Razer Blade Stealth 13 review (Core i7, GTX 1650Ti, 120 Hz screen)

12 Comments

  1. william blake

    August 15, 2020 at 1:36 am

    this max-q rules. unlike 2080 max-q, 30% fps over 2060 for 1k usd nonsense.

  2. Brandon Wright

    August 16, 2020 at 3:57 am

    Thanks for this great, comprehensive review! I’m curious to hear your thoughts after reverting back to the Razer 15.

    I myself was debating between the new Stealth or the Blade 15. I decided to go all in on the new Advanced Blade 15 w/2080 Super Max Q. I think this is the most awesome and beloved tech purchase I’ve ever made (and I work in IT and have been gaming since the Atari days).

    That said, I’m wondering how much I would’ve loved the Stealth and how it would’ve compared, so definitely curious to see your thoughts.

    • Derek Sullivan

      September 17, 2020 at 4:31 am

      I actually just finished reviewing that laptop. Now that I'm back to using it full time, I think I could live with either. I'm happy to have the bigger screen though.

  3. Antonio

    August 20, 2020 at 9:24 am

    Hi, thanks for your review.
    For office, excel, VBA, compiling codes, etc (where the CPU is the most relevant thing), is the performance of this laptop materally differnt from other 13 inches laptops like the lenovo x1 carbon or the dell xps 13 with similar specs? I would think it has similar performance, correct?
    Finally, I would think that the 15 inches laptops like the razer 15 or asus 15 (gaming laptops), etc … would be materially faster given that they have 45w CPUs (related to the tasks above, not games or video editing)?
    Many thanks.

    • Derek Sullivan

      August 20, 2020 at 1:54 pm

      Yes, 13 laptops with the same CPU will perform very similarly with this one when it comes to tasks like that. And the more powerful CPU in the Razer Blade 15 is much faster(nearly twice as much). What makes this laptop stand out from the rest is the GPU paired with it, which nobody else has.

  4. Matteo B.

    September 1, 2020 at 9:35 pm

    They should really go with a Ryzen on this form factor, and with a 16/10 screen. At this price maybe would be more worth it.

    • Derek Sullivan

      September 1, 2020 at 11:11 pm

      I agree. I actually reached out to them about that but I don't think they have any plans on a partnership with AMD at this time.

  5. Dimitris

    October 11, 2020 at 8:31 pm

    Thanks, Derek on the very elaborate review. Based on yours and other recommendations I went ahead and pulled the trigger on this one. :) I have several other work laptops and wanted something portable that can game a bit.

    I wanted to ask you, in case you are aware, is it possible to connect an external UWHD monitor to the stealth over the USB-C port (via the proper dongle converting it to a display port i assume)? Also, the HDMI you got via your Hyperdrive does it connect to the dGPU or to the iGPU (if you recall)?

    For sure, you can do it over the Core X (with an eGPU) but i was wondering whether there is an easier way to connect the RBS to an external monitor.

    • Derek Sullivan

      October 11, 2020 at 9:33 pm

      USB-C to displayport is an unreliable dongle from my experience. It's strange too because DP was thunderbolt 2, so you'd think Thunderbolt 3 would be DP friendly. I know for a fact that you can't use VR over USB-C to DP copnverter, so there's definitely limitations. So if you're looking for UWHD, you're pretty much going to have to find one that actually accepts USB-C or fall back to HDMI.

      I'm actually not sure about the Thunderbolt 3 connection being connected to the dGPU. I didn't even think to check it. On previous models it wasn't, however those models had at least had an HDMI port. Would be a shame if it was locked to the iGPU. I'll reach out to Razer and ask, but if you get your answer on your own, please let me know.

    • Derek Sullivan

      October 13, 2020 at 10:40 pm

      Hey, so Razer got back to me and said that the USB-C is attached to the GTX card. Good news.

  6. Dimitris

    October 13, 2020 at 11:15 pm

    Thank you very much Derek! These are really good news. My RBS arrived today, so didnt had time to test it with external monitors yet, but nonetheless I can bypass the Core X, for now :)

  7. Dimitris

    November 26, 2020 at 3:13 am

    Hey, Derek,

    Its been some time but I wanted to post an update as I am not really sure what Razer replied is true or I am missing something. I connected the RBS to an external monitor using a USB-C to HDMI adapter on both USB-C ports (the monitor is an FHD dell monitor which has hdmi). On the display adapter it says that the monitor is connected to iGPU. Running dxdiag display device is the iGPU and render device the dGPU. Forcing some apps to run on the dGPU i can see that the discrete gpu card is activated when running over the external monitor, but i think what happens is that the dGPU just renders the frames and sends them back to iGPU for display output.

    From your reply, I got that one of the USB-C ports is wired to the dGPU which I dont think is the case. Even forcing on the global settings the dGPU things are the same, in the BIOS I have no option to select a gpu. I guess all this is the work of the nvidia optimus, but still doesnt this mean i would lose some quality over gaming in an external monitor?

    Or I got all wrong and I would need a USB-C monitor with a direct USB-C cable to make things work? I am considering anyhow to buy a USB-C monitor, I am just not sure what really happens with the GPUs. Sorry, if it sounds more like troubleshooting but i got a bit lost whether indeed the dGPU is wired to the USB-C port or not :(

    Best,
    Dimitris

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *