Gadgetory

when the razorblades stealth was first released several years ago I was like WTF razor a laptop without a dedicated graphics card I thought you guys were like four gamers by gamers what's your Excuse but then between the hardware upgrades and whether I'd like to admit it or not the benefits of not having a GPU like a slimmer design and better battery life the stealth actually grew on me to the point where for the last year my Blade stealth has been in my backpack going everywhere this job takes me so needless to say I was stoked about the new 2018 razor blade stealth that is until I got one it will not be going into my backpack and I guess we should take a look at why save money on games and help support charity through Humble Bundle you can learn more through our partner link in the video description I'm still really undecided about razors new boxy design language that's made its way from the razor phone over to their laptops in the last year and a half on the blade 15 it made a bit more sense to me because there are thermal advantages oh and I do appreciate the sliminess of the bezels but on the stealth I'm gonna be carrying it with me like in my hand a lot and the sharp edges just aren't as comfortable in the hand subjectively though it looks damn fine with an exceptionally rigid chassis and an overall premium feel and they removed the lighting on the rear Razer logo a change that will help users avoid the potentially embarrassing situation where they show up for an important meeting and they've got like this weird game arelooking thing on the table compared to last year's model there have been some sacrifices made to the i/o HDMI being the notable cut but with two USB see connections now one with Thunderbolt 3 and both of them with charging support along with two USB Taipei's and a headphone jack it's hard to complain too much about the extra dongle that you'd have to carry what I will complain about though is the increase in power yes you heard me right I hate that Razer made the stealth more powerful and more power hungry by including a dedicated GPU I mean sure the MX 154 gig is better than nothing but the issue here is that it's not in an experienced changing way like casual games like rocket League and dota they will run in some cases multiple times faster than onboard graphics but for anything triple-a you can expect to run at 720p resolution low settings and then be thrilled if you get over 30 frames per second one of razors other justifications here is that it improves performance for content creators for you know editing videos on the going such but I just don't see it like the quad core Core i7 CPU is able to hold its own pretty well in light video editing on the old stealth or in the surface laptop - but our guidance has still always been that if you want to do any serious video editing then you should consider either the full-blown razor blade or something like the asus strix car which has six cores and a full-blown gaming GPU for the same price which brings us perfectly to the most offensive part of all of this the fact that the MX 150 is a $200 upgrade option that must be selected in order to get touchscreen functionality along with the 4k display option which adds an extra $300 on top of the already ballooning price on that note I hate the direction that they've gone with the display options in general here I mean sure 4k is awesome and makes a difference on a 77 inch TV but on a 13-inch laptop those extra pixels just mostly reduce battery life and the most galling part of this is that razor already had found a great balance my 2017 model has an 1800 people that has a noticeable boosting clarity over 1080p without the drawbacks of 4k and it has touch I mean if they were gonna change things up why not do something good like put in a taller display like on the new MacBook Air and the surface laptop to increase productivity you know that second reason why it has a dedicated GPU I mean they added some stuff that we've been asking for like Windows hello facial recognition which is IMHO the best way to unlock a laptop currently but then they just continue to do more things therefore frustrating like the webcam next to it it's pretty schmitt to put it mildly and speaking of SH man the keyboard it's great that they were able to backlight the secondary functions I was really excited when I saw this at CES but the layout sucks and the switches inconsistent so to start again the new boxy design means that people with larger hands will actually have their palms rest on the sharp edge of the laptop so we're not off to a great start here and while the switches I would say have above-average stabilization and a nice tactile feel if a little bit mushy the tactile bump happens before the actual key actuation and the actuation force is noticeably different from one key to the next so I ended up having to kind of Hulk mode type in order to make sure that every stroke got registered honestly though I could live with all of that if it wasn't for the layout like who thought this shift key was okay I would actually like to speak to that individual and I will personally pay for him or her to attend both a typing and a grammar workshop so that he or she can become more familiar with the home row method of typing and the importance of proper capitalization like I've gotten used to weird layouts before and I'll probably do it again but this one is just it's worse in ways that are just unnecessary like if they had just kept the key layout this keyboard might have still gotten an a-minus or a b-plus but as it is I think we're in c-plus territory but let's bring it back for a moment because you know what gets a solid a plus this trackpad every other Windows notebook maker should be paying close attention right now and taking note of how razer used all of the available vertical space to enlarge their touchpad it really does make a big difference and it's awesome another area where razer has beaten out most of the competition is upgradability removing the Stealth's bottom gives you easy access to the solid 54 watt hour battery which should be able to keep you going for a full workday assuming you're not gaming or video editing haha and you can upgrade the m-dot to drive as well and I mean okay the RAM is still soldered but that really does seem more about the state of the industry as a whole than it does about sort of razor because I'm finding myself saying at least they didn't glue the whole thing together Microsoft bottom line though is this I've actually been pretty hard on the stealth for this entire review and some people at Razer might even use the word unfair but there is a reason for it the price if you're making the most expensive Windows Ultrabook you also need to be making the best windows ultrabook which means that we're gonna go a little harder on it doesn't it so the base price for this thing without the GPU is fourteen hundred dollars and for that kind of money you could buy an XPS 13 or a surface laptop to you get the same performance along with better keyboards and screens in either case then if you do throw the GPU in here which I guess is razors kind of main differentiating point you are up to sixteen hundred dollars now for that money you can buy a surface laptop two and a Nintendo switch since then you can get a better notebook experience and a better casual gaming experience or you could even get a 13-inch MacBook Pro since somehow that's starting to look like a reasonably priced option now and then if you upgrade to the 4k touch display which is when this thing does finally become a very competent notebook no touch on the lower end ones come on it's up to 1900 US dollars at that price you could get a surface book - 13-inch with the much better gtx 1050 TI or like basically any other perfectly good notebook a Nintendo switch and take your mom to a nice dinner or something it really does seem like a better way to spend your hard-earned dollars to me since for my part even not having paid for either of these it's pretty clear to me which one is going back in my backpack at least until LG tries to knock it out with the next gram normally these sponsor spots are pretty long but I'm gonna save you guys some time private Internet access P ia VPN go get it now at the link in the video description it makes your internet browsing more secure and it's super affordable go go go go go-go-go so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video well you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you guys should definitely join