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Razer Announces Dedicated Gaming Laptop
An anonymous reader writes "After recently running a full-page ad in the WSJ saying, 'PC gaming is not dead,' Razer has now announced a new laptop, the Blade, for the express purpose of playing video games. Its most distinctive feature is what they call the 'Switchblade' UI, which is an area next to the keyboard that has a multi-touch LCD screen and 10 dynamic keys. The screen can receive and display information from games, and the keys can show unique icons particular to the game you're playing. The requisite hardware for a gaming laptop makes it weigh almost seven pounds, but it's less than an inch thick. Another distinctive feature is the price — at $2,800, they price a lot of gamers right out of the market. As the article says, 'It's a gamble, but an exciting one.'"
but "gaming laptops" where never alive. The concept is kind of silly given the rate at which gamers upgrade hardware and how static a notebooks configuration is.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
It's spec'd at around a $1400 normal gaming rig (that's being generous). It sure looks cool though. Thin too. You have to wonder how good the cooling system is on that thing...
I'll stick to gaming on a desktop for now, thanks.
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
Too expensive, but damn that is a badass looking laptop. You could bring it to the hipster coffee shop and look cooler than all the mac users.
I always wonder how they make those work? I am having a hard time finding games that support dual screen in a way that would be useful, how do they get games to actually display useful things at that area?
At $2800 and those specs, I'd expect two SSDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation
"320GB 7200rpm SATA HDD"
For a gaming laptop? With games now taking 10-20 GB of space each? You'll either need a hell of an connection and stay deleting/redownloading using steam or whatever, or an external drive which will ruin the look.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Its gorgeous. Simply beautiful. I know I won't buy it. I like games, but if I want to PC game, I can get a great experience for so much less money with a desktop. Also I don't have to worry about switching out hardware nearly as much. If I wanted to spend that much money on a good-looking laptop I would get another Macbook Pro... then it will have the added benefit of running OS X. Of course it wouldn't be a gaming laptop then, but who really needs a gaming laptop AND has almost 3 grand to spend on it? My guess is this is SUPER niche.
I own and use a gaming laptop. I travel for business on a regular basis, and spend about 20 weeks a year living in various hotels. Being able to play a few rounds of Starcraft or TF2 with my friends in the evening is well worth the $1400/3 yrs I end up spending on hardware.
It's a niche market, to be sure, but I'm glad it's being served. (Although this particular laptop is well outside my price range.)
Touché :)
Last I remember, it was only the heat that was a problem. What with, you know, extreme heat temporarily reducing sperm count. Also, as far as I know, pillows don't block electromagnetic radiation.
And they are especially useful for all those times you are looking at your keyboard while playing a game. I know I spend at least 50% of the time I play video games staring at the keyboard thinking "What does W do again?" Now it'll change to an arrow or a picture of a person walking or something.
Up until now, gaming computers really dropped the ball because they were only displaying beautiful game content on the screen. Razer has stepped it up a notch by bringing game content to where your eyes are always looking: the keyboard.
I take back everything terrible I ever said about Razer. It is now obvious that they have a firm understanding of how gamers use their input devices.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
What's going to convince a game developer to spend significant resources to develop a second-screen interface for the limited number of people who buy this laptop? It's doomed to live in the same world as Aureal A3D or other hardware sound accelerators, non-HID joysticks, or any other technology that never had a big enough market to be worth developing for.
$2800 bucks and they didn't even think it out? Most gamers are right handed, and PC gamers still predominately use a mouse in their right hand. so the special keypad should have been on the left, not on the right side of the keyboard (or for $2800 bucks I would expect to see a keyboard system that would let the special keypad be moved to either side).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I admit, I loved when N-gage failed. Its always fun to see how badly people this assertive can do. Its never ceased to astound me.
I wonder if they have any neo-geos or virtual boys for sale too
"PC gaming is dying! Quick, save it by giving us all your money!"
Also, as far as I know, pillows don't block electromagnetic radiation.
No of course not. You need pyramids to do that.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Gaming on a laptop with a "mobile" GPU sucks compared to the discrete GPU, unless there are some FutureMark 3DMark numbers that show otherwise ...
Everyone these days thinks adding a touchscreen is innovative. unless the touchscreen is the only screen, it makes no sense.
When playing a game, your eyes should be locked on one screen only, with some periphery. If you have to look down at a smooth surface to find out how much health you have left, or to launch an attack, you're going to die. Look at all the kid who whine about playing on a touchpad.
Asus has them beat by having a full touchscreen keyboard laptop. And you know what? That's the worst laptop gaming rig ever. So I guess this thing comes in second, even in the "dumb idea" race.
