Razer Book 13
A new chapter
RAZER, KNOWN FOR its high-performance hardware, has offered a change in direction from its usual gaming-focused machines here. The Razer Book 13’s selling point is performance meets productivity. So, being a bit out of Razer’s comfort zone, how does this ultrabook make a mark on the productivity world? Well, there are three models of the Book 13—we have the range-topping model with a quad-core 11th-Gen Intel Core i71165G7, and a UHD touchscreen display.
Let’s get straight into that display. For productivity and general usage, it’s an extremely crisp panel. Colors pop on the 13.4-inch screen, and at 60Hz it looks smooth, though it’s not the best for gaming. The panel is 16:10 with a resolution of 3,840 x 2,400. This creates a tight PPI density of 338 for excellent detail, while the aspect ratio gives you a little more vertical real estate on your screen. You’ll be able to see more on a page, which helps in the productivity sector. It is a very responsive touchscreen display, but you’ll likely have to scale things up, as it can get fiddly with the tiny icons. The screen also fits the chassis perfectly, with tiny bezels all around.
The overall look of this ultrabook is exactly what you’d hope Razer would produce to make a stamp on this corner of the market. Razer’s switched away from its traditional gaming-focused black and green designs to a mercury color design with a minimal chrome logo, and a light all-aluminum unibody design with no chassis flex. It’s nice and sturdy to hold, has a cool feel to the chassis, and it avoids being a fingerprint magnet. The design is boxy, but due to how thin it is, it still feels sleek and premium. Dare we say it, the finish is MacBook quality. One tiny complaint is that it can be quite a pain to open with one hand—a slightly larger groove on the opening mechanism would have sorted this out.
The keyboard is superb and very easy to type on. The keys have low travel but are springy, making them nice and responsive. Keys are individually backlit with Razer Chroma RGB, so you can customize them how you want. The trackpad is also impressively sized considering it’s a 13-inch ultrabook. It feels well-built, with no movement, and it’s very accurate and responsive. You are always going to want to use a mouse if you can, but if you’re on the move then the trackpad is more than good enough.
The Razer Book 13 is also good for connectivity. It has two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, one on each side. It should be standard for all laptops to have charging on both sides, as it’s really convenient. On the right side, you get a USB-A port, along with a 3.5mm headphone port. On the left, you also get an HDMI 2.0 port and MicroSD card reader. A standard SD card reader would probably be preferred here, especially by photographers.
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All good so far, but how does the Razer Book 13 run? For day-to-day laptop internet use, it runs perfectly, handling browsing and procrastination easily. Communication is top tier—the integrated webcam is clear, providing you have a well-lit room, paired with four microphones, making it great for meetings. With the superb display and the extra real estate, you can use the Book 13 for ages with no struggle.
The performance is very reliable, and using Adobe products on this tiny ultrabook is no problem at all, nailing its USP. With 16GB of RAM, you can have lots of tasks and tabs open simultaneously with little struggle. Running on Intel’s EVO platform, it’s very responsive, with one-second instant wake, quick charging that gives you four hours of usage in 30 minutes, and Intel Wi-Fi 6 for great internet connectivity.
Battery life is very good, lasting for a full day’s work. However, the storage isn’t perfect, with 512GB being the maximum option. It’s also not great when it comes to gaming—though it’s not designed for this, as Razer already has that sector covered with its other products.
On the whole, then, the Razer Book 13 is a great productivity ultrabook, and Razer has targeted the likes of the Dell XPS 13 and maybe even the Mac lovers out there who can be tempted over to the Windows life. For its remit it is great— communication is excellent, and the whole package is very premium, leaving a mark on the productivity laptop market.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite the whole package, especially since gaming isn’t really for this ultrabook. Also, only 512GB of storage is offered when more will be needed for productivity purposes, which is rather disappointing. For its price and purpose, however, the experience is exceptionally premium.