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00:00Get over here!
00:01Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. I've always been a fan of Razer's Stealth laptop. It's their thin and light, not gaming laptop
00:08it's kind of like their ultrabook line, and it's a device that
00:12every year they kind of tweak it a little bit and they've always had a product that looked good,
00:17performed pretty well, and was also reasonably priced.
00:20This is the 2019 model and this is the first year that I feel like Razer made a mistake with this product because the price
00:25point is wrong. Now, let me explain. The hardware is good. The device is built really well. It has this design aesthetic
00:32that's similar to the 15-inch Razer Blade from this year. It's got this boxier, cleaner aesthetic to it.
00:37I like the shape of it. The logo, the triple-headed snake, does not light up this year.
00:41They call it a two-tone finish, but it's basically a matte finish on the surface of the laptop with a
00:46polished snake logo, and I think it's a more mature looking device.
00:49I feel like some people really hated that green light-up logo and this just looks a lot cleaner.
00:53So the ports on this device are a little bit different this year. There's two USB-A and two USB-C,
00:58so instead of the HDMI port, they've replaced it with a second USB-C. If you do need an HDMI,
01:03you can get an adapter or whatever. There's also a single headphone jack on the left. Okay, opening up this device,
01:08we have view of the wonderful new screen. So this is a device that's rocking some very thin bezels.
01:14They're 4.9 millimeters. The top bezel isn't as thin as the sides,
01:17but it has the Windows Hello camera up top, which isn't great in terms of image quality,
01:22but it gets the job done. It comes in either a 1080p or a 4k option.
01:26The one I have is a 4k panel, but I gotta be honest,
01:28I've always found that on 13-inch devices,
01:314k panels were a little bit unnecessary because the difference in resolution is not that easy to spot at like a regular laptop viewing distance,
01:39but the 4k panel does look quite nice. It's color accurate. It's bright. It's a good panel. Okay, the speakers,
01:45there's two on each side. They sound good.
01:47They sound better than the previous generation. Like these speakers, if I had to rank them,
01:51I'd give these like a 6.5, maybe a 7. No, 6.5. These are probably 7.5, maybe an 8.
01:57They're not as good as like MacBook Pro speakers or MacBook Air speakers,
02:00but they're definitely better than the previous generation. The keyboard also feels quite similar to last year's model as well.
02:06I don't like the new layout though. So the old layout felt more traditional to me, particularly the right shift key.
02:13Now, this is something that I've mentioned in previous videos as well. I think it's something that affects very few people.
02:17I'm one of those people, but I use the right shift quite regularly and
02:21it's just in a weird spot on the new Stealth. If you use the right shift a lot,
02:25then you're gonna have to take some time to get used to it. The keyboard on the whole though is a nice keyboard.
02:30Trackpad, this doesn't feel that different from last year's model either. It's still Windows Precision, still a glass surface.
02:35It's bigger, but the experience is pretty similar to last year's model.
02:38It's a good trackpad. Now, the lighting on the keyboard is a little bit different this year.
02:42They're running a single color RGB, so you can't do individually customized keys,
02:46but depending on what you want out of your keyboard, that may or may not make you sad.
02:50The keys on the top actually have lighting on them.
02:52So the previous generation, you couldn't see the function controls on each of the function keys,
02:56but those light up as well now, which is nice.
02:58Now, the advantage of having a single color across the whole layout is power consumption and the battery life on this device is good.
03:05I got a little bit over six hours with the screen at 250 nits and this is with the 4k panel.
03:10It's not a huge battery. It's been bumped up to 53 watt hours, but it's more energy efficient system.
03:14So you get slightly better battery life this year than last year.
03:18The AC adapter is still small, 65 watts. So if you want to charge it on a plane, you're good to go.
03:23The RAM is soldered on, the drive is replaceable, and it's running a pair of fans this year,
03:29which actually get louder than I'd expect for an Ultrabook. The temperatures are good, but the fans do run loud.
03:35Okay, I want to spend some time talking about performance on this laptop.
03:38So you can equip this thing with an MX150 from Nvidia. This is a GPU that comes in two variants.
03:43They have a weaker 10 watt version that is on some laptops, and they have a stronger, more powerful
03:4925 watt version, which they have in this particular laptop. Same with some other laptops out there.
03:53The 25 watt version is
03:56not that much better than the 10 watt version. It's better. It's noticeable, but it's not like a huge difference.
04:03The thing is Razer is kind of like marketing this thing as if it were a gaming laptop.
04:07I don't think they ever call it a gaming laptop per se. It's gaming capable.
04:11It can run games, but it's not a great GPU, and it's significantly weaker than even a laptop GTX 1050.
04:18No matter how you spin it,
04:20this is not a gaming laptop. And same with video editing. The MX150 is better than nothing, right?
04:25It's got some CUDA cores in it, but editing and rendering are still very underwhelming on this machine.
04:30Even with that 25 watt MX150, games just don't run very smoothly at 1080p.
04:35You got to drop it down to like 720p to be able to play at 60 frames per second for a lot of games,
04:40which, honestly, isn't that big of a deal, but the problem is that this thing costs
04:46$1,600 to get a configuration with the MX150. And quite frankly, that's the device that's most interesting, right?
04:52To have that kind of GPU power in something this small. That's why people are eyeballing this thing.
04:56But here's my take on it, okay?
04:59If you are actually someone who is considering spending $1,600 on a device that has a GPU in it like this,
05:06that's not super powerful,
05:07chances are you are a gaming enthusiast.
05:11You may not be super hardcore, but you're gonna be someone that enjoys playing games.
05:14You want to have a decent gaming experience.
05:16So, if you're gonna spend $1,600 on this, why not take that money and spend it on a device that is
05:24significantly better at playing games? Like, there are devices out there like the GS65 from MSI, or the Aero 15, or even
05:31Razer's own entry-level Razer Blade. Those are devices... I'm pointing over there because they're over here. I'll pull them in.
05:37Oh!
05:39These are devices that bring a
05:42significantly better gaming experience than the thing that they're squashing.
05:48They're just so much better. It makes no sense that this thing costs $1,600.
05:53Now, I get it. There are some people that just don't want a 15-inch device because these are bigger, they're thicker, they're heavier.
05:59I get it. Some people want something smaller. So get something else that's small with an MX150.
06:03There are a lot of devices, some of them start at like $900, going up to $1,200, that have MX150s in them.
06:09Now, some of them are gonna be running 10-watt chips, and some are gonna be 25-watt chips,
06:13but they're just so much cheaper than the new Razer Blade Stealth. And I know some people gonna watch this video and they'll be like,
06:17Who cares, Dave? Why are you talking about value? Like, this doesn't matter. It's a Razer product. Take my money.
06:21But the thing is, I have supported Razer's pricing on the Razer Blade Stealth ever since they launched this product.
06:27Like, it's always been a little bit more expensive than other competitors in the market,
06:30but I always felt like it was worth that extra value. Like, you're getting the Razer experience, they're well-made products,
06:35they look good, but this year, I feel like they just,
06:38they push that envelope of what they think they can charge a little too far.
06:41So if you're someone that's on the market for something that looks just like this, like you want that
06:4613-inch device and you have a huge budget,
06:48I mean, this is one of very few devices that fits that ticket, but for most people,
06:52I just, I don't think it's a good fit. You should either get something that's equivalently priced,
06:57that's way better at gaming, or
06:59something that's a lot cheaper and
07:01provides very similar performance. Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
07:06See you guys next time.