The ultraportable Razer, the Blade Stealth, is finally in our hands! This device has the ambition to make us forget the MacBook and, above all, to carve a good place in the market of laptops for nomads.
That's it ! The Razer notebooks finally arrived in France and the first of them, the Blade Stealth made a stop by the Lab. Announced from 1099 euros, it is the PC the least gamer of the brand with the three snakes. Indeed, it does not embark of dedicated 3D graphics card, which destinates it to the usual uses, in mobility.
Hard to resist the Blade Stealth. The first ultraportable 12.5-inch Razer, the famous brand of peripherals for gamers, comes to swell the ranks of nomad machines available at the end of 2016. And it is clearly part of the references that play the map of design, Finesse and power to seduce. And without pushing the bill up too much. Indeed, the version that we received for test is sold 1400 euros, a price substantially similar to that of competing devices, with equivalent characteristics.
Let's look first at the design and finish of the black brushed aluminum housing. Its clean lines, defined and slightly rounded clearly recall those of Apple's 13-inch MacBook. And just take the machine in hand to appreciate the quality of manufacture. No cracking, no impression of fragility: it's sturdy. A small passage under the gauge and on the scale and we discover that the Stealth is as light (1.3 kg) as very thin (1.31 cm at the highest).
Some people will find it a bit "impersonal" or lacking little touches of originality. And, no, the enormous logo that adorns the back of the screen can not really be called "original". It is even - let us go frankly - a fault of taste according to us. Fortunately, its backlighting can be disabled from the Razer Synapse software installed on the machine. Another complaint to make to the case: its innate gift to preserve the fingerprints when frequent manipulations.
Color, keyboard ... I like your color keyboard!
As soon as the screen is deployed, the keyboard with backlit keys unfolds. The latter occupies the space on the board so that everything falls naturally under the fingers. Level of comfort of typing, it remains to our taste but it is nevertheless necessary to specify that the sensations of striking are very different from the usual keyboards.
Thus, a small period of adaptation is necessary to be able to enter text by the kilometer. Finally, the entire backlighting is customizable using the Razer Synapse tool, one touch per key, according to different profiles.
By steering the machine in our hands, we realize that the connectivity of Stealth focuses on diversity: two USB 3.0 jacks, an HDMI video output, a headphone jack combining the microphone input and the stereo output, A Thunderbolt 3 Type-C USB port. This is the last time you plug the battery into the machine, such as the HP Specter 13 or the latest MacBook 12 and Pro. Only absent, the SD card reader! This strongly annoyed the photographers of the writing who wanted to make the Stealth their machine of work because, under the keyboard, there is large enough to run big software greedy.
The Blade Stealth is as powerful as it is silent
At the announcement of the release of the Blade in Europe, the CEO of the brand (Min-Liang Tan) had been very clear: "We want to offer the best to our users." It is probably to respect this slogan that the configuration of the Blade Stealth was built around an Intel Core i7-7500U, one of the latest chips of the smelter. This is supported by 16 GB of LPDDR3, soldered to the motherboard. Recall that the implementation of LPDDR4 is not possible since the processor does not support it. As for opting for DDR4 in SO-DIMM format, it is not possible either. This would require using plastic slots which would have a direct impact on the thickness of the case.
For storage, no hard drive here but 256 GB of SSD in M.2 format (NVMe) to ensure the start-ups of Windows 10 and programs of any kind. For the graphic part, it is the controller integrated into the processor that is used. Stronger in multimedia than in 3D game, the latter still manages to display some polygons and textures as soon as one drastically lowers the definition of the screen, from 2560 by 1440 to 1280 by 720 pixels.
Not surprisingly, this trio of components works wonderfully. Scores are high in all analytical tests, especially in PC Mark 8. This ensures optimal execution and processing of all tasks.
Even underlined components, the ventilation of the machine works in a very impressive silence: 33.6 dB maximum measured. As for efficiency, on the other hand, it would have been appreciated that the mercury does not exceed 50 ° C under the machine!
A rather convincing autonomy
Generally when an ultraportable integrates a touch screen full of pixels and a configuration of high flight, the autonomy conferred by the battery is rarely dazzling. However, the Razer Blade Stealth has tried to show us the opposite. Indeed, in continuous video playback, screen set to the maximum of its brightness and Wi-Fi connected, it manages more than 7 hours 45!
On the other hand, our tests in "multipurpose use" (video, music, opening of documents and surfing) have put him more worries: it holds 5 hours 30 at the best. Better not to forget the small charger sector in case of a day of labor loaded ...
Although brilliant and tactile, the screen we liked!
The Stealth is not a gaming machine, Razer opts for a touch screen to play with its competitors. However, instead of the IPS, the manufacturer put on an IGZO slab to flatter our retinas. Slab surrounded by black bands really thick and somewhat disfigure the machine. If only Razer had been able to play the edge-to-edge card, it would have really turned in his favor.
With the naked eye, the color fidelity is quite good and the dark areas, deep as it should. After analysis of the slab by our test probe, the verdict falls: mention well. Indeed, the average brightness reaches 370 cd / m2 and the contrast ratio exceeds 1150: 1, two values that we no longer really used to see in the PC world! This makes it possible to combat efficiently the possible reflections caught by the glossy glass.
What if we turned it into an occasional gaming machine?
During the presentation of the Blade Stealth at the last CES, Razer also unveiled an external graphics card case to accompany the latter and occasionally transform it into a gaming machine.
Called Razer Core and sold only in "bundle" with the machine at the moment (and soon alone for the modest sum of about 600 euros), it will be delivered empty of any 3D card for desktop PC. It will be up to the player to place the one he wants. A complete list of supported models is available on the manufacturer's website, the latest GeForce GTX 1080 or GTX 1070 are part of the package. Once done, all you have to do is connect it to Thunderbolt 3 (via USB Type-C). After installing the GPU Designer drivers, everything works, the Core is ready for service.
We have done some tests and these are quite convincing. We used a GeForce GTX 1060 as a reference card and used some of the current games to give us an idea of how well the torque works.
First observation - quite obvious - unlike the integrated graphics processor controller, the GeForce GTX 1060 trapped in the Razer Core is doing well. One can play for example The Division, with scores ranging between 35 and 50 fps average in the native definition of the screen (2560 by 1440 pixels) with many details. The best is not to go too hard on the rendering level (the mode "Medium" at best) and we quite often reach 60 frames per second.
However, as on the Asus Transformer 3 Pro T303UA, the limiting factor is the low-power Core i7 processor that is not at all done for the game. And pass both the graphics data and the video signal through the same hose (The Thunderbolt 3) creates some "plugs", causing slow loads in games for example. Going through an external screen helps relieve a little more configuration and limit this phenomenon. Even so, you rarely get a very high level of performance. Finally, after a few hours of play, we noticed a small rise in mercury at the USB Type-C jack.
Peek inside the Stealth
We were expecting it: no big evolution possible on this little Razer Blade. The memory is soldered to the motherboard, just like the processor. Only the SSD is not. It is hidden on the left side of the machine, just below the fan. The silver thermal protection must be removed for access.
FICHE TECHNIQUERazer Blade Stealth
| Processeur | Intel Core i7-7500U |
| Quantité de mémoire vive | 16 Go |
| Capacité de stockage principal | 256 Go |
| Taille d'écran (pouces) | 12.5 " |
| Processeur graphique | Intel HD Graphics 620 |
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