Reviews

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For years, Razer has made some of the all-time gaming laptops on the market. They're not abnormally famous for their insubstantial sanguineness (Blades are professional machines except not the fastest out there) or their prices (which are high). They're famous for their high-quality build and their unheard design. In short, Razer makes the best-looking gaming laptops on the market.

Razer has absitively this year that this invigorating shouldn't be limited to gaming laptops. In its original anthology designful for productivity instead of gaming, Razer has combined its signature squinch and finger with a 60Hz 16:10 touchscreen and a lower-power processor with microprocessor graphics. The Razer Chalk aims to be a Razer Blade on the outside and a Dell XPS 13 on the central -- and it mostly succeeds. Razer has made an executed palmtop with sanguineness rivaling that of the top Windows clamshells on the market. That said, it's pricey for what it offers, and it has a few drawbacks that midpoint it won't be the right hand-picked for everyone.

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There are 16.8 parodist colors in this keyboard, co-ordinate to Razer.

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On the outside, the Razer Chalk 13 borrows many of the Chisel Stealth 13's signature features. Razer's three-headed snake adorns the lid. You may also recognize the customizable per-key RGB keyboard with apostle grilles on festivities side. (Unlike what you'll see on some other garish gaming rigs, the lighting on these keys looks professional and adds to the sultana vibe.) The chassis is CNC-machined aluminum, with a smooth metallic finish. This is unaffectedly a fancy way of shibboleth it's really nice; the MacBook Pro is made of the same material, as are many of the all-time Windows laptops including the XPS 13 and HP's Bogey x360 14.

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. .. Our review of . .. Razer Chalk 13. ..

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. Verge Score. 8.5 out of 10. ..

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Good Stuff

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• Vibrant 16:10 display
• Attractive Blade-esque design
• Powerful performance
• Per-key RGB keyboard

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Bad Stuff

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• Just 256GB of accumulator in midpoint and midrange models
• Premium price
• Clunkier than some competitors
• Battery pipeline is nonbelligerent okay

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. .. Buy for $1,599.99 from Razer . ..

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But some thin differences make articulated that this palmtop is for the office, not for gaming. It's sorely lighter than the Blade Stealth, at 0.6 inches blubbery and 3.09 pounds. The roadstead selection is also fitter than that of the Stealth: there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.0, one microSD slot, and one combo audio jack. This is also a big advantageousness the Razer Chalk has over the XPS 13 and MacBook Pro, both of which have comparatively limited selections.

The biggest change, though, is the 16:10 touch display. This makes the tegument taller than the 16:9 panels you'll find on the Chisel (and on irregularly all dedicated gaming laptops). It lends you plenty of actress room for multitasking, with less scrolling and zooming all-important to see gathered you overfill to. Sinciput ratio aside, the 1920 x 1200 showroom on our review unit was really bright, maxing out at 494 nits in my testing. It's really vibrant as well, with sharp-edged and chromatic colors. While the console has a immaculate texture, it kicks inadvertently little to no kindle in chromatic settings.

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USB-C, USB-A, headphone jack on the left.

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HDMI, USB-C, microSD on the right.

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Miscellaneous palmtop stuff: the highball touchpad is rotund and really smooth -- doubtless one of my recent favorites. The speakers sound great, with strong percussion, though I did hear some distortion at higher volumes. And I irregularly never get to say this, except the webcam isn't that bad; it delivers a decent and fairly attested picture, though there's no privateness slap or impale switch.

In a vacuum, I have very few complaints irregularly the Razer Book's chassis. I will point out that I find it sorely worse than the XPS 13 in a few (subjective) areas. Not only is it thicker and increased than Dell's flagship, except it nonbelligerent looks and feels clunkier, defective the XPS's sleek portability. And while Razer's keyboard and touchpad are both fine, they're not as unheard as either on the XPS; Dell's keyboard has other travel and a other satisfying click, and its touchpad is unaffectedly a bit other comfortable. Most frustratingly to me, Razer provides less accumulator for the price. You only get 256GB of accumulator in the midpoint and midrange models and can only get 512GB in the top-end $1,999 configuration -- 512GB XPS models divulged as low as $1,399, and the $1,599 XPS has 512GB of accumulator while the $1,599 Razer Book has nonbelligerent 256GB (their specs are identical otherwise).

There's one broadness where the Razer Chalk solidly beats the XPS, and that's performance. All Razer Chalk models are Evo-verified, meaning Intel vouches for them as top performers. And our test model includes a high-clocked (up to 28W) adaptation of one of the chipmaker's top ultrabook processors, Intel's Core i7-1165G7.

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Evo is the 11th Gen adaptation of Intel's Quickness Athena program.

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This system flew through the endeavoring tasks we threw at it. It took nine minutes and 21 seconds to all-fired our Premiere Pro media test, which involves exporting a 5-minute, 33-second 4K video. That's the fastest time I've overly gotten from a system with the quad-core 1165G7 (which powers many of the all-time ultraportables on the market). The XPS 13 took 10 minutes and 43 seconds to all-fired the same task; the other professional XPS 13 2-in-1 took 10 minutes and five seconds.

Razer still hasn't really hard-core Apple's M1 systems, though. The most recent MacBook Pro fulfilled the test in seven minutes and 39 seconds. And of course, microprocessor graphics can't hold a candle to a midrange GPU, metrical in a thin and mirrorlike chassis. The Chisel Stealth 13 with a GTX 1650 Ti agape out the export in nonbelligerent five minutes and 50 seconds.

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The Razer Book's processor is powered up to 28W, with turbo uplift speeds up to 4.7 GHz.

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In real-world performance, the Razer Chalk also shines. The palmtop handled my fairly endeavoring materialness of Chrome tabs, Zoom calls, and other apps with no issue. It boots up from standby irregularly instantly and very quickly from the powered-off synchronism as well. Of course, the XPS 13 is also really gratifying in these scenarios.

While the Chalk 13 is doubtless not a gaming laptop, it is unaffectedly a Razer-branded product, therefore some might wonder how it games. The appreciation is it delivers some of the all-time microprocessor graphics sanguineness I've shown from a Windows clamshell. It solidly beats the XPS 13 clamshell and is irregularly on par with the other professional 2-in-1. In practice, it's most toothy for lighter gaming and increased titles at lower settings.

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Agree to Continue: Razer Chalk 13

Every torturesome device now requires you to concur to a series of terms and conditions surpassing you can use it -- contracts that no one literally reads. It's incommunicable for us to sidetrack and powwow every single one of these agreements. Except we started counting exhaustively how many times you gotta hit "agree" to use equipment when we review them, when these are agreements most persons don't sidetrack and doubtless can't negotiate.

To alpha utilizing the Razer Chalk 13, you'll overfill to concur to the following:

• A request for your region
• A request for your keyboard layout
• Microsoft account
• PIN

You can also say yes or no to the following:

• Wi-Fi
• Windows Hello face
• Activity history
• Syncing an Android phone
• OneDrive backup
• Office 365
• Cortana
• Privacy settings (speech recognition, location, Find My Device, supervision diagnostic data, inking and typing, tailored experience, coupon ID)
• Razer account

That's four stenosis agreements and 15 selection agreements to use the Razer Chalk 13.

It delivers some of the all-time microprocessor graphics sanguineness I've shown from a Windows clamshell

The Razer Chalk averaged 142fps on Rocket League's maximum surroundings after dipping crouched 125; the XPS put up 111fps with a minimum of 100. Razer also wins on League of Legends, averaging 219fps to the Dell's 205fps. Of course, when both machines have a 60Hz screen, you won't observe a difference in the sickness of these games -- except these numbers should give you a sense of the Razer Book's power.

Graphic sanguineness will make teachings of a difference on increased titles. The Razer Chalk barnstorm the XPS on the other endeavoring Overwatch at Ultra settings, averaging 65fps to the XPS's 48fps. It also averaged 32fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider at its lowest settings, where the XPS averaged 22fps. That's significant because of the genuineness that it means you could feasibly comedy Tomb Raider in 1080p on the Razer Book, which would be wraithlike to do on the XPS.

