Razer Blade – World’s First True Gaming Laptop
by GL News
You may recall that, back in January, we told you about the ongoing development of Razer’s mini portable gaming system – The Switchblade. Well, PAX Prime saw yet another unveiling, but this time it was less about going pocket sized and more about performance and portability… a full size, 1080p gaming laptop without the hassle of dragging a desktop replacement around.
Weighing in at under 7lb (ok, JUST under at 6.97lb), and being only 22mm high (0.88 inches), this looks to be the system of choice for anyone who doesn’t want to shrink an inch or two throughout the day as they carry their gaming lappy from one place to another. Take it from someone who knows, and who still has the shoulder pain from Gamescom to prove it.
In terms of specs, it’s pretty damned impressive and we’ll list these later BUT it’s the attention to detail that caught my eye more than anything else. The inclusion of ten custom keys that we saw on the Switchblade means that your keys change as you fire up another game, depending on how you’ve set it up. Icons represent functions, perfectly themed to the game, making it easier to flick around without having to find your way through the normal keyboard or on-screen menus. Getting excited enough yet? Yeah well, what about the mini LCD screen to the side of the keyboard – when you’re not using a mouse, it essentially becomes your glide pad much like you’d navigate around with an iPad or any of the more recent touch-screen tech… but as soon as you plug your mouse in it becomes an extension of your screen where you can map it to handle specific areas such as having your inventory or map open at all times while you play.
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It’s important to note, however, that games will have to support the Switchblade UI to be able to take advantage of the mini LCD for in-game components and we learned that Battlefield 3 is one such game. With Bethesda pushing the Xbox 360 above all else for Skyrim, we don’t yet know if it’ll be compatible but it’s certainly the type of game that could benefit from such technology.
As someone who has continually grown more towards PC gaming over the last couple of years, and who has been pretty excited about the Switchblade coming out whilst pumping iron to help carry an 18.5in Toshiba Qosmio X500 around… my interest is beyond piqued right now. In fact, if I wasn’t still so sore from carrying my gear around Cologne, I’d be walking it to wherever they have these babies in storage and spending a night dangling from the ceiling in order to get my hands on some high-tech goodies. Eat your heart out, Chuck!
The Razer Blade is set to hit stores in the USA for $2799.99 which, considering the tech, isn’t all that bad. For more information, and to watch a video that may just make you drool, check out www.razerzone.com/blade
- 2.8GHz Intel® Core™ i7 2640M Processor
- 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 Memory
- 17.3″ LED Backlit Display (1920×1080)
- NVIDIA GeForce® GT 555M with NVIDIA® Optimus™ Technology
- 2GB Dedicated GDDR5 Video Memory
- Built-in HD Webcam
- Integrated 60Wh Battery
- 320GB 7200rpm SATA HDD
- Wireless Network 802.11 b/g/n Compatible
- 16.81″ (Width) x 10.9″ (Depth) x 0.88″ (Height); 6.97lbs (Weight)
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Nothing to say except…I want one. This along with Razer’s new 7.1 headphones, dribble worthy.
How does it feel to say “$2799.99 which, considering the tech, isn’t all that bad” when you know that’s a lie. LAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWLAWL I bet you think Alienware is worth the money and you probably think buying prebuilt comps is better than building your own.
Oh wait. Not surprised that comments have to be approved by a moderator. What a joke! Censoring whatever you don’t want people to say. Ha! Talk about promotion for Razer!
Actually, all comments are moderated because we get several hundred a day and over 90% of them are spam. We don’t censor legit comments, regardless of whether they’re positive or negative (unless they’re deliberately inflammatory, and that has only happened twice in 20 months). Considering I wrote this particular news piece, and my current gaming laptop was £1800 (which is more than $2799) and the Blade is more powerful than this machine that I bought around six months ago… yeah, that’s my own opinion but I DO think it’s a pretty good price and I’d buy one. You can disagree if you like, but we don’t write what we do to make everyone happy and pander to those who feel like they have a right to tell us whether we’re right or wrong… we write what we do because we’re independent and proud to be, and our opinions are our own. As for Alienware… absolutely not. Any twat can buy a Clevo direct from China and re-badge it to be their own machine, which is exactly what Alienware do. If you’d ever considered to read any of the PC articles on this site, you’d also know that we don’t buy pre-built systems and build our own.
Shit. The. Bed.
I want one, I might sell the car, or remorgage.
Pretty impressive laptop my only concern is over heating, with all that high tech stuff in it it must get pretty damn hot heck my laptop can get pretty hot when gaming on it and it’s not a impressive laptop which is why I use a cooler all the time
Does anyone know what temperatures this gets up to? Not that I’ll ever buy 1 as I don’t really game that much and when I do my PC is perfectly fine at playing the games I like .
I. Want. !.
Forgive him Markuz, for he knows not why he trolls.
Mmmmmmm, do want.
Quite an impressive laptop
Wow, do people really pay that much to play games? I knew it was a healthy market but never quite realised just how healthy. How long would a laptop of that quality realistically last before it was obsolete?
Can’t speak for anyone else as some people may prefer to buy new as often as possible, whereas others obviously prefer to make their money last as long as possible but my previous Qosmio gaming laptop probably lasted me five or six years, the Qosmio X500 that I’ve got now will hopefully last me as long… but I could also happily replace it in six months if I wasn’t so damned skint. I mean, only six months after I got my X500 there was a newer version with a better CPU and GPU which would obviously make a difference in gameplay but, again, it depends on how fussy you are.
That said… a decent laptop CAN be upgraded internally. It’s only the shit ones like Dell, HP, Compaq etc that are stuck with whatever they come with.