Review of Razer Book 13: stop playing and start working

For years, Razer has manufactured some of the best gaming laptops on the market. They are not exclusively famous for their high performance (Blades are powerful machines, but not the fastest ones out there) or their prices (which are high). They are famous for their high quality construction and premium design. In short, Razer makes the most beautiful gaming laptops on the market.

Razer decided this year that this aesthetic should not be limited to gaming laptops. In its first notebook designed for productivity instead of games, Razer combined its unique look and feel with a 60 Hz 16:10 touchscreen and a low-power processor with integrated graphics. The Razer Book aims to be a Razer Blade on the outside and a Dell XPS 13 on the inside – and it almost always does. Razer has made an excellent laptop with performance that rivals the best Windows shells on the market. That said, it is expensive for what it offers and has some disadvantages that mean it will not be the right choice for everyone.

On the outside, the Razer Book 13 borrows many of Blade Stealth 13’s unique features. Razer’s three-headed snake adorns the lid. You can also recognize the customizable RGB key keyboard with speaker grids on each side. (Contrary to what you’ll see on some extravagant gaming platforms, the lighting on these keys looks professional and adds a sophisticated vibe.) The chassis is made of CNC machined aluminum, with a smooth metallic finish. This is an elegant way of saying that it is very good; the MacBook Pro is made of the same material, as are many of the best Windows laptops, including the XPS 13 and the HP Specter x360 14.

But some subtle differences make it clear that this laptop is for the office, not for games. It is slightly lighter than the Blade Stealth, 0.6 inches thick and 3.09 pounds. The port selection is also better than that of the Stealth: there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, an HDMI 2.0, a microSD slot and a combo audio connector. This is also a big advantage that the Razer Book has over the XPS 13 and MacBook Pro, both with comparatively limited selections.

The biggest change, however, is the 16:10 touch screen. This makes the screen taller than the 16: 9 panels you’ll find on Blade (and on almost all gaming laptops). It offers a lot of extra space for multitasking, with less scrolling and zooming needed to see everything you need. Leaving the aspect ratio aside, the 1920 x 1200 screen in our test unit was quite bright, reaching a maximum of 494 nits in my tests. It is quite vibrant too, with crisp, bright colors. Although the panel has a shiny texture, it recedes little or no glare in bright environments.

Things different from the laptop: the glass touchpad is spacious and quite smooth – definitely one of my recent favorites. The speakers sound great, with strong percussion, although I heard some distortion at higher volumes. And I can almost never say that, but the webcam is not that bad; it offers a decent and very accurate image, although there is no privacy shutter or interrupt switch.

In a vacuum, I have very few complaints about the Razer Book chassis. I will point out that I find it a little worse than the XPS 13 in some (subjective) areas. Not only is it thicker and heavier than Dell’s flagship, but it also looks and looks clumsier without the elegant portability of the XPS. And while the Razer keyboard and touchpad are good, they are not as exceptional as the XPS; The Dell keyboard has more travel and a more satisfying click, and its touchpad is a little more comfortable. The most frustrating thing for me is that Razer offers less storage for the price. You only get 256 GB of storage on the base and midrange models, and you can only get 512 GB on the $ 1,999 top-of-the-line configuration – the 512 GB XPS models cost only $ 1,399 and the $ 1,599 XPS has 512 GB of storage, while the $ 1,599 Razer Book is only 256 GB (its specifications are identical otherwise).

There is one area where the Razer Book solidly outperforms the XPS: performance. All models of the Razer Book are verified by Evo, which means that Intel guarantees them as the best performers. And our test model includes a high-frequency version (up to 28W) of one of the chipmaker’s top ultrabook processors, the Intel Core i7-1165G7.

This system flew through the demanding tasks that we assigned it. It took nine minutes and 21 seconds to complete our Premiere Pro media test, which involves exporting a 4K video of 5 minutes and 33 seconds. This is the fastest time I have ever had with a system with the quad-core 1165G7 (which powers many of the best ultraportables on the market). The XPS 13 took 10 minutes and 43 seconds to complete the same task; the most powerful XPS 13 2 in 1 took 10 minutes and five seconds.