Gaming is not an adjective to describe a laptop. Anyone that is willing to spend that much for a gaming computer, they will build their own desktop that would put their laptop to shame.
I think it's cool. Gaming PCs have always been expensive. This one looks pretty good and should avoid sneers and giggles if you take it out in public. I won't be buying one, of course, because I don't have that kind of money to drop on games, but I WANT it.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Most pillows block light.
Thank you, Doctor Bob, for not telling us how to remove our viruses from our gaming laptops.
Gaming laptops don't make a lot of sense, as they tend to get very hot. Heat kills batteries (both energy loss discharge and long-term battery cell-killing damage). And they're not good for your health because (if you're male) they can cook your testicles and (either sex) they can cause burns that you don't tend to notice until it's too late. So if you can't hold it in your lap, and it can't hold a charge (because of high energy demands), and the costs are multiples of a desktop's for the same specs, and it's not conveniently portable due to weight, why would you ever buy a gaming laptop?
That's all I have to say. Show me a laptop that will let me run video cards in 3 or 4 way SLI. Oh, and my water cooled screaming 4 monitor system costs less than your shitty laptop. About half as much.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I would like to take that cancer-and-subluxation-reducing pillow and put it over your face and smother you with it, Bob.
The specs on this laptop will... sell mice. Razer mice. It's about a splashy statement which builds brand cred: fuck gray commodity crates, go with the sexy people who are super 1337. They can sell maybe 5 of these, and
And it'll probably work.
don't know what the subject is about.... call the poster a troll
Simple, widely used tactic on slashdot...
I have an Asus G73JH-A1 with one of the HD's upgraded to a SSD from http://www.xoticpc.com/.
It has a better processor and cost $1000 or so less.
in all fairness, that's about the same price as a 17" macbook with the highest ram/cpu options. the apple tax and better hardware probably cancel each other out, so it's not like they're off in lala land completely.
Dude, it's doctor bob. you must be new here.
Amazing. They are awfully proud of something that doesn't even include an SSD, thus bottlenecking the entire system.
The setup I'd want is even more expensive than this one though.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Damn that's expensive, but it looks really sharp. I really like the idea behind the multitouch panel to the right of the keyboard.
I'll stick with my M11x R3 very similar specs, plays games well (Crysis even plays) and its portable (11.6", though I would like it better if it were 10"). 10hr battery life when using word etc, 2.5hr under max load (Crysis, BC2, etc) and it only cost $1100. The thing is solid too (not too afraid to drop it). Easy access to all hardware on the inside. (Still can't upgrade the CPU/GPU/Mobo but very few laptops can). I normally hate Dell, but this laptop is the best laptop I have ever owned.
These 17"+ overpriced monsters may look nice, but why? What is the market when you can get better for less?
I dunno, their mouse *hardware* seems of good quality. My left-handed Deathadder's seen many many drops onto a hard floor, and it still works.
The Windows drivers however... I've heard they can be poor. I've had little trouble with the Linux drivers(once I got razerd compiled and working) over the last year+ I've used it.
I've had my laptop (http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Gaming_Powerhouse/G50V/#specifications) [asus.com] for a bit, and it's run just about every game I've wanted it to. Crysis 2, Civ 5, the new Space Marine demo, Assassin's Creed, Witcher 2, etc...
Any issues I've had aren't related to graphics or hard disk performance. The terrible battery life (30 min, maybe), the tremendous heat and comparitively poor airflow for the graphics chip (especially running DX10) and the 7 pound weight force a machine like mine - and the one in the article - to act less like a laptop and more like a portable desktop.
Knowing this up front definitely puts a computer like this in perspective. It's still one of the best purchases I've ever made, though, because I did my research first.
With moderate sucess, they managed to pull it off with great fun. But they are a little more modest with an average $2,000 pricepoint and nothing too rediculus.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
PC gaming never died. If anything, it's grown since Steam. Their crappy little gaming laptop isn't going to change shit.
You know that Dr. Bob can cure your laptop of viruses by carefully manipulating the hinge. In fact you should entrust your laptop to Dr. Bob on a weekly basis to keep your laptop virus free and in good health.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
...when Razer actually makes their first gaming product.
Backlighting a 6KRO USB keyboard does not make it 'gaming'.
That thing is hot. Actually just the keyboard is hot! I want that keyboard in standalone form!
Balderdash!
Now, I'm actually in their target market - I generally game on a laptop, and I'm actually looking for a replacement (current one is ~3 years old, starting to run current games badly). But this one isn't good. Why?
