Razer Intros Own-Brand Gaming Notebook Discussion

Razer has made a surprise announcement that it has introduced its own gaming notebook, the 17.3" Blade. It measures 0.88" thin and will be available Q4 2011.

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looks cool, but too expensive for what it offer. AW m14x is much better.

 

Wow 2800 bucks!! It's an over sized M14X with a extra screen on the right hand corner which is handy and yeah sure it's incredibly thin. Great to take to class but they couldn't put in a better graphics card? It's the form factor of course. I like it though. I like the option of having a thin, pretty high end gaming notebook with a gaming screen like manufacturer tried before but never succeed in marketing it. I hope this becomes very successful.

 

I absolutely LOVE the customizable controls for games, but $2,800 is pretty much a deal breaker. I criticized the Toshiba Qosmio X775 for being overpriced ... that laptop is downright cheap in comparison.

 

This.

Also, while the form factor is beautiful, I think portability is a matter of perspective.

My M11x-R2 isn't much less powerful than this, and to me it's more portable having an 11" thicker laptop than a 17" super thin one.

Beautiful design, but the price does kill it. If they lowered it by $1000, it would sell like crazy.

And the most important thing:

While they may be trying to emulate Apple's shell quality, for $2800 they better be emulating Apple's Panel Display quality as well. For that price the panel better be Apple or HP Dreamcolor quality.

 

It's expensive, but the only other laptop in it's size class with an equivalent amount of power is the MacBook Pro 17, which is $2949.00 when configured with the upgraded i7 and 8GB of RAM.

I currently have an M14X and I'd trade it in a second for a Blade... The M14X is chunky and looks outdated compared to the Blade. Then again, I'm one of those guys who's been jealous of Mac laptops for years and wished that a PC manufacturer would come along and just build a wintel clone for the love of God!

The fact that the Blade looks like it's been anodized black is just icing on the cake

 

I'de rather get a M14X like someone stated before me

 

I think it's pretty impressive Razer is doing this, I can't wait to see the actual product in person even though I also think the price is too high. Somehow I doubt they are making as much money as one might think off the price, entering the notebook market isn't the easiest thing to do.

Also I'm not sure why people are comparing it to the M14x, the Blade is a 17.3" laptop, folks ...

 

They are comparing it based on the marketing angle of portability.

 

Portability and the specs are literally the same, in terms of the Quadcores and the Nvidia 555M and nothing else, besides portability. I agree with Jerry Jackson it's a great thing to have gaming screen, it's something i have been waiting for to use in some time. damn just when i was considering the M14X this comes out!! I absolutely love large displays and this is something i always wanted too. But reviews have to come first and hopefully the price will lower. And about the Qosmio compared to this man that is funny. I had the X505 it wasn't bad. I guess the plastic they use are worse than before.

 

Looks fantastic, specs are not bad(not to great either for the price) thing that might be a issue is cooling( WOW! it's thin) key configuration feature looks cool too.
Bottom line yeah it looks great but it's way too expensive, to much flash but not enough substance.Put these specs and form factor in a 15" laptop knock off about $1000 and these would sell like hot cakes.
I'll give RAZER an A for effort.
I'm still waiting for this
http://www.razerzone.com/switchblade/gallery

 

It looks like a black 17" MacBook Pro.

 

HP Envy 17 with new body kit. This thing is dual core and VGA is not impressive. For that price i expect bit future proof product.

 

Overpriced for the spec's but Kudo's on the stunning design and concept. Here's to hoping they sell well, and Razer continue to innovate!

 

trackpad on the right = left handed, go to hell

 

It's great that Razer wants to get into manufacturing gaming notebooks, but it's 5-6 years too late for them to try and be Voodoo. The boutique era where a consumer paid five to seven grand for the top-of-the-line gaming notebooks is over, so charging $2800 for mid-level gaming hardware just isn't going to work.

I think the set up is perfect for southpaws. As a righty myself I want the touchscreen and hotkeys on the left side so that I can use the mouse with my right and have the screen relatively center to my body....I'd figure a left handed person would want the opposite.

 

Again, for that price a major factor for me would be the quality of the panel

 

a 17 inch machine is not exactly portable. The machine will only be as good as the hardware inside, and so far a low end dual core i7 with an underpowered graphics card is not much of a gaming machine for such a size, let alone the high price.

the hardware is abysmal compared to the looks. People compare it to the m14x because the m14w packs the same power on a much smalle form factor and way more portable for much less money.

