Razer Blade Stealth Review

The ultrabook market shows no signs of cooling off any time soon. We've recently explored different flavors from all the top vendors including HP's Spectre x360 15t, Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Yoga, ASUS's Zenbook UX-305CA and our reigning Editor's Choice in Dell's XPS 13. There's a lot to love about these premium thin and light machines. And though each offers its own careful balance of tradeoffs, it's tough to have it all in such a slim package. Most ultrabooks these days offer the likes of Intel's U Series processors or even Intel Core M chips when they really want to push boundaries and sack an onboard cooling fan altogether. These packages also usually lack a dedicated graphics chip so high end gaming is out of the question. What they do pack is battery life, grab-n-go portability and premium build quality that offers a compelling solution for mainstream home users, students and business professionals alike.

So given the lack of gaming prowess among most ultrabooks, there's no more prominent an indicator of their success than to see a gaming company jump in headfirst. And that's just what Razer has done here. Razer rocked the tech world when they introduced the original Razer Blade in late 2011. At the time most gaming notebooks were bulky devices packed with fans to keep the high end components inside from having a meltdown. Razer's 17" baby kept pace with high end mobile quad core processors and game ready graphics in a virtually unheard of .88 inch thick frame. Two years later Razer broke the mold again with a 14" Razer Blade slimmed down even more to just .66 inches while stepping up the graphics power to a NVIDIA GTX 765M. Clearly Razer's quest to trim fat has not been sated, however, as today we find ourselves with their new 12.5" Razer Blade Stealth which sits at just .52 inches thick.

Razer bills the Blade Stealth as "The Ultimate Ultrabook" citing superior mobility, display quality, and performance to its competition. Onboard the Razer Blade Stealth packs an Intel Core i7-6500U/Intel HD Graphics 520, 8GB of LPDDR3 1866MHz dual channel RAM, up to 512GB of PCIe solid state storage, 45Wh Lithium-ion polymer battery, and a choice of a 2560x1440p QHD or 3840x2160 4K touch display. Our unit is the base model with a 128GB PCIe SSD and the QHD panel for an MSRP of $999.

No, you didn't miss anything in the specs - like the competition's ultrabooks there's no dedicated graphics to be found. Pitchforks away though, Razer offers the best of both worlds with their Razer Blade Stealth with the option of adding on the Razer Core: a plug and play Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) connected external graphics card enclosure. This means when you bring the notebook home at the end of a long day, a GeForce GTX 1080, or any other card of your choosing, could be waiting for you to game the night away.

As much as we would love to geek out over the Razer Core, our review will put gaming on the back burner and examine the Blade Stealth solely on its ultrabook merits. Let's get started, shall we?