Razer Blade Stealth 13

A powerful compact ultraportable that has some new screen tech to show off.

Razer’s compact Blade Stealth 13 is one of the few smaller laptops in the roundup to get a dedicated gaming GPU. Pair this Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti with the efficient Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor and 16GB of RAM and you have a very powerful work ultrabook that’ll be capable of solid workloads and decent 1080p gaming.

The Blade Stealth 13 matches these internals with your choice of a 13.3-inch 120Hz display (a world first according to Razer marketing materials) or a 4K touchscreen option. Normally we would advise a higher resolution screen on a work machine, but a 13.3-inch display is too small for it to be essential. On the the 120Hz 1080p model it’s not critical either, since you’re unlikely to get much over 60fps on low 1080p settings in modern games, unless you’re playing indies or less demanding titles. That said both are welcome bonuses in your work machine.

While 1.5kg isn’t the lightest offering in the roundup, the Blade Stealth 13 is as thin as any clamshell you can get your hands on at 1.5cm and its footprint is as compact as the 13 and 14-inch offerings here.

Battery life wasn’t particularly impressive with the 53Wh lithium ion pack getting just 3 hours and 40 minutes in PCMark 8 and a little over five hours in 1080p movie playback. This is great against gaming laptops, but was one of the poorest performers in this roundup. So you’ll have to plan to take your charger with you.

A powerful little laptop with impressive visuals that is a little shy on battery, but not on price.