 

I don't really care about the looks, this thing probably performs about as good as the ~$650 laptop in my sig.

 

Its meant more for the gaming crowd though, and tbh if I was playing with a mouse (who games with a trackpad..) and wanted to use those 'extra' game-keys I would think it made more sense to be on the left side.
Why its on the right side I suppose it was just a spot they could use where the normal keypad would go on a 17" keyboard..

My question is on the 60Wh battery, what kind of battery performance would that give? It's less than my M11x but it has so much more stuff to power right?

 

A for effort.

F for everything else.

 

True, its 17in but the graphics card is inferior to the M14X which makes the M14X superior.

Besides, most people would like the keyboard over the touchpad thingey razer offers.

 

A+ for design. F for value.

Might as well get a Lenovo W520 with the Quadro 2000M and save $1000 or more.

Only thing the W520 loses on is portability, but you'll gain quite a bit.

 

Interesting concept (love the gaming console next to the keyboard), but have fun dealing with their customer support, or the lack of it.

I am skeptic about the cooling system since the laptop is pretty thin and why is it priced at $2800. For that price it better come with IPS RGB LED screen, super-amazing keyboard, great build quality and a business class support. And I am certain, these won't really be there. Also the graphic card will perform slower than on M14x since the display has a higher resolution. For this price the graphics should at least be in the range of 6970M or 6990M.

Based on this information alone, it seems like a joke.

 

Wasn't Razer supposed to release a different gaming machine? I remember reading something about them making a netbook for gaming.

Anyway, despite the low performance and ridiculous price I still think its a good thing they joined the market. Maybe in a year from now they will have learned from their mistake and release competitive hardware for clevo/AW.

 

The 555M might not be as weak as it seems here; there's several different versions of it with significant differences in performance, and this could be a new one with even more performance. GDDR5 is a good sign; if it's got the right core clock and shader counts, it could perform well.

I still agree that the price is rediculous. If it's dropped I'd certainly consider it personally, depending on whether or not it's good in other areas (cooling, screen quality, etc.)

$2,000-$2,200 would be a more appropriate price, even then if it's got an excellent screen, cooling, build quality etc.

I think what's happened here is they've looked at the MacBook Pro, and think they can mark up their notebook just as much. The problem being that it lacks the Mac OS so it can't be justified.

That was a concept they showed off last year called the Switchblade. It was netbook size, with a touch screen, and the entire keyboard had OLED screens in the keys (like the 10 keys above the touchpad on the Blade). For now it appears it'll remain a concept; perhaps if the Blade turns out to be relatively successful, we'll see more notebooks from Razer.

 

Unless the price drops, I'm going to make a wild call here and say that this thing won't make it past the two year mark. Hell, I'm already having major doubts that it'll make it past the one year mark.

 

looks good, but the price to performance is a little inhibitive.

 

Saw the screen size. Then the graphics card... My first expression was = meh.

Seriously, how can "that thing" be more portable than m14x?
It's like they chose to create the MOST BALANCED laptop...

Flat but not that portable with large screen size.
Mediocre graphics card that'll be outdated in a year and won't be able to max out BF3 (a game that comes out this year).
Mediocre Sandy bridge processor.
With Optimus, but isn't the battery weak?
VERY NICE keyboard and panel... and for that it'll cost you $2.8k.

I say yeah... balanced lol.

 

The only selling point of the Razer Blade is the thickness (or rather, the lack of it).
Maybe Alienware can take this as form of rivalry and develop thinner laptops in the future.

 

In fairness, if your bag can fit it, my opinion is that the biggest factor in portability is the weight. The Blade is only a few hundred grams heavier than an M14x.

The large screen size however is far superior for gaming. I'd rather play on a 17" 1080p screen than a 14" 900p screen.

See above. If it fits in your bag it's not a problem, at least in my opinion.

As I've said before, reserve judgement until we know more. There are multiple different versions of the 555M with different clock speeds, shader counts and memory. This could be more powerful than the currently known versions.

And no, it won't be able to max BF3. Then again it's not meant to max every game out there. It's meant to firstly be a portable machine, then to be as high performance as possible within that space. (NOT on the same level as a desktop replacement.)

Oh, and every graphics card out there is outdated in a year when new graphics cards are out.

Since when is a 2.8GHz i7 dual core 'mediocre'? If you're talking about quad core optimised games then it's not ideal but it's definitely not 'mediocre'.

60Wh isn't 'weak'. Should get a battery life of around 4-5 hours or more.