Razer hasn’t taken Apple’s M1 systems yet, however. The latest MacBook Pro finished the test in seven minutes and 39 seconds. And, of course, the integrated graphics don’t compare to a midsize GPU, even in a thin and light chassis. Blade Stealth 13 with a GTX 1650 Ti eliminated the export in just five minutes and 50 seconds.

In real-world performance, the Razer Book also shines. The laptop handled my very demanding load of Chrome tabs, called Zoom and other applications without a problem. It starts up from standby almost instantly and very quickly from the off state. Of course, the XPS 13 is also very good in these scenarios.

Although Book 13 is definitely not a gaming laptop, it is a Razer branded product, so some may wonder how it plays. The answer is that it offers one of the best integrated graphics performances I’ve seen in a Windows shell. It solidly beats the XPS 13 clamshell and is almost on par with the more powerful 2 in 1. In practice, it is best suited for lighter games and heavier titles with lower settings.

The Razer Book averaged 142 fps at Rocket Leaguemaximum setting without falling below 125; the XPS reaches 111 fps with a minimum of 100. Razer also wins in League of Legends, averaging 219 fps against Dell’s 205 fps. Of course, as both machines have a 60 Hz screen, you won’t notice a difference in the quality of these games – but those numbers should give you an idea of ​​the power of the Razer Book.

Graphic performance will make a difference in heavier titles. The Razer Book won the XPS in the most demanding Overwatch in Ultra configurations, averaging 65fps against 48fps of the XPS. It also averaged 32 fps at Shadow of the Tomb Raider at its lowest settings, where the XPS averaged 22 fps. This is significant because it means that you can play tomb Raider in 1080p on the Razer Book, which would be unpleasant to do on the XPS.

This result also makes it clear that – to reiterate – despite the aesthetic similarity, this laptop is not a Blade. Stealth 13 averaged 45 fps at tomb Raiderthe highest settings of. If you want to play with this format, buy Blade. You’ll also have a lot more storage for the price.

When it comes to cooling, the Razer Book is excellent. It did a significantly better job of keeping its CPU cool than the XPS in my tests. During Adobe’s export, the 1165G7 remained comfortable between the mid-60s and the mid-70s (Celsius), with occasional spikes of up to 90 years. In large part, it remained in the heyday of the 1950s during the tomb Raider benchmark, peaking until the mid-1970s. Overall, I didn’t see any drowning or slowing down, and the keyboard never warmed uncomfortably under load.

But you are making an exchange for all that energy: battery life. It’s not terrible, but it’s not worth noting. I managed an average of six hours and 45 minutes using Book 13 for standard office work with occasional Zoom calls and streaming with 200 nits of brightness. (That was in the Battery Saver profile, which you can toggle in Razer’s Synapse software.) That means I can’t go an entire day without charging, although your mileage will vary depending on your tasks and settings. I spent more than nine hours putting multiple machines under the same workload, including the XPS 13.

The Razer Book 13 has many advantages, especially for Razer fans. It is certainly one of the best ultraportable laptops you can buy – but be The the best is a complicated question to answer.

In some areas (keyboard, touchpad, portability), the Razer Book is slightly worse than the XPS 13. In others (display quality and build quality) it is almost on the same level. And it brings some cool features (the port selection and RGB keyboard) that the Dell shell doesn’t have – but I doubt they’re making or breaking most people’s purchasing decision. On the net, I think the Razer comes out a little worse in front of the chassis.

But that is not where the Razer Book makes its case. That category is performance. Compared to other Windows shells I tested last year, the Razer Book is the best in its class. He excels in productivity and media work, as well as in games. On the other hand, you are making some sacrifices for that power, in addition to the high price it brings. You can get a few more hours of battery life from several Razer Book-class laptops (including the XPS 13) and a lot more storage as well. For people in the Book’s target audience (users looking for a portable driver for work or entertainment), these tradeoffs are probably worth considering.

Ultimately, the Razer Book 13 is an impressive new laptop from Razer with a lot to like and I’m sure many customers will be happy with it. But these disadvantages mean that I can’t call it the best product for most people.