- Hey guys, this is Austin.
This is the 2019 Razer Blade Stealth,
and it might just be my perfect laptop.
What I've been looking for is a thin, light 13-inch laptop
which has a quad-core processor,
dedicated graphics, and decent build quality.
Now the closest to something like that I've found
would be the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar,
but at $1,800, it still lacks those dedicated graphics.
Fast forward to 2019, though,
and we have the Razer Blade Stealth
with pretty much everything I've ever dreamed of.
- It's a 2019, it says the 2019 Razer Blade, it counts.
Razer have been making the Blade Stealth
for a few years at this point,
and while they steadily tweaked the design
as well as improved the performance,
it's still been an Ultrabook and not a gaming PC.
Sure, you could plug in a Razer Core with the external GPU
and be able to get some decent game performance,
but up until the 2018 model,
you were still limited to dual-core,
and it just wasn't quite the full package,
whereas this guy can game right out of the box
because it does have those dedicated graphics.
The base model does still come
with Intel integrated graphics,
but if you opt for the mid-spec or higher,
you do get the NVIDIA MX150 inside.
Of course you're not going to blow away
the 15-inch Blade as far as gaming performance goes,
but it is a huge step up
over just having integrated graphics.
Not only does it unlock a fair bit of gaming
as well as some video editing,
but, importantly, this is not the standard MX150.
It is the higher 25-watt TDP version
which does come with four gigs of GDDR5 memory.
For example, Fortnite is no problem.
We're easily able to play at 1080p Medium here,
and we're getting anywhere between
45 to 60 frames per second.
Black Ops 4 is also totally playable here at 1080p on Low.
Now the framerate's pretty solid.
We're getting 45 to 50.
If it was me, I would sacrifice
just a little bit of resolution
to smooth it out and get a solid locked 60,
but it is totally playable.
The Stealth has also been updated
with the latest Whiskey Lake processors.
In this case, the only option is the Core i7 8650u.
8660, 8565u.
It's the new one!
It's the one that boosts, like, 4.6 gigahertz.
So on top of it being a quad-core processor,
the nice thing here is that we actually have
that extra turbo boost speed
to make it feel very responsive.
Now I've taken a look at a lot of laptops lately,
and some of them do feel a little bit slower
when they don't quite boost as high,
but this feels just as fast as pretty much
any kind of gaming PC that I would try
For normal web browsing and stuff
that you do every single day.
This mid-spec model I have here
is outfitted with 16 gigs of dual-channel memory,
and that's backed up by a 256-gig NVMe drive,
which is really quite fast.
Put it all together, and if I was building
my dream 13-inch laptop,
this is pretty much what I would choose:
a great CPU, decent GPU speeds,
as well as the rest of the specs
all wrapped up in a nice aluminum package.
The entire design is new this year,
so this means that we have smaller bezels,
which means that the entire laptop
is a little bit less wide.
It's also got a more squared-off design,
and it's all, of course, made out of
this matte black aluminum.
I think not only does it look nice,
but importantly it also feels nice.
Part of the reason that it feels so good
is because it does start life as a giant chunk of aluminum
which is then CNC milled down
to the actual body that we have here.
Razer is one of the very few companies who does this
in addition to Apple, and it does make a difference
to the build quality and just the general heft and,
you know, not heft, I guess, but the general feel.
Like, it's a very rigid sort of premium-feeling laptop.
The only slight issue is that with my pre-production unit,
there is a little bit of flex on the bottom of the chassis.
However, I actually did get to take a look
at another Blade Stealth and that didn't have this problem,
so I'm assuming it's just an early issue.
Remove a few torque screws on the bottom,
and you have easy access to the internals of the laptop.
There's not a lot that you can work on here.
The SSD is user-upgradeable if you would like.
Unfortunately, the RAM is soldered down,
but it is actually a really nice little design here,
and importantly you can see
they have completely redesigned the thermal solution,
mostly because, you know, they added a full GPU inside,
so we've got two fans.
There's also a decently-sized 53-watt hour battery,
and that's good in my experience
for somewhere between six to seven hours of battery life.
I just realized, why does this say Pro in the inside?
This, like, a prototype?
Oh, oh, yeah, it actually is a prototype. (laughing)
What could Pro mean?
Oh, right, 'cause they sent me a pre-production unit.
The ports have also been slightly tweaked.
In addition to the Thunderbolt 3 port and two USB-As,
we also now have a secondary USB-C port as opposed to HDMI.
Good stuff.
Then there's the screen.
Now on paper, this is actually a downgrade.
So we're going from an 1800p touchscreen
down to a 1080p non-touch display.
I actually prefer this, though,
and a big reason is battery life,
so going down to 1080p means
we have to push a lot less pixels, and on top of that,
it's one of the new ultra-efficient 1 1/2-watt panels,
which helps to contribute to that pretty decent
six to seven hours of battery life.
Now if you do really want a touchscreen and more resolution,
there is a 4K touch panel option.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the sweet spot.
It's helped by excellent inputs,
so not only do we have a Windows Precision Touchpad here,
but I don't know what kind of wizardry Razer's doing,
this is among the nicest
I've ever tried on any Windows laptop.
Not only does it have a very smooth glass surface,
but the tracking is really, really on par
with a lot of the best laptops on the market.
Then there's the keyboard.
Now it is using custom Razer switches, and to my tastes,
I wish it would be just a little bit lighter,
but I think a lot of people will be very happy
not only for typing but also with gaming on this guy.
And, of course, it does have the full Chroma RGB support
to customize it however you want.
- Play Fallout, you know what I'm talking about.
A bunch of birds are getting lit on fire
as they fly through the sky!
- The speakers are also great.
This actually has a quad speaker setup,
so it has a pair of two-watt speakers on either side.
And as far as the laptop goes, again, it sounds really good.
Are you sensing a trend here?
The Razer Blade Stealth
does a lot of things very, very well.
What's not so great is the webcam.
As you guys can see, it's fine, and it is 720p,
but the main issue here is that the Windows Hello support
which is included just doesn't work all that reliably.
It's rare that I review a laptop
that does so much right.
Razer definitely did their homework
with the Blade Stealth this year.
The only thing I can really ding them for is price.
To get that MX150, which you really should opt for
if you do have the Razer Blade Stealth,
you have to get the mid-spec model,
which does come in at a pretty expensive $1,600.
Considering the entire package, though,
it's so dope that I really can't even complain.
It's so dope, I can't complain.
That's a tagline for the website.
Razer, if you want to put that on the accolades.
It's so dope, I can't complain, Austin, 2018, feel free.