The price is monstrous but the machine makes sense and is very well designed. I still hope they'll come to their senses and drop the price when it's actually released with the amount of negative feedback about it.

Oh, and just because you're a performance nut who has to have the most powerful parts available doesn't make the parts in this 'mediocre'.

Like I said, a 'gaming' system doesn't have to max everything out. Looking at my own machine (which is actually slightly weaker than a 555M but can still play modern games at 1080p on High settings) it's powerful enough for most people.

 

The LCD touch screen thing looks 100% useless. The whole thing looks nice, but until they knock about $1k off the price, they're not going to sell many. Who knows, maybe there will be enough Razer fanboys and MBP PC-wannabes to support this thing.

 

Isn't the heating in this system going to struggle a lot?

 

To each their own. I think that firstly it's a much better place for the touchpad in terms of practicality in general usage and games (talking things like MMOs here, not the likes of FPSs for which touchpads are useless). Secondly, the screen can be useful to some; I assume it's going to be similar in how it works to the LCD screens in the Logitech G15/G19 keyboards and the G13 gamepad.

I agree about the price though. Even at $2800 I'm considering one because it's the perfect machine for me and my usage (I have been considering a MBP) and because I've got the money. However, if they did knock it down to $2000 or less it would make my decision (and the decision of others) much easier. Unless the 555M is a new, superpowered version, $2800 is rediculous.

I still can't believe it doesn't have more than 320GB of hard drive space. It'd damn well better be user replaceable.

Possibly, we'll have to wait and see. Unlike other notebooks of a similar size (i.e. the MBP) this is clearly designed for gaming, so it should have a well designed cooling system. If the heatsink is big enough and the fans can provide enough airflow, there's no reason it should struggle. (We aren't talking top end components here.)

Still...it's thinner than a MBP. I have my doubts about the cooling and will do until I see some benchmarks and temperatures.

 

That was honestly the best joke on the spec sheet.

 

Mhhm. Won't be a problem if the user can replace it easily, but I hope that Razer acts on the feedback and fits at least 500GB of HDD space, if not an SSD if they aren't dropping the price.

 

For that price they only offer a 320GB 7200RPM HDD. For their asking price they should have included an inexpensive 256GB SSD like the WD SiliconEdge Blue, at minimum.

I like the technology behind the LCD keys. But they should have made a couple columns on the left of the keyboard and the F1F2F3F4, 1234, QWER, ASDF, ZXCV keys to use this instead of on the right. Basically everything left of the F5,5,T,G,B, space bar.

This laptop needs to be under $1500 to really be something to take seriously.

 

One of my biggest complaints about it. The keys are an excellent idea but only really useful in games if you're using the touchpad (which is not ideal). If they were on the left it'd be much more useful.

I can sort of understand why they've priced it as such. It's extremely thin, and the build quality should be exceptional, as well as the unique touchpad and keys. Hopefully, the screen should be quality as well. If so it'd be worth more than $1,500 but it definitely shouldn't be priced above $2,000 with its current specs.

I could only really justify $2,800 for it if the 555M turns out to be a very powerful version, if the screen is extremely high quality (RGBLED or close to it) and if it comes with a higher capacity SSD.

 

Because volume does affect, and a lot. When you game on a big screen, you want to take advantage of the extra eye candy. You want to take advantage of the resolution.

An M14x will always be more portable because they might weight similarly (they have basically the same specs, but the m14 has more functionality) but the M14 will fit everywhere, unlike the big Razer.

It's the difference between carrying a small bag around, or a considerable bigger one.

The fact is, even the best version of the555m will be worse than the 460/560m. And the 560m is the bare minimum for high end gaming, since cards like 560m/HD5870m already struggle with 1080p res. Packing in a weaker card, in a big display that you won't be able to take full advantage of, is quite sad.

The 560m and HD5870m are barely high end in the notebook area, but they are midrange at best in the performance world. The GT555m is even lower than that. If the afore mentioned cards are soon to be struggling with the latest games, the 555 will have even bigger problems.

It is not a high end i7, it's the lower end i7 and a dual core at that. Newer games are optimized for quad cores, and the trend will increase over time. Spending big bucks on a gaming machine while getting average performance is not nice at all. Specially if it is supposed to be a gaming notebook.

It's not about being a performance nut. This is not a matter of opinion. this is a matter of value and facts. The components are weak compared to what you can get for even less money. There are literally other 17inchers like the Asus G74 series that pack more performance for a thousand less. Sure it may not be as thick, but still has decent style and superb cooling distribution to use everywhere.

