Razer Blade Stealth 13 review: An ultraportable notebook for gamers

Note: This article was first published on 25th January 2019.

What’s this?

You are looking at the latest Razer Blade Stealth, the company’s ultraportable notebook. It was announced in early December last year, just in time for Christmas.

It’s still black, but it looks different?

My, you have sharp eyes. Yes, the Razer Blade Stealth comes in the company’s signature black with splashes of green here and there, but the entire notebook has been given tweaks to keep it competitive with the current bunch of ultraportable notebooks.

So what’s the difference exactly?

There’s a couple of noteworthy things so let’s go through them one by one.

Chassis - The new Blade Stealth follows the angular design set by the larger 15.6-inch Blade. Gone are curvier edges of the older model and in its place are boxier edges that give the new Blade Stealth a blockier but arguably more modern and purposeful look and feel. As for dimensions, the new Blade Stealth is slightly narrower than its predecessor but thicker (14.8mm vs. 13.1mm) and slightly heavier (1.28kg vs. 1.25kg). In the hands, the two feel about just as heavy as each other but the new Blade Stealth has a slightly smaller footprint, which might be handy if you have to deal with tiny desks.

Processor - What’s a refresh without updated internals? The new Blade Stealth gets Intel’s latest 8th generation Whiskey Lake processors. The new Blade Stealth will only be available with Core i7-class processors.

Display - Size remains unchanged at 13.3 inches but the resolution is down from 3,200 x 1,800 pixels in the former to Full-HD. As a result, everything looks a bit less sharp and crisp but the upside is that battery life should be better and gaming performance should go up. Also, the display is not touch-enabled. Still, you shouldn’t feel sorry about the display because it’s an excellent one with very nice colors and contrast. I don’t really wish for a higher resolution display for its screen size. There’s a 4K touchscreen option but that particular SKU isn’t available locally yet.

Price - It’s cheaper. Yes, I’m not making this up! The base model starts at S$2,159 - that's S$190 less than the S$2,349 starting price of its predecessor. The lower resolution display probably has a part to play in this. In a world where price hikes seem to be the only constant, the lower price of the new Blade Stealth is refreshing and commendable.

Keyboard and touchpad - The keyboard has greater travel, making it more tactile to use. The trackpad is also considerably larger and it is a Windows Precision Touchpad. Obviously, the keyboard supports Razer Chroma so RGB fans can go crazy. The keyboard is mostly excellent. It has a nice weight to it which makes it a joy to type. However, note that the right Shift key has been shrunk to accommodate full-size arrow keys. If you are like me and you use the right Shift to capitalize your words, this might be troublesome. Like most Windows Precision Touchpads, the trackpad is accurate and responsive. I have no complaints there.

Ports - Some slight changes here. Gone is the HDMI port and instead you get another USB-C port that supports USB 3.1 Gen 2. The single USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port and two USB-A USB 3.0 ports remain.

Wow, that’s quite a bit. Is the Blade Stealth drastically different to use then?

Not really, it is just as portable as the old model but it does feel slightly snappier thanks to the newer processors. The display, as I said, is less sharp but still enjoyable and very good insofar as Full-HD displays are concerned. The trackpad is excellent but I have mixed feelings about the keyboard. On the one hand, I like the feel of the new keyboard - especially the weight of the keys - but I can’t quite get used to shrunken right “Shift” key. Even so, overall, it’s a very polished notebook.

So what variants are available?

There are only two right now. The differences between the two are the amount of memory, type of storage, and the presence of discrete graphics. Here’s a table to summarize their differences. Our review unit today is with discrete graphics.

So what about performance?

As you can see from the charts below, it’s an impressive machine. Much of its performance can be attributed to the presence of the GeForce MX150 GPU. The only comparable notebook we have tested is the MSI Prestige PS42, which is also an ultraportable with discrete GeForce MX150 graphics. But even then, the Blade Stealth is considerably faster across all benchmarks, which highlights the superiority of Razer’s overall packaging. Most crucially for the type of people who are looking at this type of notebook, the Blade Stealth will play most games adequately if you don’t get too crazy with the settings.

