Review: Razer Blade Stealth ultrabook
Review: Razer Blade Stealth ultrabook
This article is the first of a planned two-part projection. Part i will focus on the Razer Blade Stealth ultrabook and its congenital-in characteristics, while Role ii volition measure the performance of the Razer Core, the GPU add together-on production for the Razer Blade Stealth.
The Razer Blade Stealth is the first ultrabook from a visitor that's typically focused on building gaming laptops, but there are precious few signs that the Stealth represents a major new production area for the enthusiast-focused company. Information technology's significantly less expensive than the New Razer Blade, which currently starts at $1,999, or the Razer Blade Pro, which has a $two,499 base toll. In contrast, the Razer Blade Stealth we'll be reviewing today starts at $999.
The specs on the Razer Blade Stealth are goose egg to sneeze at. Razer sells ii versions of the laptop, but they're more than akin than they are different. Both are equipped with a Core i7-6500U, 8GB of RAM, a 12.5-inch display, and Intel Hd 520 graphics (and neither version has gaming prowess on its own as a result). The differences are in screen resolution and bachelor storage — there'south a 2560×1440 panel variant that conforms to the sRGB color standard and ships with 128-256GB of storage also every bit a 4K panel variant that conforms to the Adobe RGB wider color gamut and offers either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Both versions use the Killer Networking Killer 1535 802.11ac wireless modem and offer Bluetooth four.ane support.
Specs on the two system configurations. Click to enlarge.
We're reviewing the 2560×1440 version of the laptop today, which comes with a 256GB SSD for $i,199. We're not thrilled with the toll yous pay to upgrade your storage — while all OEMs gouge on storage and memory upgrades, charging $200 to step from 128GB to 256GB works out to $ane.56 per gigabyte of additional storage. It's been a long time since SSDs were anywhere near that expensive.
The Bract Stealth measures 12.6 x 8.i x 0.52 inches and weighs in at 2.75 pounds. All versions of the Razer Bract Stealth have the same port configurations: one USB Type-C 3.ane port with Thunderbolt three (useful for the Razer Core peripheral), a pair of USB 3 ports, a headset jack, a 2 megapixel webcam, and an HDMI output. Both the 1440p and 4K versions of the laptop are touchscreens, and while I generally prefer a keyboard and mouse, a touchscreen is genuinely useful when working on an airplane or in any bars infinite.
External design, Razer Chroma
The Razer Bract Stealth's all-aluminum chassis has a matte black cease that gives the ultrabook a sleek, understated expect. This is somewhat spoiled by the glowing Razer logo on the top of the laptop, but the glow can be disabled if you don't fancy it. The i downside to the laptop's cease is that information technology picks up fingerprints and oils easily. This isn't a system you want to use without washing your easily get-go, unless you want to spend a non-trivial amount of time polishing it to get oil off later.
The bottom of the laptop is well-designed, with two "feet" that run the entire length of the chassis. This helps ensure that the arrangement won't overheat — and that'south not a trivial consideration given how thin modern laptops have become.
The Razer Blade Stealth mounts its speakers on the actual keyboard area instead of on the bottom of the organisation and the sound quality from them is surprisingly good for a blueprint of this type, provided you lot don't expect amazing subwoofer-quality bass. PC laptops are infamous for weak trackpads, but again, Razer's is better than average.
The keyboard is decent, especially for an ultrabook, simply it has some of the typical flaws that make typing on ultra-thin systems less than fun. The keyboard is extremely shallow compared with a standard desktop or conventional laptop, though Razer has made the keys a touch stiffer to recoup. Key placement is solid — you lot won't find yourself whacking manufacturer-specific keys when y'all reach for the office keys or escape, though the pointer keys are difficult to employ for whatsoever significant task. It's not as overnice equally some full laptop keyboards we've used, but equally ultrabooks become, it's quite decent.
One of the means Razer differentiates its own products is with Chroma, its interactive lighting engine. The Bract Stealth is the start laptop to offer per-key lighting options, and Chroma is designed to create a variety of visual effects, as detailed below:
Any ane of the Razer's keys tin be programmed with ane of 16.7 1000000 colors, and the opportunities for customization are extensive. Games can besides support Razer Blush, at least in theory — while the visitor debuted an SDK simply over a year ago, we aren't enlightened of any titles that currently back up it.
The per-key backlighting would benefit if the alternating central functions were also lit — since the lighting only covers the main spot on each key, some of the secondary marks can be more difficult to see. That said, the display kicks out enough low-cal on its own that this shouldn't actually be a trouble.
System operation
Overall, the Razer Bract Stealth is an impressive and well-polished design. And so how's its overall operation?
We've run the Razer through a suite of utility tests to criterion information technology against another laptop we'll be covering soon — the Alienware R13. Both systems apply the same CPU (Core i7-6500U), but the Alienware has more retentiveness (16GB as opposed to 8GB) and a GeForce 960M. Since the Razer ultrabook is explicitly not intended as a gaming-showtime laptop, nosotros'll examine the gaming capabilities of the Alienware and the overall value suggestion betwixt the three laptops in a dissever article. For now, we're going to focus on how the 2 machines compete in mutual desktop benchmarks.
PCMark seven & 8
PCMark seven and viii are two different test suites that nosotros use to run both laptops through a broad range of applications. PCMark 7 is a general examination suite that combines audio/video encoding, computational workloads, spider web browsing, gaming, and storage tests. Since both of these systems use the aforementioned Core i7-6500U, nosotros should see broadly similar functioning. PCMark seven is the older of our ii examination suites, though that'southward less important when it comes to desktop workloads — workflow doesn't change much at this level.
