Gotta say the new Razer Blade laptop is pretty damn sexy.
Yes, it is a full-fledged laptop that does what any laptop does.
Just does it with a lot more sex appeal. More sex appeal than a Macbook. This one will get you noticed at the coffee shop. Indeed make you stand out from all the hipsters with their Macs.
I post this in the Gaming forum because Razer has been a company that has catered to gamers with peripherals for years.
This is their first laptop and the laptop was built to be a mobile gaming rig. Yeah, we’ve heard that before but I think this hits the mark better than any I have seen.
That said, the reported MSRP of $2,800 is pretty steep.
I want one but doubt I’ll touch it till it comes below $2,000.
It’s still just a dual-core i7-2640M / GT555M at its core, which is like an $800 laptop. Doesn’t even have an SSD. This isn’t even remotely close to the best laptop for gaming.
There is more to consider than the CPU or having an SSD (you could install your own SSD if you wanted to). Indeed it is rare for the CPU to be the limiting factor in most games these days. That chip should do fine. How many games even use more than one core?
You also have fast memory and a good amount of it. A very good mobile graphics ship (maybe not the best but all benchmarks I have seen have it running almost every game in “high” settings with an excellent frame rate).
The display seems very competent too at 1920x1080.
Overall I doubt there is a current or near future game you couldn’t run on it with satisfying results.
Why are you telling me what the specs mean? I know what they mean. I know what they cost too. If being a half-inch thinner is worth $1800 to you, rock on. Doesn’t make it the best gaming laptop ever. It’s barely better than a MBP. You might want to look at an Alienware m14x before buying this one though.
The mere fact it has the touchpad on the side rather than in front makes it that much more viable to play games without an external mouse. I really hate having the touchpad in the center, even though it’s generally necessary from a laptop form factor standpoint. And if the multitouch screen turns out to be useful, it’s going to make the Blade seriously attractive.
Razer’s not the best, but they’re definitely good enough, and they’ve got style. It’s not worth $2800, but I’d be severely tempted to buy this thing once it’s been tried and accepted and the price comes down to $1500-2000.
If you know what the specs mean then you’d know one number is not the measure of a computer. No more than citing the horsepower of a car is the final measure of its performance.
You failed to make note of that so yeah, I figured you don’t know how to assess a computer’s overall performance.
As for the price no question it is absurdly expensive (I agree it is not worth this price point). I can only guess the infinite wisdom of their sales department decided this is the ideal price point though. Why? No idea, ask them. They have a sexy laptop and believe it or not that counts for some sales. It is usual to gouge early adopters as a matter of course. Over time the price should drop. Only time will tell though.
You think you speak techy, but you sound more like a salesman…
Seconding Palooka’s meh
Much of computer performance is dictated by 3 things, CPU, RAM, and hard drive speed. At that price point an SSD SHOULD be part of the deal and would make a difference in performance. Almost any game that matters these days is multi core aware. Don’t fall victim to the “cool factor” because its basically decent performance crammed in a fancy little package.
I pretty much consider gaming laptop to be an oxymoron. The chipsets and components they use have to run cool enough and draw very little power compared to their desktop bretheren, leaving them hamstrung by the laptops ability to cool and power itself.
These “gaming machines” would be splatterkilled in performance by a desktop of less than half the price.
“What kind of gaming laptop should I buy?” is like asking “What kind of handgun should I carry as my primary weapon in a war?”
FTR I do not own stock or work for Razer. I have zero investment in their success or failure.
If you, like Palooka want to say “meh” with no more detail than that then you are the one pretending some knowledge. If you think poo-pooing a CPU score and lack of SSD is the measure of performance then you are as ill informed as Palooka is.
Yes, and add in the motherboard.
Is this thing overpriced? Yep. Pretty sure I have suggested as much (read the title of the thread).
There is a “cool factor” here which I also acknowledged. I also said I would not pay this price point for it (read the OP).
Overpriced does not make it a bad laptop. It makes it overpriced.
I agree 100%.
There is NO use in buying a laptop at all unless portability is a primary concern of yours. Even then buy a cheap ass laptop for email and word processing while on the road.
Only if you are an ardent gamer and travel extensively would such an investment make practical sense.
Or if you want to impress the chicks at your local coffee shop. Yeah it is geeky but for flash I’d think this would work better than the ubiquitous coffee shop Macbook.
Huh?
Haven’t owned a car for years (city dweller, sold my car, have no need personally and do not follow what is hot or not in autos).
I did not have a license to drive in '82 either. Those into automobiles may get your reference but I don’t.
Given the lack of actual detail in your post about why this PC is bad I doubt your assertion.
Is it overpriced? Sure.
Are there more powerful laptops on the market? Probably.
Razer makes that keyboard. It’s part of their Old Republic tie-in stuff. I don’t know the model or release date, since chiclet-style scissor-switch keyboards aren’t my thing.
I have the Razer Carcharias headset and like it a lot, but I went to the site specific for the Blade, and I can’t watch the video tour, it does not download and play, I can’t use the physical tour, it bogs down and locks onscreen, the sound is stuttery … if I was trying to sell an outlandishly expensive laptop, I would make sure that the website performed perfectly.
Look, I have a gaming desktop, and I play a lot of games on an HP dv7 laptop [with severe joint issues, I spend a lot of time stuck in bed with flares] and I spent $700 for the dv7 and $15 for a cooling pad, and $25 for the trackman trackball [I hate touchpads, they are about as useful as tits on a bull.] My dv7 is nothing special, not customized [I got it on sale and was premade to their generic specs] and I have no problem running any MMORPG I play, and does well for the typical stand alone RPGs I have loaded [right now I have Call of Cthulhu loaded.] I can play EVE Online and surf the internet or play 2 instances of EVE with no problem.
Why should I spend $2800 for a gaming laptop … though I like the backlit keyboard, and the cute little touchpad screen is spiffy, I do just fine without it. If I am traveling, the dv7 is portable enough, and I even bring along the netbook I use for communications [email, TS3, skype, vonage and so forth.]
Saw a preview of this thing. The led multitouch screen/touchpad looks neat and could be very cool. Otherwise I can only guess this thing will shotgun batteries like Natural Light at a frat party.
Is this any better than Falcon Northwest and Maingear’s offerings?
I have a fair bit of disposable income and was considering a high powered laptop. What is the funnest laptop for someone without a budget? I dont care about weight or battery life. I live in a small cabin and travel unfortunatly i dont have room for a desktop.
Not trying to siderail the op. Just wanna know if the OPs razar is actually the top of the line laptop.
Top-of-the-line performance will come from a dual-GPU setup (either 6990M Crossfire or 580M SLI) and a top-end quad-core like i7-2920XM or actual desktop chip like i7-2600k or i7-990X. Such a laptop would cost a fortune ($3000+ easily), weight 10 pounds or more, and have essentially no battery life at load. I don’t know laptop benchmarks well, but I’d guess that it’d triple the frame rate of the Razer Blade.
I don’t know your situation or what games you play, but I’d think about getting a low-footprint (12" x 12") small-form factor system (based on a Silverstone FT03 maybe) for home and a competent mid-range laptop for travelling like an Alienware m14x or 15" MBP.