Razer Blade Stealth Laptop Review: Stealthy Enough In 2023?

Razer Blade Stealth Laptop Review Stealthy Enough In 2023

If you want a smaller laptop that is light, easily fits in your bag, and is pretty powerful as well, the Razer Blade Stealth laptop might be what you are looking for. This laptop is a premium laptop with a 4k 13.3” touch screen that is pretty good in performance too.

If you wish to know more about this laptop, then I believe this post will help you out. Read this laptop review till the end to learn more about this stealthy beast.

Razer Blade Stealth Laptop Specifications  

Razer Blade Stealth Laptop Specifications
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The main features and specifications of the Razer Blade Stealth laptop 2021 are:

Operating System (OS)➼ Windows 10 (can be upgraded to Windows 11)
Display➼ 13.3” touch screen (3840×2160 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate)
Processor➼ 11th Generation Intel Core i7 1165G7 (2.8 GHz – 4.7 GHz)
Graphics Card➼ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max Q (4GB)
Memory➼ 16 GB LPDDR4 RAM @3,733 MHz (2 x 8 GB)
Storage➼ 512 GB SSD
Ports➼ 2x USB 3.1 Type A Port
➼ 2x Thunderbolt 4 USB C Port
➼ 1x 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack
Dimensions (HxWxD)➼ 0.6” x 12” x 8.3”
Weight➼ 3.11 lbs (1.42 kg)
Color➼ Aluminum Stealth Black
Release Date➼ September 2021
Price (2023)$2,299

Razer Blade Stealth Laptop Review  

After using this laptop for a few days, I was able to figure out most of its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, here’s a rundown of what I liked and disliked about this laptop.

Design  

Design
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When it comes to the design, the Razer Blade Stealth laptop looks absolutely stunning. I loved the dimensions of this laptop, where Razer kept everything pretty slim for an ultrabook.

Coming to its looks, the laptop’s uni-body frame made with high-end aluminum with its “Stealth Black” color looks drop-dead gorgeous. This alone made the laptop feel more premium, combined with its overall sleeker appearance. Plus, I loved placing my fingers on its matte finish. Looked pretty premium from all regards, in my opinion.

Therefore, this is a pretty good choice for a laptop if you are looking for portability. It’s small enough to fit in my backpack easily. Plus, I found it to be pretty light and easy to carry around.

However I found the screen bezels to be disproportionate. The top and side bezels are thin, while the bottom bezel is thicker. This made the screen look less premium when viewed at some angles.

Display  

Display
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The display of this laptop is one of its other strengths, along with its sleek design. This laptop’s display is pretty small and compact, having a 13.3” screen size. However, even though it’s small, it boasts 4k resolution and a touch screen.

Even though it appears good on the surface, its performance is pretty good as well. With 100% SRGB, the Razer Blade Stealth laptop boasts some impressive colors, which appear bright and vivid.

Plus, its 4k resolution makes every image crystal clear and sharp. I watched lots of movies with extensive CGI effects (Avengers: Endgame and Avatar). Every frame in these movies were brought to life in stunning 4k, which amazed me. However, I wished that the screen ws 15.6” or more to get a better experience. Things can often feel cramped in a 13.3” display.

As a gamer, I found the 120 Hz refresh rate with 3ms response times to be amazing. IO played quite a few games here, and was impressed with its super smooth refresh rates. I will delve into more of this soon, so keep on reading!

Connectivity  

Connectivity
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If you are worried about connectivity options present in the Razer Blade Stealth laptop, then you should be.

This laptop only has a few connectivity ports, having only 2x USB ports and 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports. While they are great on their own, more would have been better, especially USB type C ports. After using two of them for an additional keyboard and mouse, I desperately needed a third one to attach a USB stick, which unfortunately was not there.

I also did not find a SD card reader, which is present in almost all laptops in this price range. I guess the minimalistic and slim form factor made Razer go this route.

Keyboard And Trackpad  

Keyboard And Trackpad
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While laptop keyboards have always been on the weaker side of keyboards, the Razer Stealth keyboard is pretty decent. While it’s definitely not as good as a mechanical keyboard, typing still feels pretty smooth.

It has customizable backlighting effects. However, it’s not RGB cannot be multicolored. However, I stuck with default green backlight color, sometimes switching to red and blue while gaming.

While gaming, I would still suggest getting yourself a mechanical keyboard for the best performance. However, this keyboard is not bad on its own. It’s just a standard backlit keyboard with a pretty decent key travel distance, which I found to be satisfactory while typing and gaming. The touchpad is pretty decent, being on the standard side of things.

