An ‘urban’ professional who may like gaming was served the best at the Electronic Entertainment Expo or as they called it E3. The thin ultrabook – Razer Blade Stealth – will serve a thoroughbred entrepreneur and die-hard gamer alike with an equal measure of near-perfection.
Just launched in California, the Razer laptop entry-level model comes at a price of $1,399 with specification of baffling scale. Like its namesake predecessor, the display resolution remains the same i.e. QHD (Quad High-Definition 3200 x 1800) as are touch compatibility and IGZO technology. The screen size, however, has been stretched from 12.5” to 13.3” in the same form factor. Since thick bezels of the previous version faced consumer critique, they have been reduced by a whopping 50%.
The processer is a dual core i7 7500 U, which is definitely a very nifty. Weighing a meager 1.35 Kg (3 pounds), the Stealth is one of the thinnest laptop. Some call it a ‘MacBook for Windows’. The machine’s equipped with two USB-A 3.0 ports (one on either side) a full HDMI out a USB-C thunderbolt-3 port, which cannot only be used to connect external graphics card (Razer Core recommended) but also works with PCI express.
Besides black, the Stealth laptop is also available in a new gunmetal finish. Razer, at its core, is a gaming device manufacturer but the approach with the laptop is a departure from the norm: the company wants to meet the needs of an ‘urban professional’. Thus, the device does not have an aggressive build unlike the gaming-specific HP Omen or the Lenovo Y 520. Spoiler alert: the keyboard only has white backlighting instead of all color option (no Red-Green-Blue or RGB in tech jargon). The logo looks very tame as it won’t light up either. To replace a chunky device with a thin laptop, these sacrifices are not too much.
The stunning thing for the gamers’ particular interest is that they could have a GTX 1080 ti inside the supported EGPU. Along with dual core processors, the now standard 16 GB ram is more than enough to run with a high power graphics card. The storage ranger from 256, 516 to1 terabyte PCIE NVME, thus, the read and write times should be very fast. Razer claims the battery life to be 9 hours with one charge. One of the boldest new features is the new Windows Precision Touchpad, which also supports Windows 10 gestures. Owing to its extreme sleekness, discreet graphics procession unit or DGPU was obviously not feasible, thus the gadget supports the EGPU. The internal graphics are the Intel 620, perfect for an ultra-book of the size and the class.
Obviously, customer expectations are high with premium ultra-book and so are the stakes for the manufacturers. Too early to say as to what the future holds for this one!
