Razer Blade Stealth Bezel

One universal complaint about the Razer Blade Stealth is the screen bezel. Next to the XPS 13, those bezels just look ridiculously thick. My question is: Why would Razer ship something with such an obviously inferior design? They could have easily stuck a 13.3" screen in that amount of space and made it much more attractive. So was it cheaper somehow to only have a 12.5" screen? Or is there another technical reason for doing this?

 

Well there's the "reason" and then there's the "reason". They claimed they wanted the most color accurate display.

I don't believe that, because it's razer. They're known for making excuses for overlooked design issues.

 

WHile the XPS13 screen is being regarded as one of the best 13inch screen on the market.

 

Dell managed to put a 13" screen in a 12" laptop.

Razer put a 12" screen in a 13" laptop.

 

It's not all that surprising, really. Yea, Dell and HP are working on the thin bezel thing, but most other OEMs still pack a more traditional thick bezel. Lower your scaling and it's not really noticeable.

Of course the other side of that is if they'd gone with a wider screens, what kind of affect would that have on battery life, ESPECIALLY on the high end screens.

 

Probably negligible.

 

By having to power an extra inch of screen real estate? you figure a 5% reduction is 18 minutes less run time on a 6 hour battery run time [factor in that that's REALLY pushing it for the stealth, it's more like 4.5-5] You crank up the screen brightness a few notches, you could probably increase that to 30-45 minutes less battery life fairly easily.

"Negligible" is really relative in this case: If it got 10 hours to begin with I might agree. but at half that every minute counts.

[at least until someone makes a 45w USB battery pack at any rate]

 

That's... really flexible thinking.

 

Probably related to cost. Between the aluminum body, extra bling on RGB / Chroma keyboard, small-run of custom motherboard for low-volume product, it all adds up. It's also possible they got a good price on these 12.5" 1440p & 4K displays at the volume they wanted, and used all of those factors together to keep the entry price within the $1000 price window.

On the bright side, Razer has a decent track record of using this kind of feedback for future product revisions, like when they replaced those absolute garbage 1600x900 TN panels on their original Razer Blade 14 models. So hopefully, they'll get their act together, and cram a larger screen into their future revisions.

 

Maybe. But they're still using the same ****ty/flawed QHD panel from the 2015 blade.

 

I know I'm responding to trollbait, but I can't resist: what's so bad about the screen? I mean, from where I'm sitting watching myself type this it looks pretty darn good to me...

 

I think you'll find many people overly positive on Razer have never owned their own razer system. Those who have negative things to say (beyond obvious haters) are often owners and long-time users of razer products. When you pay with your own money and you've got a lot of experience with many different systems, companies, and support, you don't ignore issues like this.

The main issue was major backlight bleeding around the top and bottom and pressure marks which created bright spots in the centre of the screen. Many people have reported this. The screen is one of the most important parts of a laptop and I won't accept one with bright splotches in it. It also washes out the colors from nearly any angle.

defects with the back of the lcd panel aside, it's just not a great screen in 2016 on a top-dollar machine. I didn't notice it that much when it was my only laptop, but when I looked at it next to my xps's 4k display it's just night and day.

 

So because I disagree with your assessment of the 2015 QHD panel, I must not own one, am I reading that right? Mine doesn't have any bleed, and while I don't scan the forums daily, I don't remember very many if any complaints about bleed. Bezels, yes. Heat, DEFINITELY, . . but not Bleed.

Very possible you and i have different definitions of "major". I own a dell 34" IPS monitor, so I'm used to a certain amount of bleed. . but next to my SB I don't really see anything to be concerned about on the Blade. Of course I'm not doing any color critical work on it either, so that could have a bearing on it as well.

 

Not sure what you mean by this. I love my 2014 blade.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

No, I'm just saying just because people are critical of Razer they are not trolls. They are often consumers who have been disappointed with them for a variety of valid reasons. The screen looked fine at first- but it developed more bleeding in the centre of the screen as time went on. It wasn't visible from directly ahead, but if you stood up with, say, a light blue background, I saw what looked like water stains all over the screen. Maybe try it- it isn't visible on black, but a light blue will show it if it's developed.

Is it the same screen exactly from 2014-2016?!

 

Isnt 2014 screen a TN panel? And yes the 2015 QHD screen is BS. viewing angles are bad, colors look washed out. Changed to the 2015FHD model and never looked back. Better colors and viewing angles to me. Have to live with 8gb ram though.

Hope 2016 blade comes with a better QHD screen, or have a FHD model that speced the same so we have a choice.

 

2014 has the 1800p IGZO touch panel. They're was also a 1080p IPS I think. I like the panel, never going back to FHD now that both my notebooks have hidpi.

The 2013 blade had a crappy 900p TN panel.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

Razer is an interesting company because the 'Cult of Razer' seems to have manifested into a real thing. Some users are so blindly supportive of them and willing to overlook flaws and issues with their products that it sometimes becomes difficult to find objective opinions.

Just wrapped up two weeks of using my friend's Blade 2015 QHD+ while he sampled my XPS 15 4K. Both of us came away with the conclusion that color gamut and viewing angles are both considerably better on the XPS.

 

I can relate to the viewing angles, but I'm always straight on it, I don't look at it at odd angles with any regularity so it doesn't mean much in my day to day. I don't have to move too far to see a shift, but like I said it's not a deal breaker.

I will definitely say I had to calibrate it, it was way better from a color accuracy standpoint after I did that. The default calibration from the factory was a tad saturated.

The reason the XPS is off my list is the GPU is too weak for my uses.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

I post at the Razer Systems forum a fair amount. The things you see there from their fans are both funny and bewildering- fiercely arguing that Razer can treat its customers however they want, constantly repeating threads on "make the Razer stealth 2017 with a dGPU and bigger screen!", people with apparently no money taking out loans to buy a ****ing laptop; if your 3dmark firestrike score is higher than your bank account you need to sort your life out.