Blade Stealth Review: Meet Razer's Ultraportable for 2019

[Julio Franco]

The new Razer Blade Stealth uses an all-new design with new hardware. Powered by a Core i7-8565U processor, the 13.3" ultraportable offers models with and without discrete graphics, 8 or 16GB of RAM and two performance levels of 256GB SSDs running on a 53 Wh battery.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1783-razer-blade-stealth-2019/

 

[Squid Surprise]

The problem here, is that these "ultraportables" aren't really that much more portable than the new "gaming" laptops...

For example, the MSI Stealth weighs only about a pound more, costs $1800, and has a 1060 inside and the i7 8750...

As the years go by, this will only get more lopsided... yes, you can still buy 10 pound gaming laptops - that's its own genre - but I suspect that in a few more years, "ultraportables" might be synonymous with "gaming laptops".

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Notebookcheck observed the system battery draining when the laptop was at full tilt in gaming benchmarks, the 65 watt adapter was maxed out. Did techspot observe such behaviour?

I want to like this, I really do, but that price is just a bit obscene. MX 150 laptops can commonly be had for $700 or so. I understand that thinness brings a price tag, but over double the price is excessive.

The problem here, is that these "ultraportables" aren't really that much more portable than the new "gaming" laptops...

For example, the MSI Stealth weighs only about a pound more, costs $1800, and has a 1060 inside and the i7 8750...

As the years go by, this will only get more lopsided... yes, you can still buy 10 pound gaming laptops - that's its own genre - but I suspect that in a few more years, "ultraportables" might be synonymous with "gaming laptops".

You know there is more to portability then just weight, right?

The MSI stealth is a 15.6" laptop, this one is a 13.3". The MSI is somewhere between a typical 14" and 15.6" laptop in size, this razer has dimensions similar to a 12" laptop. Some of us want a machine that is physically smaller, I dont care if a 15" laptop weighs .1lbs, its not the size I and many others want, we want our small, portable screens. In this case, an ultraportable sarifices more powerful hardware and larger keyboards for a tiny form factor. A 15.6" laptop will never be considered an "ultraportable" anymore then a full size car would be considered "subcompact" just because it was super light.

Also, that "only 1lbs heavier" (4.1LBs VS 2.8-3.0 for the razer) puts the MSI at over 33% heavier. That is a significant difference.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Notebookcheck observed the system battery draining when the laptop was at full tilt in gaming benchmarks, the 65 watt adapter was maxed out. Did techspot observe such behaviour?

You know there is more to portability then just weight, right?

The MSI stealth is a 15.6" laptop, this one is a 13.3". The MSI is somewhere between a typical 14" and 15.6" laptop in size, this razer has dimensions similar to a 12" laptop. Some of us want a machine that is physically smaller, I dont care if a 15" laptop weighs .1lbs, its not the size I and many others want, we want our small, portable screens. In this case, an ultraportable sarifices more powerful hardware and larger keyboards for a tiny form factor. A 15.6" laptop will never be considered an "ultraportable" anymore then a full size car would be considered "subcompact" just because it was super light.

Also, that "only 1lbs heavier" (4.1LBs VS 2.8-3.0 for the razer) puts the MSI at over 33% heavier. That is a significant difference.

Significant... for now... my point is that the difference is shrinking... used to be that gaming laptops were easily twice or even 3 times as heavy... now it's less than 40%.... in a few years, probably closer to 10%...

As for form factor, as bezels get decreased across the board, 14" and 15" gaming laptops will almost certainly arise that will be even smaller... Remember the Alienware 11"? I wonder if something similar will rise again...

Basically, we have always had to sacrifice performance for size/weight in the electronics industry... but as technology increases, these sacrifices become less and less... cell phones used to be bricks, now they're tiny... computers used to be the size of rooms... now they can be less than an inch thick... as this tech increases, the lines blur between portable and performance --> soon we'll have both in 1 package

 

[Uncle Al]

Just don't see the added value on this one ..... I'll pass

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Significant... for now... my point is that the difference is shrinking... used to be that gaming laptops were easily twice or even 3 times as heavy... now it's less than 40%.... in a few years, probably closer to 10%...

As for form factor, as bezels get decreased across the board, 14" and 15" gaming laptops will almost certainly arise that will be even smaller... Remember the Alienware 11"? I wonder if something similar will rise again...

Basically, we have always had to sacrifice performance for size/weight in the electronics industry... but as technology increases, these sacrifices become less and less... cell phones used to be bricks, now they're tiny... computers used to be the size of rooms... now they can be less than an inch thick... as this tech increases, the lines blur between portable and performance --> soon we'll have both in 1 package

except for....as you type with periods.....you should remember....that everything that makes big laptops smaller.....also....makes small laptops smaller.....and weight being reduced.....doesnt mean a 15" laptop will fit in an 11" form factor.

