Razer Updates The Razer Blade Stealth: More Screen, Less Bezel, New Color Option
by Brett Howse on June 14, 2017 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Razer
- Ultrabook
- IGZO
- Razer Blade Stealth
Ever since Razer entered the Ultrabook market, they have offered a solid laptop in the ultra-portable category. The initial version launched back in 2016, and although it had some concerns, mainly battery life, Razer has updated it several times to help correct that. The one thing that was tough to not notice though was that it had pretty large display bezels, when much of the competition is now doing their best to make those as small as possible, allowing more display in the same size laptop.
Today Razer is announcing their latest refresh on the Stealth, and the biggest news is the new 13.3-inch display, packed in the same size chassis. This shrinks the display bezels by 50%, making the entire device a much more pleasing laptop to use. The new 13.3-inch display is a 3200x1800 IGZO panel, offering 100% sRGB color gamut coverage, and 400 nits of brightness. The UHD option will still be available, with its 100% AdobeRGB gamut, but since it is still a 12.5-inch model, and since it doesn’t offer any way to constrain the display to sRGB, it would be difficult to recommend it over the newer, larger display.
The rest of the Stealth is staying pretty much the same, and that’s not a bad thing. The 13.3-inch model comes standard with a Core i7-7500U, up to 16 GB of RAM, and up to a 1 TB PCIe SSD. Razer gives a battery life estimate of up to 9 hours, which is not amazing by today’s standards, but still respectable for most people.
The Razer advantages over the competition continue to be their chassis, with a CNC aluminum body which is very stiff, and a keyboard with individually backlit keys offering RGB lighting per-key. They also offer a Thunderbolt 3 port, along with the Razer Core external GPU, allowing a single cable docking solution to hook the Blade Stealth up to an external graphics card when more oomph is needed.
Razer is also offering a new color option for this model release. A new gunmetal gray option allows people to choose a different look than the typical black coloring on previous Razer laptops. The new color option also deletes the backlit green Razer logo on the rear of the laptop, making it a bit less conspicuous. The rear logo is a tone-on-tone Razer logo on this model.
The new Razer Blade Stealth 13.3-inch model starts at $1399 USD, and is available now on razerzone.com
Souce: Razer
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DanNeely - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
At this point while going from 1" bezels to 1/2" bezels is a step in the right direction; it's not enough to get me excited anymore. The top bezel's limited by needing room for a camera (unless to do something weird like the XPS13/15); but side bezels bigger than 1/4" or so are rather meh at this point. And as a generic ultrabook instead of a gaming laptop it's not like Razer needed to keep the base volume the same for cooling needs.GodHatesFAQs - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
100% agreed. I was excited to hear about thinner bezels, but they don't go anywhere near enough to convince me to spend $ on it.lazarpandar - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
Agreed as well.Excited about the implications for the 14 though, maybe a blade 15 in the same chassis?
close - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
At least the green lit up logo is gone. Someone realized not everybody wants an otherwise pretty business looking machine to have the "I'm a 1337 gamer yo' " kind of vibe.tipoo - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
Mostly yeah, but for the Stealth in particular the bezels were enormous for 2017 and dated the design a lot. This is a great improvement since it was so far back before.
R3MF - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
looking forward to the 2018 Stealth, where the 13" screen comes as standard, along with a ryzen/vega based APU with a cTDP of 28W.thanks, Razer! :)
ImSpartacus - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
I don't see that happening.The Stealth exists to be docked with a bigger/beefier external GPU. It doesn't need an internal GPU for gaming.
xype - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
Eh, if Ryzen/Vega @ 28W gives good price/performance, I don’t see why Razer wouldn’t offer such a machine. Just because "the Stealth exists to be docked with a bigger/beefier external GPU" that doesn’t mean that Razer is married to the concept to a point of not considering putting an APU in there.DanNeely - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
At 28W vs the 15W for the Intel chips in in now, this model wouldn't be able to cool the APU effectively. If the new AMD APUs do perform well enough to justify a model between this and the models with full size discrete GPUs it's possible Razer will make a 3rd model to use them too.R3MF - Wednesday, June 14, 2017 - link
If Apple can get 28W IrisPro parts in a Mac Pro, i'm sure Razer can get one in the Stealth.