Razer Announces 'Blade' Gaming Laptop

Natalie Shoemaker
August 26, 2011
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391939,00.asp

Razer has finally revealed the product behind its mysterious "PC Gaming is NOT Dead" website, which declared in a rather V for Vendetta tone that on August 26th the company would turn the PC gaming upside down.

At 12 noon EST Razer unveiled its "Blade" gaming notebook, declaring it the "World's first true gaming laptop." The last bit of marketing bait left us a tad puzzled; surely Razer's audience has heard of such manufacturers as Alienware and VoodooPC? But the machine does look stunning: it has that simple Apple aesthetic with nothing more than Razer's green logo adorning the lid. Its chassis is also made of a dark aluminum material.

The Blade's 17-inch screen display outputs true 1080p HD. For its size, the chassis is relatively light, weighing only 6.9 pounds compared to other 17-inch gaming laptops like the Alienware M17x that weighs in at 9.8 pounds. The Razer Blade is also extremely thin, measuring about .88 inches thick. Part of the reason for its slim form factor is Razer dropped the optical drive, a smart move as most gamers nowadays get their fix from digital retailers like Steam.

The Razer Blade's true popping feature, however, is its user interface. The full-size chiclet keyboard swaps out the usual numeric keypad for 10 dynamic adaptive tactile keys, which gives you easy-access to hot-key commands. There's also an LCD pad underneath it that displays in-game information when you're using an external mouse or switches to a multi-touchpad for navigating.

Inside the chassis, the Razer Blade features a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-2640M processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GT 555M (2GB) discrete graphics chip with Optimus technology, which will help extend that 60Wh battery's life span. There's 320GB (7,200rpm) of hard drive space, a bit on the small size. It comes with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 (for connecting wireless peripherals), Ethernet jack, a USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, and 3.5mm headphone and mic combo jack.

The Razer Blade will be available in the fourth quarter of this year, and will be sold for $2,799.99.