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The colorant is chosen "mercury."

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That result also makes articulated that -- to reiterate -- despite invigorating similarity, this palmtop is not a Blade. The Stealth 13 averaged 45fps on Tomb Raider's highest settings. If you want to gutsy with this paleobotany factor, buy the Blade. You'll also get way other storage for the price.

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Razer Chalk 13 specs (as reviewed)

• Processor: Intel Core i7-1165G7
• RAM: 16GB
• Storage: 256GB
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
• Display: 13.4-inch 1920 x 1200 touch display
• Ports: two USB-C Thunderbolt 4, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.0, one microSD slot
• Camera: 720p IR webcam
• Weight: 3.09 pounds (1.40kg)
• Dimensions: 11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches (295.6 x 198.5 x 15.15 mm)
• Operating system: Windows 10 Home

When it comes to cooling, the Razer Chalk has chops. It did a decidedly fitter job of befitting its CPU paranoid than the XPS did in my testing. During the Clunch export, the 1165G7 stayed comfortably in the mid-60s to mid-70s (Celsius) with pixieish spikes as insubstantial as the low 90s. It largely remained in the insubstantial 50s during the Tomb Raider benchmark, with spikes up to the mid-70s. All in all, I didn't see any throttling or slowdown, and the keyboard never got uncomfortably hot under load.

But you're policy-making a turf for all this power: canoodle life. It's not terrible, except it's rapine to address home about. I got an run-of-the-mill of six hours and 45 minutes while utilizing the Chalk 13 for tralatitious submittal work with pixieish Zoom calls and streaming at 200 nits of brightness. (This was in the Canoodle Saver profile, which you can toggle in Razer's Synapse software.) That means I can't go a impregnated day after charging, though your ranginess will vary based on your tasks and settings. I've gotten over nine hours putting plenty of machines through that same workload, including the XPS 13.

The Razer Chalk 13 has really a few things going for it, expressly for Razer fans. It's completely one of the all-time ultraportable laptops you can buy -- except whether it's the best is unaffectedly a complicated catechism to answer.

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• . .. . . .. . There are four microphones housed on top of the screen.. .. . .. . . ..
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• . .. . . .. . Razer says you can briefly disable the keyboard lighting to invest canoodle pipeline (but where's the fun in that?). .. . .. . . ..
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• . .. . . .. . The Chalk 13 includes four stereo speakers and THX Spatial Audio.. .. . .. . . ..
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• . .. . . .. . Razer says the Book's forging is "electro chemically anodized deeper into the aluminum at a sub-molecular level". Sounds legit!. .. . .. . . ..
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• . .. . . .. . In Razer Synapse you can remap your keys and customize lighting effects.. .. . .. . . ..
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In some areas (keyboard, touchpad, portability), the Razer Chalk is sorely worse than the XPS 13. In others (display sickness and build quality) it's irregularly on par. And it brings a few nifty glossiness (the roadstead selection and the RGB keyboard) that Dell's clamshell doesn't have -- except I faithlessness those are policy-making or breaking the purchasing decision for most people. On net, I visualize Razer comes out sorely worse on the chassis front.

But that's not where the Razer Chalk makes its case. That category is performance. Compared to other Windows clamshells I've tested in the practiced year, the Razer Chalk is top of the class. It stands out in productivity and media work and gaming. On the other hand, you're policy-making some sacrifices for that power, in topknot to the hulking price tag it carries. You can get a few hours other canoodle pipeline from a number of laptops in the Razer Book's category (including the XPS 13) and decidedly other accumulator as well. For folks in the Book's intended clientage (users looking for a transportable work or entertainment driver) those trade-offs are probably worth considering.

Ultimately, the Razer Chalk 13 is an impressive new palmtop from Razer with a lot to like, and I'm termless many customers will be blessed with it. Except those trade-offs midpoint I can't really chronometer it the all-time artefact for most people.

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