1. Heat. There's barely any vents on this, and a LOT of hot gear on the inside. I wouldn't be surprised if this has actual problems functioning like it is.
2. Battery life. 60Wh sounds like a lot, but there's a TON of stuff trying to eat that battery. The CPU draws 25 watts, the GPU 35, 7200RPM hard drives tend to eat battery quickly, and I don't even want to think about how much power that big backlit screen draws. My laptop lasted about 2 hours with 40Wh, and it drew about half that much power. I'd put money on this thing lasting under an hour under a heavy gaming load.
3. Specs too low. The GPU is good, and the amount and speed of RAM is good, but the CPU is really lacking. Dual-core? Not good - for $3K, I'd expect quad- or even hexa-core. Sure, it's clocked well, but remember, half the time a laptop CPU is running at a reduced clock to save power.
4. Hard drive space. 320GB? My laptop from 3 years ago had that much, for half the price! There's no excuse not to have at least 500GB. Hell, put a Momentus XT in there - 500GB of hard drive, and a 4GB SSD in the same package. Or do it yourself - there's laptop-sized terabyte hard drives out there now, put one of those in beside a 16GB SSD and you'll still both impressive performance and capacity. And trust me - gamers need a lot of hard drive space. Some games I've played will suck up 20-40GB, and I haven't seen a non-indie release in years that was under 10GB. So that's AT MOST 30 games, possibly as low as 10. Not going to happen.
5. Gimmicky. The touchscreen/buttons that replaced the number pad are honestly just tacky. You'd need to get game devs to specifically support it in their games. If you had made it compatible with the G19 or G15 keyboard, you might have gotten somewhere, but at this point, it's a gimmick that won't get much dev support unless it sells REALLY well. It's not even positioned well - most games use the left half of the keyboard, where the WSAD is. Reaching over to the touchscreen would be like putting key macros on the number pad - slow, hard to hit accurately, and difficult to use. It should have been on the left of the keyboard, or maybe in that big empty space below it. On my current laptop (and most others), the trackpad is below the spacebar; I often use it with my thumb when gaming, mainly to turn faster in the tanks in BC2. You could move it to the bottom, and then have room for a proper number pad as well.
Whatever library they are giving to game makers to make that keyboard display happen, let it ALSO display the same control surface on a smartphone or iPad with custom app... then game makers would be a lot more inclined to add support.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Depending on the pillow, of course. Looking at wikipedia, I see that light falls under EMR, which I probably knew. But still, how much light does the bottom of your laptop give off that you need a pillow to block it?
Description from the article:
2.8GHz Intel® CoreTM i7 2640M Processor
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 Memory
17.3" LED Backlit Display (1920x1080)
NVIDIA GeForce® GT 555M with NVIDIA® OptimusTM 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)
It will ship in the fourth quarter of 2011 for $2,799.99.
Cost of an actual gaming laptop with a GTX and SSD $2400 http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Xplorer_X7_Xtreme_S2_Notebook/
While some may or may not like CyberPower, my main points are that you can't sell "gamers" a gaming system without a GTX card, the GT's just don't cut it and while a 320GB 7200 rpm drive is alright, you can get a 128GB SSD for about the same price, maybe around $30-50 more. No one uses anywhere near 320GB on their primary drive. I have Win7 with Office 2k10 Pro, Adobe CS Design Suite 5, LOTRO HR, DDO HR, WoW, Rift, EVE, STO, CO, PotBS, LoL and numerous web/net apps installed on my laptop and I'm using only 140GB of space.
Ave Molech Setting
serious gamers don't use laptops, for obvious reasons. This is just really, really, stupid. Better to just make a keyboard with those extra buttons built in. This makes no sense when you can build a far superior gaming machine for a fraction of the cost. But I'm sure it will be successful since lots of people have $2800 to blow on a "gaming" laptop these days. They sure showed the consoles who's boss! Only an idiot would waste $300 on an xbox when you can have this gem for 10x the price.
Who do they think they are? Apple?
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
I have a 2.5 year old XPS M1730. Maxed out, the invoice was $3800.00, so the price isnt totally out of line. SLI, Blu Ray, 8GB, 2x320HDD, etc etc, but of course the 1730 is quite thick.
The Dell however is really a full blown DTR at almost 12lbs. The Razer is much more svelt.
I'd seriously look at the Razer if I were in the market.
You insensitive clod... my laptop is nuclear powered! It glows green in the dark... ;-)
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
Why such a slow GPU, small screen and shitty keyboard? That overpriced thing certainly doesn't look like it would be good for gaming.
Can't find my password right now, so I'm posting this Anon
But I have to say: WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE RAZOR GUYS THINKING?
