22 JANUARY2021|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE395
means there’s less
likelihood ofpressing a
cursor keybymistake.
The large glass-topped
diving-board style touchpad
is apleasure to use,too.It
works well forsingle-fingered
mousing and multifingered
Windows 10 gestures alike,
although you’ll likely be
connecting amouse for
gaming sessions.
TThheessppeeaakkeerrssflflaannkkiinngg
thekeyboardarethesame
quad-speakerarrayasonthe
2019 BladeStealth13,andare
passable.They’re loud enough for
listening to podcasts and radio,
and fine forvideo calls and the
like.Turn up the volume all the
way, however,and distortion starts
to creep in, plus there’s aharshness
to the mids and higher frequencies that
makes audio sound brittle and thin.
BRING IT DOWN
The 4K touchscreen, meanwhile,isalovely
thing to behold. At 13.3in it has apixel density
of 331ppi, so it’s incredibly sharp,and there’s
no likelihood that even the most eagle-eyed
laptop user will see any pixellation anywhere.
We’d argue,infact, that the resolution is a
little toohigghforascreenthissize.Evenwith
Windows10’sscalingsettingsat200%,we
foundtexttoosmalltoreadcomfortablyin
someapps,andhadtobumpitupto225%
bbefforewewerecomffortabbllewithhWinddows
text and menus.
And, while it’s nice to have touch
compatibility forgeneral use,atits heart this
is agaming laptop that should arguably
prioritise speed over resolution. As such,
we’d advise choosing the 120Hz Full HD
screen instead, especially as you’ll save
some cash in the process.
Nonetheless, it’s adecent display.
Measured with our colorimeter,the Blade
Stealth 13’s 4K screen peaked at abrightness
of 439cd/m2 while delivering acontrastratio
of 1,272:1 and reproducing 91.1% of the sRGB
colour gamut. With ahighly respectable
average delta-E of 0.82, this is one laptop that
won’t let you down if you need to use it to do
aspot of photoorvideo editing.
It was no surprise that the new Blade
Stealth 13 performed so similarly to the
previous model in our 4K application
benchmarks: theyshare aprocessor,afterall.
The 2020 model scored 106 overall, barely
slipping past the 2019 edition’s 101.
With aGTX 1650 Ti in tow,whereyou’d
Redux averaged asmooth98fps with the
resolution dropped to 1080p,whereas the
2019 model and its GTX 1650 managed 85fps.
We’’veallsopllayeddaffewothhergamesandd
it’sclearthattheBladeStealth 13 haseasily
enough juice to comfortably playmost AAA
titles at 1080p at 60fps without having to
knock down quality settings to medium or
low.Itstruggles at native resolution, but
there’s really no need to playat4Kona
13.3in screen since you’ll unlikely be able to
see much benefit over 1080p at normal
viewing distances.
Alas, battery life, as you might expect
given the fact that the battery in this model
has the same 51.2Wh capacity,ismuchthe
same as last year’s Stealth 13. That is to say,
it’s pretty disappointing. Even with Razer’s
Battery Saver profile selected and the
displayrefresh ratedropped to 40Hz, it
lasted only 5h 13m in our video rundown
test. Actually running games will cut that
down even further.
DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
This, and its other issues, leave the Blade
Stealth 13 in adifficult spot.It’s the slimmest,
lightestgaminglaptoparound,andpacks a
However,thatslimmandlightpackage
comesatacost,bothhto the wallet and to
certain aspects of peerformance.Battery life
suffffersffromallackkoffcapacityanddthheCPU
andGPUcan’tmatchthehigh-performance
parts included in bulkier gaming laptops of
equivalent price.
In the end, the Blade Stealth 13 is alaptop
foravery specific set of people: those who
travel alot andwon’t want to give up any
portability or gaming prowess. Foreveryone
else,it’s toomuch of acompromise at too
high aprice.
JonathanBray
SPECIFICATIONS
Windowsoverall
Multitasking
Battery life
PROCESSORQuad-core1.3GHzIntelCorei7-1065G7•
RAM16GB•DIMENSIONS305x210x15.3mm•
WEIGHT1.48kg•SCREEN SIZE13.3in•SCREEN
RESOLUTION3,840x2,160•GRAPHICSADAPTOR4GB
NvidiaGeForceGTX1650TiMax-Q•TOTAL STORAGE
512GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10Home•
WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.razer.com•
PART CODERZ09-03102W52-R3W1
5h 13m
106
99
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expect abiggeradvantage in games, there’s
certainly abigger boost: Metro: Last Light
g g g p p , p
respectable amount of punch in avery
compact frame.
0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100
Seepage62for performancedetails
