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.'"

Comments

PC gaming is not dead,

[Kenja]

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.

Re:PC gaming is not dead,

[vux984]

And I'd seriously buy one tomorrow if the touchpad was in the center instead of the right side...see Razer, I'm left handed... and precision mousing is like handwriting, drawing, pointing... I can use a mouse offhand for point-and-click stuff... but gaming? Sure I'll play you offhand... if you do too.

Too be fair they do have some abidextrous stuff and a left handed death adder which is actually not complete garbage... so they aren't the worst company, but a lot (although not all) of the RH only stuff could be ambidextrous with just a bit more effort.

The blade for example, could possibly have been engineered to let the end user swap the places of the keypad and mouse.... its a $2800 laptop, a few bucks to support this wouldn't have broken the bank. And it might have boosted sales by another 10%...

hmm

[nomadic]

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.

Re:hmm

[royallthefourth]

I can hear the girls swooning now.
"Oh, this? I paid 3x as much as anyone else pays for their laptop so that I can play lots of video games."

Re:Use a pillow for your health.

[Samantha Wright]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

Laptop gaming has its niche

[artor3]

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.)

The touch screen + dynamic buttons are cool.

[dreemernj]

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.

Giant Mistake

[frovingslosh]

$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).

Re:Hmm, beautiful, but no.

[pushing-robot]

Actually, the Blade has a weaker CPU than the MacBook Pro and only a slightly better GPU.

It's hardly a "gaming" notebook by today's standards; they compromised performance to get that sleek design. The trackpad display is interesting, but I can't imagine too many game developers will bother to support it. The custom buttons could be nice for MMOs, but all in all I can't really see why I'd want to spend hundreds more on this over a 17" MacBook Pro.

Still, if it's a quality machine on the inside, I wish them well. It's nice seeing companies break out of the race to the bottom and put out well-built hardware.