Look at the specs:
(Target dates never slip right? Where did I put that Duke Nuke'em receipt?)
Whereas I bought this HP laptop back in May (2011):
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2925383
(Was $875 before I added 6770M graphics, Bluetooth, & 9-cell battery upgrade.)
Now granted, I got the older lower-rez screen. (By choice, I might add. HP was & is offering the higher resolution 1920x1080 screens if you want them. I preferred a higher framerate and lower price.)
And granted, less RAM (6vs8), less video RAM (1vs2), and a slower processor (2.0vs2.8). Of course you'd expect to see that with a 6-9 month time discrepancy. And HP does offer upgrades on all of these, even the video RAM, for a little extra.
In contrast, the graphics cards are quite close in capability. Source: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
(I run LOTRO with all settings maxed at >50fps in the busy zones...)
Pricewise, you can buy **THREE** of the HPs months ago for the price of one of the new Razers next Christmas.
What's more, fedora installed on my HP relatively smoothly. (Ok, granted, I do need to unload & reload the hda_intel_foo kernel sound driver to get the speakers to turn off when headphones are plugged in. And I am still working on getting the 3D hardware accelerated graphics to engage properly under linux. But overall, it's surprisingly tolerant of Linux out of the box! And with a 750 gig harddrive, I have room to play around!)
One thing I would like to mention: Imaging (dd if=/dev/sda of=./sda_image) the harddrive under Linux showed my HP laptop's harddrive was failing out of the box. (10k errors in the SMART log are kind of a giveaway.) Yet every test under Win7 showed the drive was fine. Even SMART tests. My kudos and thanks to HP, who believed me when I said my drive was failing, didn't even blink when I mentioned using Linux on it, verified the failure via BIOS testing, overnight mailed me the new drive, and let me replace it myself. That was sweet of them!
They on crack.
Makes apole look value
The best part is, pillows actually block heat from escaping from laptops, causing them to overheat.
I am surprised he didnt mention a cure for this low sperm count by recommending you see a "crack doctor".
I own one of each across their entire line, from Boomslang (their first mouse, released in 1999 which rightfully bankrupted them) to Imperator (which should have bankrupted them a second time!), and everything in between. It's all cheap, plasticky, worthless, junk. They slap their name on something and market the shizzle out of it, they're basically Red-Bull. If you have an eye for quality, it won't be looking at any Razer products.
Yikes. I'm sorry to say, you might have a little more to worry about than just the temporary sperm count reduction.
I spend about that much for a Macbook Pro every 2-3 years, so the price isn't crazy.
What is crazy is spending that much money on a Razer product. Razer gear is real hit and miss in terms of build quality.
They know ergonomics better than anyone else in the business, but no fucking way I'd spend that money on a Razer. As a long time gamer, I have lost confidence in their ability to build a quality product. I know down in my gut that the trackpad's going to lose a lot of it's functionality in a few months, when it decides to actually work.
Fuck that, Razer. You've taken too much of my money and then gave me shitty service. I pay Apple prices to Apple because of their customer service. Razer customer support? HA HA HA.
3000 dollars and its only a 320 GB hard drive? WTF?
If i am gaming on a laptop i am using a mouse and not a touch pad. You don't think there is enough room in the laptop bag for a mouse do you? right or left handed even.
You know, us because i's called a "laptop" doesn't mean you have to put it on your lap.
It's like someone took a macbook and customised it for a teenager from 1996 and it comes complete with the shitty "i'm so manly" name of Razer Blade it's like it could be a graphics card. I'm hoping they'll make an extreme version.
Most games are around 8-10GB, because they have to fit on a DVD. WoW is my biggest at about 30GB, that and starcraft II (about 12gb) and are on my main drive (74gb raptor). I have another 74gb drive for my steam folder and i have, as far as large modernish games...
Borderlands
CS:S
DoD:S
L4D2
ME2
Portal 2
TF2
and about 20 other smaller games installed. Unless you cheaped out and have like an 80GB SSD or something, space isnt really an issue for your average gamer for games at least.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This guy made an outstanding post about the new laptop and why you shouldn't even consider buying it even if you got the money for it: http://doughbills.blogspot.com/2011/08/razer-we-will-save-pc-gaming-with-our.html
Razer won't survive if they keep this up
Dude, it's doctor bob. you must be new here.
This predecessor to the modern game of squash,Badminton Racquet is played with 30? inch (775 mm) wooden racquets. While squash equipment has evolved in the intervening century, tennis racquets have changed little.
it appears we have a serial, long winded troll in our midst.