Razer Blade Stealth | Samsung ATIV Boc 9 (2015) | |
| 3D Fire Strike (Graphics Performance) | – | – | 840 | 519 |
| Battery Life (in Hours) | 8:43 | 5:46 | 5:05 | 6:23 |
| Color Accuracy | 1.2 | – | 4.17 | 4.13 |
| Display Brightness (Nits) | 353 | – | 402 | 303 |
| Gamut Volume | 102 | – | 173.1 | 83.49 |
| Graphics Performance (3D Mark) | – | – | 67757 | 43273 |
| Hard Drive Speed | 254.5 | 137.5 | 181.8 | 80.8 |
| Geekbench 3 | 4631 | – | 6893 | 4603 |
| Spreadsheet Performance | 273 | 417 | 248 | 342 |
In graphics performance the device seems to be Ok with a score of 840 against 519 by ATIV. In terms of battery Razer Blade Stealth stands far below its competitors with just 5:05 hours back-up. Colour Accuracy by Razer Blade Stealth fairly good when compared to its competitors.Razer Blade Stealth ability to recreate colors seems to be good by Gamut Volume test which showed 173.1 against 83.49 by ATIV. Hard drive speed of Razer Blade Stealth is simply the best with 181.8Mbps with only MacBook having 254.5Mbps to be on top. The spreadsheet test just hit the device beside of its competitors. But when overall performance is considered, Razer Blade Stealth maintains top position with a score of 6893, when compared to its competitors.
Ports and Webcam
Since Razer Blade Stealth is small, it doesn’t have enough space to hold many external ports. Still it maintains to have one HDMI port and one USB port of v3.0 to the right side of the device. The left side is filled with one USB port of v3.0, one headset jack and one Thunderbolt 3.0 AC charging port. When tested, the webcam of Razer Blade Stealth seems to be a better one when compared to its competitors. The webcam holds a 2MP camera. But when used, the image appears to be little blurred in case of body part. Even though the image looked fluffy, having 2MP camera is something better for a notebook.
Software and Warranty
Razer Blade Stealth is powered by Windows 10 as its OS. Windows 10 is equipped with enough applications which makes the Stealth work smoothly. Apart from this Razer Blade Stealth is having a few third party applications only. You can have fun with Comms, which is Razer’s own voice chat gaming messenger and this will allow you to have chat with your loved ones over smartphone as well desktop for free. Other third party applications in Razer Blade Stealth include Flipboard, Killer Network Manager, Killer Diagnostic and Twitter.
Pricing
The Razer Blade Stealth having Intel Core i7-6500U along with 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, 2.5GHz processing speed, Intel Graphics 520 GPU and 4K touch screen is tagged at $1399. The base model with reduced storage of 128GB and 4K touch screen with a resolution of 2560*1440 is available at $999. If you prefer to have a much high storage version, then you can have 512GB storage space along with 4K display for $1599.
Summing Up..
| Dimension | 12.6*8.1*0.52 inches |
| Display | 12.5 inches
3840*2160 pixels |
| Color Variants | Black Aluminium |
| Keyboard | Backlit by Chroma Lighting |
| Touchpad | 4.2*2.5 inches Synaptics Touchpad |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-6500U processor with 2.5GHz |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 256GB |
| Audio | Svelte Speakers along with Dolby’s Digital Plus Audio |
| Ports | · 2 USB port of v3.0
· Thunderbolt 3.0 AC Cahrging Port · HDMI Port · Headphone Jack |
| Camera | 2MP Webcam |
| Battery | Extends Upto 5:05 hours |
| Price | $999 to $1599. Varies according to various configurations |
Pros
- Pleasing Design with Aluminium Black case.
- Lightweight device.
- 4K display with exciting clarity in every detail.
- Customizable Chroma Keyboard.
- Customizable Audio.
Cons
- Low Battery capacity.
- Low key depression which affects typing speed.
- Low storage options. High storage costs you much.
