Razer Book 13
Is Razer’s first proper pro laptop a performer?
Razer is finally branching out into the ‘strictly business’ space with the new Book 13 line by ditching the discrete GPU and slashing the price. It’s a solid move, but with Apple and Dell both offering price cuts on its 2021 devices, the Book 13’s starting price of $2,199 isn’t as competitive as we’d hoped.
For that starting price you’ll get a non-touch 13.4-inch 16-by-10 display at FullHD+ 60Hz, an Intel Core i5-1135G7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, which is a couple of hundred dollars less than Dell’s XPS 13, but a few hundred more than a similarly specced MacBook Air. If you want the more powerful Intel Core i7-1165G7 under the hood and touchscreen capabilities you’re looking at $2,999, while the top of the line UHD+ display will cost you $3,799.
The Razer Book 13 offered above average performance on just about every parameter, so it’s clear Razer will go above and beyond when tweaking its systems, but the difference was small, generally under 10 percent so it won’t make a huge difference. The Iris Xe GPU will boost productivity for anyone occasionally doing graphically intensive work and it’s enough for those who want to occasionally play less demanding games.
The keyboard is a little more compact than we’d like and while the keys had a good level of resistance, they are slightly too small and skew to the right.
Seven hours and 40 minutes in PCMark 10’s Work battery benchmark is one of the shortest lifespans here, but battery life is still pretty good if you compare it to devices from last year.
A great first laptop from Razer that will need more competitive pricing to get an edge.