Great alternative to Dell XPS 13
full sRGB panel, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, i7-1065G7
I choose Blade Stealth over XPS 13 any day at this price. build quality is just way better.
Dell bills XPS as premium line, but I never recommend them, they aren't built to last. and those keyboards..
anyway, I think it's a good enough deal.
? wrong link
Ah saw it now. Yeah not to shabby a deal considering its in a 13 inch form factor
yes not bad either
FHD, prefer high resolution
For 13.3 inch FHD is enough otherwise the onscreen text gonna b tiny and battery life heavily compromised.
Tbf the stealth ain't latest spec anyway.
yeah there are 2 kinds of people
I am the opposite, I have a FHD panel in my 17" machine and wouldn't want it any other way
last generation, zzzz
May I recommend either the Thinkpad x13 gen2 amd or intel
Both are at the same 13.3' form factor, have a 100% srgb 16:10 screen, 256 gb ssd, 8gb of ram and comes with newer processors (R5 pro 5650U or i5-1135G7), and cost only $1367/1376 respectively. From there you can customise it, an upgrade to 16gb 4266 lpddr4 ram is only 95$ and upgrade to 512gb ssd for $110-which comes to 1562/1571$ total (for AMD i would recommend a additonal $20 for backlit keyboard since intel model already come with it). Heck you can even get a 22$ additional fingerprint sensor upgrade and it will still be cheaper than the stealth 13.
Both of these choices, on the same budget, seem to bring more to the table than the blade stealth 13. Slightly bigger screen, physical switch on webcam, more ports - 2xtype c (TB 4.0 on the intel version) and 2xusb 3.2, with HDMI 2.0 and combo audio port as well. Build quality is also not a concern since the thinkpad x13s are pretty well built.
Thanks for sharing! I’m in the market for a 2in1 but am having trouble settling on one, any recommendations? Or should I wait for a newer generation
Sorry I am not well knowledged with 2in1 laptops so cant give you much advice.
I do know that both laptops I just linked, have a 2in1 version, called thinkpad x13 yoga for the intel version or the l13 yoga for the amd version.
in fact yes, I am a big fan of x13, I didn't know they can be had this cheap, thanks a bunch!
Razer has some of the worst customer service in the industry (non-existent at best and actively working against you at worst), god forbid if something goes wrong with your machine. And speaking of "build quality", those speaker grills are glued on lmao, they'll peel off like a cheap sticker eventually.
yeah their support is somewhat legendary in that regard (:
Yep, I've had a total of 2 x 2016 Stealth a new one sent to me twice and a repaired one also as they just kept freezing constantly. The whole process took 2.5 months and in the end I just wanted a refund but only got a store credit.
Chose a Blade (and spend another $1100 for the privilege). No freezing, but occasional blue screen, which admittedly did get better and better with Windows updates but still does it occasionally (eg 16th of this month, 27th this month).
The batttery swelled just after warranty and started cracking the chassis (which is only plastic) so I had to remove the battery to stop the unit breaking itself completely.
Before the Razer I had an Asus Zenbook 31A, and after I bought an XPS. NEITHER of those ever freeze or crash and both have strong aluminium chassis.
So yeah not so sure about Razer build quality being better but each to their own. I certainly will never buy Razer again myself though. Worst experience with a vendor ever.
Love my Stealth OLED. Not sure why I dual booted it as it lives in Linux 99% of the time:-)
Razer is poor build quality and poor QA and poor support no winning here :( lookup complaints about these before purchase.
from experience (laptop technician speaking) build quality is better than XPS.
QA is good. support is insufferable yes, just need to know how to deal with them.
compared to Dell, Dell is quick to send technician or parts, but from experience, often wrong parts are delivered (despite detailed requirements and even part numbers! dammit) and technicians sometimes need 2-3 visits to do what is required
razer are slow on the uptake, but once everything is determined and warranty is established, they move quickly
from experience (infrastructure/solutions architect speaking) i have known personally 6 people who have bought razers with all of them going back at least once and a few of them on multiple returns waiting weeks at a time with issues and new issues when they return….1 even had the wrong thing fixed…..
personally know of 60+ Dell XPS laptops being used for corporate, was actually chatting to our head of internal IT the other day about the Dell's as was looking for one for my parents and she said they probably only returned 5 units and only 3 of them were actual issues the other 2 were user issues (liquid damage well coffee)
dont get me wrong i love the look of the razers but cant bring myself to even look at them as a viable option.
best run I had was with a fleet of Latitudes. those were solid as. 7490, 5490.
second best was T480 from Lenovo, had only a few failures
Razer in a corporate setting? now that's a first one on me. I had people go for Alienware instead of standard issue, and those were not bad all things considered
worst was a fleet of Surface Pro's. had a pile of failed ones in server room, some are still there
yes, I heard that happen with razers (wrong thing fixed). I give them feedback every other week how much they suck. but so far what they deliver outweighs the trouble of dealing with their support.
I would still not recommend razer in corporate setting ever
YMMV of course, obviously
@shabaka: razer is for ppl i work with or friends for personal use, Dell for corporate the amount of monitoring and security we have on our work machines is insane so keep work for work.
Lenovo's are tanks/bricks though! Had a few Thinkpads cracking when using their docks (i had one for about 6months before i gave it back to them for my XPS 13, then i moved onto XPS 15)
Yea a few ppl in my team wanted surface pros instead of the xps.. they lasted about 6months lol
@quikstix: I'm 100% with you in all your comments. Would never touch Razer again.
I agree with Lenovo ThinkPad being rock solid, but their IdeaPad range have caused me lots of issues. Would not recommend them either.
i7 1065G7 is last year's 10th Gen CPU
Spending over $1.5k I personally would want a i7 1165G7 current model 11th Gen CPU which would also be EVO certified ….
I hear ye, let's see if it drops more.
https://www.bpctech.com.au/product/rz09-03100em1-r3b1-razer-…
This seems quite a bit better for $300 more. Better & newer processor, double the storage and a dedicated Nvidia GPU.