Battery Life  

Battery Life
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Since I am using the Razer Blade Stealth laptop, which is known for being small and portable, battery life has become essential here. If you are going to be traveling around with this laptop a lot, then a higher battery life will be perfect. But did I get it?

Just like all Windows laptops, this laptop also has three modes – Power Saver Mode, Balanced Mode, and Performance Mode.

While I used this laptop in power saver mode, I could average around 8 hours while just browsing the web and writing articles. In balanced mode, I was able to average around 6 hours. On the performance mode, this got down to only 5 hours.

Gaming on this laptop lasted even less. On the three modes – Power Saver, Balanced, and Performance – I averaged around 5.5, 4, and 2.5 hours respectively. This is similar to the Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15 AMD and the Lenovo ThinkPad e585.

Therefore, the Razer Stealth notebook performed much like any other laptop in this price range. However, note that this was all in the 1080p mode. Expect an hour less in each segment while running at 4k mode.

Performance  

Performance
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When it comes to the performance of the Razer Blade Stealth laptop, this laptop is both good and bad. I came to this conclusion after setting different parameters for creative and office work and another for just gaming.

When it came to creative work like using Blender for 3D animations and Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing, this laptop performed pretty well. Creating 3D animations in Blender and then exporting it felt pretty smooth and lag free.

On the other hand, it took me six minutes to render a 5 minute 4k video with lots of effects and text in Premiere Pro. This is pretty fast, which I reckon is due to its 11th Gen i7 processor. Therefore, its performance is on par with the Lenovo Ideapad l340-15 and the Lenovo Ideapad 720s-15.

Gaming Performance  

Gaming Performance
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When it comes to gaming, this laptop performed in the mediocre ranges. While this laptop has a good processor, its graphics card is pretty weak. This combination ends up creating the “bottleneck” effect, which is a situation where a better component doesn’t perform as expected as it gets paired with a weaker component. Therefore, the weaker graphics card doesn’t let the processor perform to its maximum capabilities.

In this laptop, gaming felt a bit weaker, in my opinion. This was not based solely on the weaker 1650 Ti graphics card. It was the 13.3” screen as well. Gaming on larger monitors will always feel better. This is why I find the 17” Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD to be a significantly better performer.

When it comes to frame rates, it fared better on older games. Newer games that are made to run in the RTX graphics cards suffer from some frame rate dips from time to time.

I played two single player games with great graphics at max settings – Shadow of Tomb Raider and Far Cry 6. On both these games, I averaged around 40 and 35 fps respectively. Therefore,  I would suggest playing new games with lower settings to get to the 60 fps mark.

When it comes to multiplayer games, a golden rule is to play the games at the lowest settings. This lets you get the maximum frame rate possible and get a competitive edge. Here I tested out Valorant and Warzone 2.0. At lowest settings, I got around 130 fps and 95 fps, respectively.

Therefore, Valorant is one of the few games where I could take advantage of the 120 Hz refresh rate screen. You can achieve more in MOBA games and even in Rainbow Six: Siege.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)  

Gamers have various questions regarding the Razer Blade Stealth laptop. Here are my answers:

Q1. Is Razer Blade Stealth A Gaming Laptop?  

Ans: No, the Razer Blade Stealth laptop is not a gaming laptop. It’s intended to be more of a laptop for productivity that you can carry around easily.

Q2. Are Razer Blade Laptops Good?  

Ans: Yes, Razer Blade laptops are pretty good. Even though they are a bit on the pricier side, they still provide premium features and performances.

Q3. Are Razer Blade Stealth Laptops Discontinued?  

Ans: Yes, Razer has discontinued its Blade Stealth series of laptops in 2021. This was done in a bid to focus more on the Blade series of laptops, which have a minimum of 14” screen size.

Final Verdict: Is The Razer Blade Stealth Laptop Stealthy Enough?  

In my opinion, the Razer Blade Stealth laptop is a pretty good laptop for $2,299. It has good specifications, making it a great choice for creators. It has a solid 13.3” 4K touchscreen laptop, which I loved. I also liked its overall minimalistic but premium design as well.

However, I wished that this laptop had better gaming performance. Even though this laptop has a 120 Hz screen, its poorer gaming performance makes it hard to take advantage of it, especially with newer games. In addition, a few more connectivity ports would have made this better, in my opinion.

PROSCONS
+ Excellent 13.3” touch screen with 4K resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate.
+ Compact and premium design.
+ Good battery life.
+ Pretty lightweight and portable.
– Poorer gaming performance compared to other laptops in this price range.
– A  bit overpriced being $2,000+.
– The 120 Hz refresh rate feels pointless.

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