The Gamer’s Ultrabook?

So Razer now has an Ultrabook. The Razer Blade Stealth is truly a compact, ultra-portable notebook, with a 12.5-inch display, low-power 15-watt Intel processor and no discrete mobile GPU. Oh, it’s only 13.1mm at its thickest and weighs just 1.25kg.

It is also one solidly-built notebook. For starters, it’s constructed entirely out of CNC-milled aircraftgrade aluminum, which successfully conveys a premium quality feel and ensures there’s zero flex to the keyboard. However, while not quite a grease magnet, the notebook did pick up some blemishes in a short period of time, and the gorgeous matte black finish will still show off dust and other stains rather clearly. The 12.5-inch QHD touchscreen display is quite outstanding, with bright, vibrant colors and deep blacks.

The display took to walls of black-on-white text and National Geographic photo galleries with gusto, and viewing angles were excellent. The touchscreen panel comes in handy while surfing the web, and is a nice bonus feature for a notebook at this price point. With that said, this is also a glossy display, so you do need to turn up the brightness to mitigate reflections in certain cases.

Another thing we like is ample port connectivity. The Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port – here’s where you would plug in the Razer Core external graphics enclosure – already supports charging, data transfers and video output, but Razer has also included two additional Type-A USB 3.0 ports, a 3.5mm audio jack and a full-sized HDMI port.

Then there are the speakers, which face upwards on either side of the keyboard. They’re fairly large for notebook speakers and can run quite loud, though clarity is a bit lacking with some distortion at high frequencies even with the volume slider set in the middle.

The Blade Stealth relies on a Killer Wireless-AC 1535 module for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections, and supports a maximum throughput of up to 867Mbps over two spatial streams. But the best part is that it supports MU-MIMO, although you’ll still need a compatible router and other MU-MIMO devices to take full advantage of the benefits (MU-MIMO lets the router serve multiple devices all at once, which translates into shorter wait times). 

Things are quite a mixed bag when it comes to the Chroma keyboard. While we love the sheer range of customization options – this is the first notebook to support per-key RGB illumination – and the fullsized layout, key travel feels rather shallow, even for an Ultrabook of this size. The chiclet-type keys are also set so close to the surface that it becomes difficult to differentiate between individual keys while typing, 

which may take some getting used to. But perhaps the Chroma configurator makes up for it. You’ll be able to select individual keys, or clusters of keys to assign color and custom lighting effects.

Performance-wise, the Razer Blade Stealth proved more than adequate at handling the demands of everyday computing. We’re in the habit of opening an inordinate amount of tabs in Google Chrome, and the Blade Stealth handled everything without a hitch. At the same time, we also launched multiple programs, including things like Microsoft Word, Excel, and Adobe Photoshop CS6 and After Effects CC. Even then, the notebook remained responsive and application switching was fluid with no delays.

There’s just one drawback – battery life. It lasted only 197 minutes in PCMark 8 Home’s built-in battery life test, behind even the HP Envy 13’s 209 minutes, even though the latter has a similar-sized 45Wh battery. It also took slightly over two and a half hours to recharge via the Thunderbolt 3 port, which is a bit on the slow side.

Still, all things considered, the Razer Blade Stealth is a pretty impressive first attempt at an Ultrabook for Razer. Its trump card is probably its highly aggressive pricing – the notebook starts at $1,499, and already offers features like an Intel Core i7-6500U processor, 8GB of RAM, and a QHD touchscreen display. At the same price point, competitors like the Dell XPS 13 and Apple MacBook Air fail to match up to its specifications, which means that Razer has essentially created a sleek, highperformance notebook that offers great bang for your buck. The final feather in its cap is the fact that it will also work with the optional Razer Core dock, so it can be transformed into a bona fide gaming machine.