Razer Blade Stealth Subnotebook Review

[Redaktion]

Extra sharp. Razer has honed its ultra-thin design philosophy even further to provide the sleekest 12.5-inch Ultrabook yet for just under $1000 USD. It's a genuinely compact notebook from a gaming-centric company that even non-gamers will want to consider purchasing.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer-Blade-Stealth-Subnotebook-Review.160204.0.html

[ingressum]

Phrase "...The processor also shows healthy leads over the previous generation i7-5200U Broadwell core and especially the i7-4200U Haswell core...". needs correction.

[Stitchz]

The lack of an SD-card slot is disappointment. A non-touch, matte full HD screen would be welcome, especially if the price would be lower.

Would not care too much about the thick bezel and weaker keyboard compared to the XPS 13, as long as the price is competitive.

Any word on timing/pricing on an EU release?

[anon1234]

"Users are granted direct access to the CPU, fans, M.2 2280 SSD, battery, and M.2 2230 WLAN card. The RAM modules are soldered and non-upgradeable"

Does this mean the SSD/WLAN/CPU/Battery can be replaced or upgraded (e.g. by the 128GB model and upgrade to a larger drive)?

[MattM]

Razer told me beginning of Feb.: "My apologies but the Blade Stealth is only available to purchase in selected countries such as US and Canada. We do not have an estimated time of availability yet of the Razer Blade Stealth in Germany at the moment. We are working hard to get the Razer Blade Stealth available in as many locations as possible. We truly appreciate your interest." They replied quickly so you might ask them again.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the finger print prone surface in your review; it's clearly visibly in the photos and I assume that's after just a few hours. What's a posh surface good for when it looks dirty all the time?

Too bad the battery can't keep up with the competition. I'd love those extra % in sRGB over the XPS13 but 4 hours vs. 7 hours is a deal breaker for me.

[Douglas]

I'm interested in the IGZO display response times. Basically every display that they've reviewed has been criticized for slow B2B/W2G response times since they started doing the test. In fact, I held off on buying an XPS 15 because of the low times listed for the IGZO. I didn't realize that actually all of the IGZO displays have similar times.

So we're left with a couple options:

IGZO's response time isn't as good as it should be-- why not? What's going on?

The notebook check response-time test is crap. :p

You decide.

[Allen.Ngo]

Fixed, thanks for the catch.

The SSD/WLAN/battery can be removed and replaced. You can purchase the 128 GB SKU and upgrade to a larger drive. CPU is soldered and cannot be upgraded.

It's a matte black surface, so fingerprints will indeed accumulate quite easily everywhere on the notebook. Not too serious of a drawback!

We can't officially comment on the trend of IGZO response times. It may simply be a drawback to having a wider color gamut. We'll be testing more Gigabyte models with IGZO panels in the near future.

[ReDouglas]

Hey Douglas - Before you start claiming IGZO is great and notebookcheck tests are garbage you might want to try using google.  Start with "XPS 9550 ghosting".  There are quite a few folks out there who are very unhappy about the new screens.  I myself have used dozens of laptops over the years from all price ranges.  Both of the XPS 15 units I recently purchased (and returned) had the most horrific ghosting/smearing/blurring I have ever seen by FAR.  It's so bad that I couldn't even watch a movie on it.  So... Perhaps you should try googling next time before talking out of your backside.  You decide.

[Douglas]

Gestern:

If you had read my post properly you would have seen I didn't say the tests were crap, I simply stated that there were only 2 explanations. I'm well aware of the issue with the XPS FHD and occasionally, UHD models.

I have an IGZO Blade 2015 and an IGZO XPS 15 9550. Both have similar performance. When compared with my 5ms monitor side by side doing the UFO motion-blur test at 1920pix/s and taking a picture, there is no visible difference either.

IGZO displays are supposed to be faster because of the technology. In practice, not so. Interested to see notebookcheck follow-up on IGZO displays.

[ReDouglas]

Douglas,

My apologies for not reading your post "properly". Since you don't give your opinion as to which option is the one you believe to be the culprit I was left to guessing the inference.

Please stop spreading bad information about the UFO test.  It is not an appropriate test for blurring caused by poor monitor response time.  Please see this explained in the following thread by the creator of the test:
  https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/comments/3931ov/fix_your_eyes_at_the_ufos_and_watch_the_magic/

Try something like this instead: http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/testsoftware/schlieren2.html

The prad.de test absolutely destroys the XPS 9550 UHD.  DESTROYS it.

It's funny to me that people need this test to convince them their monitor is garbage.   I returned the first laptop because I could clearly see the blurring.  The second one was the same.  I was complaining about it to someone and they asked for proof so I found an appropriate test and provided it... Then I got carried away and started testing everything.  Guess what?  Every single monitor I have tested with it does better than it regardless of class/price/brand.

You might want to get your eyes checked.  The screen on the XPS 9550 sucks, sucks, sucks for anything but still picture (in that case it is very nice as long as you are nowhere near another source of light).