Graphs for your perusal below, but first, a look at how the Razer Blade Stealth compares against some rivals in the ultraportable class.

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Show me the charts!

The discrete GeForce MX150 GPU gives the Razer Blade Stealth a significant advantage in graphics-intensive workloads like the 'Creative' scenario in PCMark 8. Pay attention also to how high its scores are in 3DMark. Only the MSI Prestige PS42, which also features the same discrete GeForce MX150 GPU, comes close to challenging it.

How's the battery life

Despite the powerful Core i7 processor and discrete GPU, the Razer Blade Stealth’s battery life is actually quite good. On our intensive battery which consists of productivity workloads, video conferencing, and light gaming, the Blade Stealth managed to last 229 minutes or 3 hours and 49 minutes - just a little shy of 4 hours. It also compares quite favorably to other 13-inch ultraportables such as the Dell XPS 13 (246 minutes) and the 13-inch MacBook Pro (231 minutes). The long battery life can be partly attributed to the decision to go with a lower resolution display. This decision has paid dividends as power consumption was just under 14W. That’s lower than the MSI Prestige PS42 and even the HP Spectre.

Using our Portability Index which takes into account dimensions and weight, the Razer Blade Stealth managed a ratio of 3.15, which makes it one of the higher scoring notebooks. Only the LG gram 14, Dell XPS 13, and HP Spectre managed higher scores.

So is this the ultraportable notebook for gamers?

If you love Razer or if you love gaming, the Razer Blade Stealth with discrete graphics is definitely a notebook you should check out. Gaming performance on its own is decent thanks to the GeForce MX150 GPU but don’t expect to run the latest triple-A titles at the highest settings. The beauty here is that you can use the Thunderbolt 3 port to hook up to an external GPU (like Razer’s own Core X) and boost gaming performance. Admittedly this does increase the cost of your entire setup but it gives you the best of both world: a portable notebook with decent performance for the times you are away from your desk, and a full-fledged gaming rig when you are back at your desk and docked to your external GPU.

How does it compare to its rivals?

Without discrete GPUs, ultraportables like the Dell XPS 13 and HP Spectre cannot hope to compare insofar as performance is concerned, so let’s focus on other ultraportables with discrete graphics. Curiously, we have seen a recent influx of these notebooks recently. The MSI Prestige PS42 is a good example. It’s a lot cheaper but it isn’t as well built, doesn’t have as nice a keyboard and touchpad, and also lacks support for Thunderbolt 3. The ASUS ZenBook UX430 and Acer Spin 3 are also ultraportable 13-inch notebooks with discrete GeForce MX150 GPUs that are significantly cheaper. But like the MSI, both do not support Thunderbolt 3 as well, so they do not have the versatility of the Blade Stealth if you need all options possible. This is especially so if you're in line of creative content production where you're likely to interface with Thunderbolt 3 compatible devices - be it storage, displays, etc..

What about the base model without discrete graphics?

Even though I haven’t tested that model, my experience with Intel’s integrated GPUs tells me that gaming performance will take a serious dip without the discrete NVIDIA GeForce MX150. If that doesn’t bother you, the base Blade Stealth is actually quite nicely priced and features excellent build quality for the money. At S$2,159, it's also notably more expensive than the MSI PS42 at S$1,799, but you get what you pay for.

Final thoughts?

To wrap up, the new Razer Blade Stealth 13 is a polished and refined ultraportable notebook that has features that most gamers are looking for in a portable notebook. The model with discrete graphics that I tested has good performance, a very respectable battery life, and a Thunderbolt 3 port so that it can be hooked up to an external GPU. Overall build quality is one of the best in the business and its design is clean, simple, and attractive in a minimalist way. The keyboard and trackpad are both excellent but the shrunken right “Shift” key can be problematic for some. And although some will miss the higher resolution display of the older Blade Stealth, the present Full-HD display is actually really good and helps lower power consumption and improves battery life. If I had to nitpick, I wished more storage was provided as standard. 256GB is a little stingy considering how large game installations are these days. Nevertheless, all things considered, this is an excellent 13-inch ultraportable notebook from Razer.

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