Razer’s Superthin Blade Gaming Laptop Puts Other Rigs On Notice

August 26th, 2011 by Dan Howley, LAPTOP Staff Writer

Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan’s boasted that his company’s upcoming 17-inch Blade notebook (get it? Razer Blade) will be the only true gaming laptop. That’s a pretty bold statement, considering all the great gaming rigs that are available from Alienware, ASUS, MSI, and others. But Tan isn’t talking about the type of bulky and heavy desktop replacement style laptops that pervade the market. He’s thinking of notebooks that users can game on and actually carry when they have to.

Developed in partnership with Intel, the $2,799 Razer Blade packs an Intel Core i7-2640M processor, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GT 555M with Optimus Technology and 2GB of dedicated memory, into an all-aluminum chassis that weighs 6.9 pounds and is 0.88-inches thick. And while it may not pack all of the power of the Alienware M17x or ASUS G74SX-AS, that’s still pretty impressive. Especially when you consider that the 17-inch M17x weighs in at 9.6 pounds and is 1.8-inches thick, and the 17-inch G74SX-A2 weighs 10 pounds and is a staggering 2.3 inches thick.

But that’s not all the Blade offers. In place of the dedicated number pad normally found on a 17-inch gaming notebook, the Blade features Razer’s Switchblade User Interface, a unique multitouch LCD display complete with 10 customizable LCD backlit keys. The multitouch LCD display is innovative in that it can be set to display in-game content, or act as a secondary touchpad. That’s especially good for mobile gamers since using an external mouse on the go isn’t always easy to do, and the standard touchpad, located below the G and H keys may not be ideal for gaming.

The customizable keys are also great for setting up macros for in-game commands, which is something that fans of real-time strategy, role playing, and massively multiplayer online role playing games will really appreciate. If all of this has you ready to storm Razer’s headquarters for your own Blade, take a deep breath and count to 10. Because the Blade won’t be available until later this year.