Razer Switchblade and the M11x

Home | Razer Switchblade | Razer | For Gamers by Gamers

Apparently Razer, a gaming peripherals company, seems to be hyping their ultra compact Razer Switchblade... a 7'' gaming netbook of some kind, based on the Intel Atom processor.

I guess I'm curious what you guys think about this. At first look, it seems the thing is horrendously underpowered right out of the gate. The few youtube videos of the Switchblade playing games like WoW and Warcraft 3 were also pretty unimpressive. The framerate definitely did not look smooth.... even the transitions for the Razer "skin" that they put on top of Windows 7 didn't look all that fluid.

I'm wondering what kind of market Razer is targeting with this. Most people that buy Razer products tend to be pretty into gaming, that is to say... you don't see many casual gamers dropping 50+ bucks on a mouse... and frankly I don't think hardcore gamers will want to play WoW on a 7 inch screen... and casual gamers probably don't care enough to want to play games everywhere they go on such a mobile device.

I don't want to trash this Switchblade thing before it's even released or official specs are posted, but it seems to me that the only way they can really sell this thing is if they make it so ridiculously cheap that the cost outweighs the negatives. what do you guys think?

 

Well, they do say it's a concept... I really think it'd work if they manage to cram in a Core 2 Duo in there, plus maybe the Nvidia 9400GT into a 7-inch chassis, and still maintain decent battery life. A competitive price would help, too.

 

It would rock in combination with onlive

 

when i saw this switchblade my first thought was you would always need to be hooked up to a power port. there would be no battery on earth that small that would run the games they are saying for any decent amount of time..

consider the mx11, desipite its size, gives an optimistic battery life of 3 hours gaming at decent frame rates. but the battery is pretty much the largest thing in the system. so i just cant see how the switchblade would pull it off..

that Wow video looked like it was a slideshow....

 

I looked at that the other day, too. We only know about the Atom processor...and that right there makes me skeptical. But I'm a guy that likes more modern, CPU-bound games like BF:BC2. I could see this being fun to use for older games...retro/nostalgia...

 

If you pay attn to their video's, the games they showcase are all very old. WoW, WC3 and Quake Arena are hardly cutting edge. So I think they're making sure they're not falsely advertising anything yet.

 

I think it's going to be a piece of junk.
- Intel Atom Processor
- What kind of GPU? Maybe an nVidia Ion GPU at best? Hardly anything to write home about
- Dynamic OLED keyboard. The only other product to do this is the $2500 Optimus Keyboard. Means this machine will be EXPENSIVE.
- The most they could get away with charging for this thing is $500 - $700 tops. And the OLED keyboard itself will probably make that price point impossible.
- Even if it is powerful and affordable, do you really want to game on a 7" screen?

They would probably have much better luck if they could figure out a way to take their dynamic OLED keyboard, and build a keyboard out of it. Stick to their bread-and-butter of making peripherals for PC gaming enthusiasts, rather than try to design a mobile system.

Gullible people that are easily tricked into believing their deceptive marketing.

"PC gaming has never been possible in a portable form factor..." ​

-Min-Liang Tan, Razer CEO and Really Intense Asian Guy with a Hong Kong accent.​

It's a good thing they are building this Razer Switchblade, so that I can dump my portable form factor Alienware M11x that I use for PC gaming...

It's kind of fun to do. Try it!

Razer? False advertising? Oh, they would NEVER do anything like that. /s

 

It's a glorified netbook, and we all know how well THOSE things game......




Look at the videos, the framerates are so low I thought it was a powerpoint presentation.

 

onlive anyone? That is going to be the future of gaming!

 

I won't lie, I was WOW'd by the Switchblade, but after the "OMG IT'S NEW TECH" excitement wore off, it's not something I would spend money on

 

... so says the man with two Alienware M11x's...
... including an overclocked M11x R2 w/8GB of RAM and a massive SSD

 

Well, it really is, but not quite yet...especially if you don't live in the U.S....
I tried the beta of onlive and was VERY impressed! The quality could have been a bit better, but a switchblade with the nice keyboard and onlive integration would definately be interesting for me as an addition to my other systems

 

OnLive is garbage.


The input latency is unacceptable. (Not only is it bad.....but it varies with your ping)


The only reason I even use OnLive is for the demos. Even then it just ends up pissing me off. 15Mbps connection with low ping so that's not the issue.

 

It uses an Atom, its junk for gaming. I saw a promo video of the guy running WoW, and it ran like a dog (and this was outside of a major city).

 

I honestly have doubts about the switchblade.
Unless they can stick in a OMGBBQAWSUMPWNAGE battery in there, it's not going be able to do much. All I see is a big Nintendo DS with a keyboard on it.

As for onlive:
The average internet speed is going to have to get way better before onlive can really begin taking off.