The most significant change is the new display, which pushes up to 13.3-inches in size, bringing with it slimmer bezels and a higher resolution. The 3200 x 1800 panel is remarkably sharp, bright, and delivers colors that pop. The new trackpad is even better than before, and when combined with the great keyboard and touchscreen display, there’s no shortage of superb input options on this laptop. The selection of ports is decent as well, particularly the inclusion of Thunderbolt 3 (which doubles as a charging port) and full-sized HDMI. You don’t often see HDMI ports on laptops this thin, but it’s incredibly handy when you need to hook up an external display without an adapter.
Minor improvements have been made but the Blade has kept the same awesome machined aluminium body. It’s a solid build, that looks premium from all angles, and the matte black finish is understated and professional. There’s even a gunmetal grey option available now, for those who’d rather not have an acid green Razer logo, despite how striking I think the logo looks. Performance hasn’t changed significantly, and the main change on this refresh is that Razer has removed lower-tier configuration options and left only a high-end 15W U-series CPU and 16GB of RAM.
It’s a little strange that Razer didn’t wait for Intel’s 8th generation Core processors, so while this laptop includes top-end hardware right now, it might be superseded by new CPUs in just a few months. Bottom line, the Razer Blade Stealth is a superb ultraportable option. With the base model sitting at $1,399, it’s pretty expensive even considering the decent array of hardware. This is another one of those cases where if you want the best on the market, you’ll have to pay a premium. Whether or not you can stomach the price is up to you, but as far as I’m concerned, the Blade Stealth is the best ultraportable currently available. Shopping shortcuts: Cons: Expensive.
