The Razer Blade Stealth was already one of the best small-but-mighty laptops on the market, and now it’s getting more powerful. Razer’s refresh adds faster CPU and GPU options along with a fix for one of the Blade Stealth’s biggest flaws.
While its starting price of $US1,800 ($2,859) is a bit steep, even a base-model Blade Stealth comes with beefy components: a more powerful 25-watt Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU, a new Nvidia 1650 Ti GPU (both of which come standard across every config), 16GB of more efficient DDR4X RAM, and a 512GB of base NVMe SSD storage. However, the refreshed Blade Stealth’s most unique new feature might be its 13.3-inch, matte, full-HD, 120Hz screen, which Razer claims is the only one of its kind available on a 13-inch system.
[referenced url=” thumb=” title=” excerpt=”]
This gives potential users a range of displays to choose from, allowing gamers to select a high refresh rate panel for smoother graphics, while giving content creators or other digital artists the option to choose the 13.3-inch 4K touchscreen for higher-res visuals instead. Razer says the new Blade Stealth should deliver 10 per cent better graphics performance in the same pint-sized aluminium chassis as before.
Another major upgrade doesn’t immediately jump off a spec sheet: The updated keyboard features a wider Left Shift key and some other keyboard layout changes that should make switching to the Blade Stealth a less painful process. On the previous model, one of my biggest complaints was that its cramped keyboard results in a somewhat annoying learning curve that often forced users to relearn how to type, so it’s nice to see Razer taking customer feedback into consideration and applying those changes to its refreshed ultra-portable.
But the downside is that the new Blade Stealth now has half-sized Up and Down arrow keys. Arrow keys aren’t used often while gaming, so I think the Blade Stealth’s new keyboard layout is still a welcome change.
Elsewhere, the Blade Stealth remains mostly the same, including its 3.1-pound chassis, quad-speaker system, and a range of ports, including two USB-C (one of which supports Thunderbolt 3) and two USB 3.1 Type-A ports. You also get a built-in IR webcam for Windows Hello facial recognition.
Razer didn’t completely overhaul the new Blade Stealth, but that’s OK. The previous model was already one of the most powerful systems in its class, and these improvements will only make it better. The refreshed Razer Blade Stealth goes on sale today, starting at $US1,800 ($2,859) for the base model with the 120Hz screen, or $US2,000 ($3,177) for the model with the 4K display.