Full general performance in PCMark seven is like, with the Alienware R13 posting a slightly higher score than the Razer. This isn't unexpected, given that the Razer has a much smaller form factor and tighter thermal constraints and the gap betwixt the systems is merely virtually iii%, or well inside a margin of error.
Switching gears, we have PCMark viii. Unlike PCMark 7, PCMark 8 splits workloads into specific categories — Creative, Dwelling, and Piece of work. Here's how Futuremark describes each:
Creative:The PCMark viii Creative criterion includes workloads typical of enthusiasts and professionals who work with media and amusement content…PCMark viii Creative includes web browsing, photograph editing, video editing, grouping video chat, media transcoding, and gaming workloads.
Abode: The PCMark 8 Home benchmark includes workloads that reflect common tasks for a typical habitation user… Home includes workloads for spider web browsing, writing, gaming, photo editing, and video conversation.
Work: The PCMark viii Piece of work benchmark test measures your system'southward ability to perform bones office piece of work tasks, such as writing documents, browsing websites, creating spreadsheets and using video chat.
While there's some overlap between each category, each creates a distinct score. PCMark 8 offers the pick to run benchmarks in an OpenCL-accelerated fashion or to utilise a standard, CPU-only mode. We opted for the accelerated option, partly to test how OpenCL support in Intel'due south HD 520 GPU would compare against Nvidia's GTX 960M. While the 960M is vastly more than powerful than Intel's graphics in 3D gaming, 2d workloads don't tend to calibration the aforementioned way.
In the three PCMark viii tests, the Razer Blade Stealth actually narrowly leads the Alienware R13 in two of our 3 benchmarks, though the gap is fairly small. Intel'due south OpenCL performance is pretty expert for desktop applications these days, and the Core i7 6500U is performing well in both systems.
Storage performance
For our storage functioning tests, we're comparison the storage suites from PCMark vii and PCMark viii. Both benchmarks use real-world application traces to measure functioning as opposed to synthetic applications and in theory, Razer's PCI Express storage should requite it an reward here, but nosotros don't see that advantage reflected in either examination.
PCMark 7 and viii don't use the same storage performance exam, but we suspect the difference between the 2 isn't just a matter of which tests were run. Futuremark's storage score isn't just a summary of the various individual tests — the company weights the scores to make up one's mind an overall performance level. The weighting in PCMark 8 is different from PCMark 7, and that probably accounts for some of the difference we see here.
The other potential variable is the storage solution itself. The Razer Blade Stealth uses a Samsung MZVLV256HCHP chip. You tin can view its characteristics here, but to make a long story short, the bulldoze'due south sequential read functioning is rated at 1GB/south while its sequential write performance is listed equally just 280MB/s. Random reads are listed at 250K IOPS, while random writes are 74K IOPS. The weak write performance may be what pulls the Razer down in these results, though nosotros'd like to note that we observed no applied deviation between the Blade Stealth and the Alienware 13 in our diverse tests.
x264 encoding
Our final exam is x264 encoding using version v.01 of the x264 criterion. Again, we should run across very similar test scores here — both the Alienware and the Razer apply the same CPU, and this test is entirely CPU-bound.
The Alienware 13 and Razer Bract Stealth are cervix-and-neck in this exam; the Core i7-6500U clearly isn't throttling to whatsoever significant degree in either organization. The Razer leads narrowly on the beginning pass, while Alienware ekes out a small win in the 2nd.
Bombardment life
Ane place where the Razer Blade Stealth has been knocked somewhat is the battery life, which hasn't been particularly great compared with other ultrabooks. Since we're a bit lacking in comparable ultrabooks, nosotros can't compare strictly against those platforms, but we did compare both platforms in the Artistic suite of PCMark 8.
Behave in heed that this is the well-nigh strenuous of the PCMark eight suites and that it produces full run times lower than what you'd see in a bombardment test that focused only on idle or video playback. Overall bombardment life for Razer is pretty close to a midrange gaming laptop with a GTX 960. The 1440p panel on our Razer display is probable function of the reason why bombardment life was close to the bulkier Alienware; nosotros've long known that ultra high-definition panels had a pregnant touch on arrangement battery life.
Initial verdict
We say "initial verdict" instead of terminal verdict, because this is just the showtime of our notebook comparisons, and nosotros're planning to review both the Alienware 13, the Alienware-specific external graphics card solution, and Razer's external Core graphics dock. Still, the early information here is positive. There's absolutely no incertitude that the Alienware R13 would demolish the Razer in any kind of head-to-head gaming test, merely as far as ultrabook workloads are concerned, the Razer holds its own.
It's impressive to look at where ultrabooks are now compared with 2022, when Intel start launched the concept. While it's true that ultrabooks take failed to halt the general decline of the PC market, ultrabooks in 2022 are capable of far more their 2022 counterparts, with college resolution displays, better battery life, lower TDPs, and attractive enclosures. Even in 2022, buying an ultrabook often meant sacrificing overall organisation functioning in the proper noun of amend battery life. At present, systems like the Razer Blade Stealth are proving that you can match larger laptop general performance without compromising the organization at all.
Of course part of the bewitchery of the Razer Blade Stealth is the Razer Core, and we're non ready to evangelize a final verdict on the system until we've seen both components in activity. But the early ultrabook positioning is solid and well delivered, fifty-fifty if we'd similar to see a fleck stronger bombardment life.
Source: https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/229076-review-razer-blade-stealth-ultrabook
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