 When the Razer Blade Stealth was first released several years ago, I was like... WTF, Razer? A laptop without a dedicated graphics card? I thought you guys were like, for gamers, by gamers! What's your excuse? But then, between the hardware upgrades and, whether I like to admit it or not, the benefits of not having a GPU, like a slimmer design and better battery life, the stealth actually grew on me to the point where, for the last year, my Blade Stealth has been in my backpack, going everywhere this job takes me. So, needless to say, I was stoked about the new 2018 Razer Blade Stealth. That is, until I got one. It will not be going into my backpack... And I guess we should take a look at why. Save money on games and help support charity through Humble Bundle. You can learn more through our partner link in the video description. I'm still really undecided about Razer's new boxy design language that's made its way from the Razer phone over to their laptops in the last year and a half. On the Blade 15, it made a bit more sense to me because there are thermal advantages. Oh, and I do appreciate the slimness of the bezels, but on the Stealth, I'm gonna be carrying it with me, like, in my hand a lot, and the sharp edges just aren't as comfortable in the hand. Subjectively, though, it looks damn fine with an exceptionally rigid chassis and an overall premium feel, and they removed the lighting on the rear Razer logo, a change that will help users avoid the potentially embarrassing situation where they show up for an important meeting and they've got like this weird gamery looking thing on the table. Compared to last year's model, there have been some sacrifices made to the I.O., HDMI being the notable cut, but with two USB-C connections now, one with Thunderbolt 3 and both of them with charging support, along with two USB Type A's and a headphone jack, it's hard to complain too much about the extra dongle that you'd have to carry. What I will complain about, though, is the increase in power. Yes, you heard me right. I hate that Razer made the Stealth more powerful and more power-hungry by including a dedicated GPU. I mean, sure, the MX150 4GB is better than nothing, but the issue here is that it's not in an experience-changing way. Like, casual games like Rocket League and Dota, they will run, in some cases, multiple times faster than onboard graphics, but for anything AAA, you can expect to run at 720p resolution, low settings, and then be thrilled if you get over 30 frames per second. One of Razer's other justifications here is that it improves performance for content creators, for, you know, editing videos on the go and such, but I just don't see it. Like, the quad-core Core i7 CPU is able to hold its own pretty well in light video editing on the old Stealth or in the Surface Laptop, too, but our guidance has still always been that if you want to do any serious video editing, then you should consider either the full-blown Razer Blade or something like the Asus Strix Scar, which has six cores and a full-blown gaming GPU for the same price. Which brings us perfectly to the most offensive part of all of this, the fact that the MX150 is a $200 upgrade option that must be selected in order to get touchscreen functionality, along with the 4K display option, which adds an extra $300 on top of the already ballooning price. On that note, I hate the direction that they've gone with the display options in general here. I mean, sure, 4K is awesome and makes a difference on a 77-inch TV, but on a 13-inch laptop, those extra pixels just mostly reduce battery life. And the most galling part of this is that Razer already had found a great balance. My 2017 model has an 1800p panel that has a noticeable boosting clarity over 1080p without the drawbacks of 4K. And it has touch. I mean, if they were gonna change things up, why not do something good? Like put in a taller display, like on the new MacBook Air and the Surface Laptop, to increase productivity. You know, that second reason why it has a dedicated GPU. I mean, they added some stuff that we've been asking for, like Windows Hello Facial Recognition, which is......IMHO, the best way to unlock a laptop currently, but then they just continue to do more things that are frustrating. Like the webcam next to it. It's pretty schmah, to put it mildly. And speaking of schmah, the keyboard. It's great that they were able to backlight the secondary functions. I was really excited when I saw this at CES, but the layout sucks and the switches are inconsistent. So to start, again, the new boxy design means that people with larger hands will actually have their palms rest on the sharp edge of the laptop. So we're not off to a great start here. And while the switches, I would say, have above-average stabilization and a nice tactile feel, if a little bit mushy, the tactile bump happens before the actual key actuation. And the actuation force is noticeably different from one key to the next. So I ended up having to kind of Hulk mode type in order to make sure that every stroke got registered. Honestly, though, I could live with all of that if it wasn't for the layout. Like, who thought this shift key was okay? I would actually like to speak to that individual, and I will personally pay for him or her to attend both a typing and a grammar workshop so that he or she can become more familiar with the home row method of typing and the importance of proper capitalization. Like, I've gotten used to weird layouts before, and I'll probably do it again, but this one is just... It's worse in ways that are just unnecessary. Like, if they had just kept the key layout, this keyboard might have still gotten an A- or a B+. But as it is, I think we're in C-plus territory. But let's bring it back for a moment, because you know what gets a solid A-plus? This trackpad. Every other Windows notebook maker should be paying close attention right now and taking note of how Razer used all of the available vertical space to enlarge their touchpad. It really does make a big difference, and it's awesome. Another area where Razer has beaten out most of the competition is upgradability. Removing the stealth's bottom gives you easy access to the solid 54-watt-hour battery, which should be able to keep you going for a full workday, assuming you're not gaming or video editing, haha. And you can upgrade the M.2 drive as well. And I mean, okay, the RAM is still soldered, but... That really does say more about the state of the industry as a whole than it does about sort of Razer, because I'm finding myself saying at least they didn't glue the whole thing together. Microsoft. Bottom line, though, is this. I've actually been pretty hard on the stealth for this entire review, and some people at Razer might even use the word unfair, but there is a reason for it. The price. If you're making the most expensive Windows Ultrabook, you also need to be making the best Windows Ultrabook, which means that we're gonna go a little harder on it, doesn't it? So the base price for this thing without the GPU is $1,400. And for that kind of money, you could buy an XPS 13 or a Surface Laptop 2. You get the same performance, along with better keyboards and screens in either case. Then, if you do throw the GPU in here, which I guess is Razer's kind of main differentiating point, you are up to $1,600 now. For that money, you can buy a Surface Laptop 2 and a Nintendo Switch, since then you can get a better notebook experience and a better casual gaming experience. Or you could even get a 13-inch MacBook Pro, since somehow that's starting to look like a reasonably priced option now. And then, if you upgrade to the 4K touch display, which is when this thing does finally become a very competent notebook, no touch on the lower end ones? Come on! It's up to $1,900 US dollars! At that price, you could get a Surface Book 2 13-inch with the much better GTX 1050 Ti, or like, basically any other perfectly good notebook, a Nintendo Switch, and take your mom to a nice dinner or something. It really does seem like a better way to spend your hard-earned dollars to me, since for my part, even not having paid for either of these, it's pretty clear to me which one is going back in my backpack, at least until LG tries to knock it out with the next gram. 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