And if you fully eliminate bezels on 14" machines (which is a moot point, because 14" gaming laptops are all but dead now) you can ALSO get rid of bezels on the 13 and 11" laptops. A 15.6" screen will NEVER fit in a body smaller then it is, no matter how much you get rid of bezels, a 15.6" screen will NOT fit into something the size of a blade stealth. A 13.3" screen is physically smaller, and allows for a smaller design. You are suggesting that magical space technology is going to make a 15" laptop the size of a 13" laptop, and that just isnt true.

You want a new Alienware M11x? You are looking at it, the razer blade stealth is a comparable size in terms of width and height while being significantly thinner.

 

[Squid Surprise]

except for....as you type with periods.....you should remember....that everything that makes big laptops smaller.....also....makes small laptops smaller.....and weight being reduced.....doesnt mean a 15" laptop will fit in an 11" form factor.

And if you fully eliminate bezels on 14" machines (which is a moot point, because 14" gaming laptops are all but dead now) you can ALSO get rid of bezels on the 13 and 11" laptops. A 15.6" screen will NEVER fit in a body smaller then it is, no matter how much you get rid of bezels, a 15.6" screen will NOT fit into something the size of a blade stealth. A 13.3" screen is physically smaller, and allows for a smaller design. You are suggesting that magical space technology is going to make a 15" laptop the size of a 13" laptop, and that just isnt true.

You want a new Alienware M11x? You are looking at it, the razer blade stealth is a comparable size in terms of width and height while being significantly thinner.

lol... think of the periods as spacers

And you don't quite get my point... there comes a point where you simply can't get much smaller - a laptop can only be so thin... eventually, there comes a point where the size won't matter, as they will all be about the same... As for screen sizes - we're all seeing foldable screens coming to smartphones - I see no reason to believe this won't happen to laptops, where I'd argue they'd be far more useful.

The Macbook Air is a good example... Apple introduced them a few years ago as the thin ultrabportable... but sales started to drop once their "regular" Macbooks became almost the same size, but packed more performance...

 

[Darth Shiv]

It's great Razer is pushing the envelope in this space but one thing hasn't really changed in years. Razer's support is turbo-garbage. You simply have to consider that as part of the package. If you have issues, you deal with their warranty and support and they are EXTREMELY poor in that regard. Their subreddit is a horror show and textbook how to do PR wrong.

 

[Arris]

It's impressive what they can do for that little power draw. I recently got a work laptop with an i7 8650U in it. Thought about using it all the time instead of my old desktop in the office with a decrepit i7 2600 in it. Did some tests compiling my current project in Visual Studio (both running comparable SSDs). I'm aware that it's probably single core performance that matters here but still expected some improvement between 2nd gen i7 and 8th even if it was the ultra portable. The i7 8650u was slightly slower in the end, even with 8gb more ram, newer chipset etc. etc.

 

[Tgard]

I love the idea of this and have been looking for something around this size. I have been carrying an older laptop and the weight of it is getting to me. I need something smaller and have been looking at the Surface and some other ultraportables; the only thing is I don't want to sacrifice all of the power I get in my 15.6 laptop. This looks good on paper except for the price which I think is just crazy high. Surface is too expensive too so I have been looking for alternates. Tablet type cost too much for anything decent and then the heat problems have to be dealt with too. 14" laptops also sacrifice too much in the power department or are too expensive for anything decent so far in what I have found. If this Razor Blade Stealth basic machine was about $8-900 (with 16GB ram) without the MX150 and say maybe $100 higher with it then I would be truly interested with the beautiful screen graphics and the overall power it has. Right now it is just priced too high to interest me.

 

[Dosahka]

So Razer trying to be Apple and Dell at a same time, but they lacks of hardware support, they have a long warranty periods (it takes them like 1 month to inspect one piece of the laptop and say, it is covered under the warranty, whereas Dell or Apple tells in 30 mins or one day.
Just for an example, so I managed to get my hand on one of the series of RBP with 1080 (not maxq), throttling was heavy and jet sound too.
So it happened like a month before the warranty expired that one of the started giving noise, silly me said: okay it will go away if clean out with compressed air, no luck, get in touch with the support, it took them 3 days to reply back (no support ticket number just a "random" person replied back) okay, warranty day are counted, 3 weeks left now. another week passes when I had to post it to an address, while they inspected the obviously faulty fan, the warranty long gone like 2 weeks and got an email that the repair process will cost this money, and I said wait a sec, how so? you were sitting on it for more than 3 weeks wait for the warranty to expire then throwing me this repair price? This was the time when I asked them to keep the laptop and give back my money, this going for couple months when one of the chief of something stepped in and calculated a price on the current laptop (it was in good condition, no dust, no scratches - it was in a protective hard shell from day 1) and basically got back 2/3 of my money.
So I'm happy to with my AW17. FYI I live in the UK, before you say I purchased it in a 3rd world country.
There was a friend of mine who purchased the same RBP and had some other issue, ended up contacting the guy I got back the money from after 3 weeks of silence.
This is my experience and many others have similar on reddit.
Slim or not, smaller or not, lighter or not, but this price isn't for a product "without" proper technical support, rather buy a Dell or MSI or even Gigabyte than this overpriced Apple like copy, no more.