Razer Blade Stealth 13 (Late 2019) Fingers-On Overview: Hiya, GTX Graphics

Razer Blade Stealth 13 (Late 2019) hands-on

“With choices for a robust GTX 1650 card in its small chassis, Razer has lastly made the Blade Stealth an actual gaming laptop computer.”

Unbelievable graphics choices

Debuts Intel’s Ice Lake processors

Inflexible construct high quality

Similar lovely design

Can get heat throughout gaming

Fingerprint magnet

Razer is a gaming model initially, which has at all times made its 13-inch Blade Stealth a little bit of an odd duck. With no highly effective GPU, it might by no means be offered as a real gaming laptop computer.

This time round, that’s altering. Razer is now again in late 2019 with, not one, however three refreshed 13-inch Stealth laptops, all utilizing the brand new Intel Ice Lake processors. However extra importantly, one of many choices comes with a robust Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card inside, an industry-first for a laptop computer of this dimension. Is that sufficient to make the Stealth Blade 13 the laptop computer I at all times needed it to be?

Meet “Mercury White”

Amid the storm of latest Intel cellular 10th-gen processors, Razer has not only one new Stealth Blade entry. It has three.

The primary I attempted out is a extra conventional follow-up to earlier Stealth fashions, meant to be a competitor to the Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Professional. I’ve at all times favored Razer’s clear and modern design language, and now it’s lastly introducing a “Mercury White” model of the Razer Blade Stealth 13. It’s a welcome addition.

Joel Chokkattu/Digital Traits

Whereas it’s not a model new shade possibility (it was beforehand launched with Razer Blade 15) it’s lovely within the smaller 13-inch type issue. Set subsequent to the opposite fashions, it’s the one which grabbed my consideration.

Resembling the silver shade of the MacBook or XPS 13, the brand new Mercury White Stealth 13 visually stands out from the opposite two new black-colored fashions for 2019. At three kilos, it additionally feels the identical manner as its predecessors — extremely gentle, however simple to select up and stroll round with. Greater than ever, it seems like a laptop computer that may go toe-to-toe with its non-gaming competitors.

Greater than ever, the silver Razer Blade Stealth lastly feels as premium because the MacBook Professional and XPS 13.

At first look, the Mercury White shade possibility is the one distinguishing issue between the three Stealth fashions. All of them characteristic the identical slim bezels, machined aluminum chassis, a Home windows Hiya webcam on the highest, and a big glass touchpad are all nonetheless right here. It even has the identical single-zone RGB lighting on the keyboard and the identical collection of ports: Two USB-A and two USB-C, considered one of which is Thunderbolt three suitable.

The one draw back of this design is that the matte end on the aluminum rapidly gathered my fingerprints. That’s at all times been an issue with the Razer Blade, and it hasn’t modified this time round.

Joel Chokkattu/Digital Traits

However crucial focal point with these new laptops isn’t with design. It’s with efficiency.

Ice Lake and Iris Plus will ship chills down your backbone

Razer has taken the leap in processing energy with Intel’s 10th-gen processors, together with many different producers within the again half of 2019. Not like choices just like the Dell XPS 13, nevertheless, Razer has gone with Intel’s Ice Lake reasonably than the 14nm Comet Lake half. That’ll show to be an attention-grabbing choice as these chips lack the six-core potential of Comet Lake.

Razer’s new lineup of Stealth units not solely look unbelievable however might lastly carry out like a real gaming laptop computer ought to.

All fashions of the brand new Razer Blade Stealth use the identical quad-core, Intel Core i7-1065G7 U-series chip clocked at 2.three GHz with a turbo increase of three.9 GHz. With 16 GB of fastened RAM as commonplace, it ought to present sufficient processing energy for fundamental productiveness work, however within the graphics division, the Razer Blade Stealth’s use of Ice Lake offers it a bonus.

These Ice Lake processors embody Intel’s new Iris Plus built-in graphics, which promise so as to add some MX150-level gaming to the Razer Blade Stealth. Whereas I couldn’t but again up that declare by means of our typical technical testing, I used to be in a position to fireplace up a match of Overwatch and run by means of some routine productiveness duties for simulations.

On Razer’s really helpful “low” settings, the system simply pushed out 60 to 70 FPS. Turning up settings to larger ranges, and even ultra-settings dropped frames to 40 or 50, and at instances 30, however the recreation was nonetheless playable.

Joel Chokkattu/Digital Traits

In 10 minutes of gaming, the system did get a bit heat proper below the display screen space, however the gaming efficiency by no means took successful. Razer tells me it’s nonetheless optimizing the for this processor, however I can see the bottom mannequin Stealth 13 working nice for different gentle video games like Fortnite or League of Legends.

You solely can achieve this a lot with built-in graphics, although, and I wouldn’t belief it with more durable video games. That’s the place the opposite Stealth 13 fashions step in.

A GTX video card in a 13-inch laptop computer? Yup

Whereas the 17-inch and 15-inch laptops in Razer’s lineup loved highly effective RTX graphics playing cards, the 13-inch Stealth lineup has at all times left with a measly MX150. Razer tells me it was listening to those complaints.

Razer wasn’t mendacity. I turned up graphics settings to Extremely, and the sport simply pushed out a buttery-smooth 60 frames per second.

With the brand new Stealth fashions, the corporate says it’s “pushing the boundary of what it means to be an ultrabook” by going the place no different laptop computer maker has gone earlier than. How? By placing in a Nvidia GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB GDDR5 VRAM inside a 13-inch laptop computer chassis.

Positive, we’ve seen 15-inch and 17-inch laptops with the GTX 1650 earlier than, together with the XPS 15 and Asus ROG Strix. However in a laptop computer this small, this can be a first.

I examined out Razer’s bold claims myself by firing up the “UAC” degree of Doom on the FHD Stealth 13 mannequin with the GTX 1650 chipset.

Joel Chokkattu/Digital Traits

Razer wasn’t mendacity. I turned up graphics settings to Extremely, and the sport simply pushed out a buttery-smooth 60 frames per second. Once I switched the settings to low, and medium, body charges had been even larger at round 70 to 80. Sure, the display screen continues to be locked at a 60Hz refresh charge, however the recreation was nonetheless buttery .

I additionally tried this identical recreation on the third possibility of the bunch: The 4K Blade Stealth. Whereas the sport itself visually regarded brighter and extra vivid than it did on the FHD mannequin with a matte panel, the gaming outcomes, clearly, weren’t as nice.

The 1650 GPU may be succesful with a 1080p panel, however at 4K decision, it struggled to push out 40 frames on the naked minimal settings. That’s comprehensible, although, as 4K is a whole lot of pixels to push. Switching again to 1080p pushed again the framerate again up.

Joel Chokkattu/Digital Traits

Each of those two gaming variations of the Stealth 13 will ship with GTX 1650 graphics and can retain the normal “Stealth Black” shade. At $1,800, one mannequin options an FHD show with 512GB of PCIe storage. A separate $2,000 mannequin comes with a 4K contact panel, and 512 GB of storage.

Definitely worth the improve

Whereas extra superior testing is required, the brand new Stealth Fashions with the GTX 1650 appear to have cracked the code on final gaming portability. It may possibly very nicely deal with extra demanding titles like Battlefield V, and that’s not one thing that’s been attainable up to now.

I can’t think about Razer would be the just one to try a laptop computer like this, nevertheless it being first, Razer simply might have set the brand new commonplace.

Razer is aiming to launch these new Stealth 13 fashions in late September or early October, and we are able to’t wait to spend extra time with them.

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