Looks are definitely subjective. I don't like how simple it looks and how little it does in everything. The thickness is awesome but I know that it means less powerful hardware.

2800 for that? There is no value in it.

 

From a purely consumer standpoint that really leaves a lot to be desired

But from an "objective" standpoint I really wonder....I mean, Voodoo had top specs but they still charged an arm and a leg because well...it cost them money to engineer their laptops. Like Chaz said, it probably costs a lot more than we think to pierce the laptop market so maybe Razer is just trying to make a profit off a product that probably cost them too much to manufacture because they aren't established in this industry (and wanted to make something fancy/different). Considering that Apple patents the manufacturing process of the MBP, we know Razer didn't just come up to the ODM who makes MBPs and went "I want one for my line!".

 

I'm joining in everyone who is pointing out that the price is no more insane than a MBP 17. Sure, you can get a lot more bang for the buck IF you buy a thicker machine. For some people, like me, thickness in a laptop is not a turn-off. But there's no other machine this large, this thin, for substantially cheaper.

I'm left-handed and I use a mouse with my right hand. Left or right handed, I've actually never met someone who uses a mouse with the right hand. I don't see that the trackpad placement is a problem for 99.9% of potential purchasers. I actualy think it sounds more appealing than having it below the spacebar.

 

I still think those fancy buttons are poor placement. They are designed to be used with a game. The touchpad on the right is ok I guess, but most gamers use a mouse and would have to move their hand off the mouse or left hand to access the buttons. Awkward.

I understand reasons for having a high cost, i.e. to capture engineering, development, and manufacturing costs. But that doesn't justify the high pricing. If all laptop manufacturer's did that they'd never sell, everyone would just wait six months for the price to drop in half. Imagine if cars did the same thing. First production year they cost twice as much as following years. It's not good customer sense for something like a laptop. Game consoles follow the path of high cost first year or two, but they also offer absolute top of the line performance at launch. This machine does nothing more than package average components in a thin package. When consoles do this they drop the price!

 

Razer did go to the ODMs and told them what they wanted, but the ODMs told Razer what they wanted wouldn't sell and the ODMs wouldn't build it. Razer had to buy their own ODM to get the Blade made, and that's why the notebook's cost is so high.

You don't make an investment like buying an ODM with the expectations of making a profit off the first product it manufacturers. If Razer couldn't afford to take the loss, and has to start making money off the Blade right away, then this project was too ambitious for them and they're just making it harder on themselves to break into the notebook market.

Voodoo and Alienware got to where they were by building desktops and rebranding Clevos at a time when the big companies were ignoring the gaming segment and the top end GPUs cost about as much as a couple of Llano notebooks. They were able to get away with charging as much as they did for their notebooks at the time....Razer won't be.

I'd be wary of build quality. Razer doesn't have much experience being an ODM and I doubt any ODM they could afford to buy probably had much experience being an ODM either.

 

Well put Phinagle. +1

My point too like consoles, even though at launch they're expensive, they still sell them at a price THAT WILL SELL even if they have to take a loss. It's almost like Razer didn't even build a compelling business plan when building this thing.

 

I'm more interested in that demo of LoL Dominion playing on the laptop in their promotional video

Switchblade UI looks cool, but I actually think they're targeting the wrong audience with it. It's pretty, gaudy, but I can't see it being terribly practical while gaming. I don't see myself letting go of my mouse to tap one of those buttons on that pretty touchpad in the middle of LoL--that's what the left hand is for. And probably not even to glance down at it for the minimap--too far away, and it's still probably faster to ping in game than to let go of the mouse, tap the map on the pad, and grab the mouse again.

Outside of gaming though, where you have the time to actually bounce your hands across a variety of interfaces, having a screen like that might come in handy.

 

@EvilCorsair,

I guess almost everything has been said by Ryzeki already.

It's just a really mediocre laptop with a price tag for a high end laptop. And No, that Gt555m isn't a super powered one and never will be. You're just getting your hopes up. They'll put it on stock or worse, underclock it to save their laptop from melting.

As for comparing it with MacBooks... I don't want to compare their products with Razer.
I live in the philippines and MAC's have the best service center here. As for Razer.... you break it. Goodluck!

 

I see your point. However, if people carry around the sort of bag that can fit a 17" it's not a problem. I definitely wouldn't like to play games on a 14" screen.

I guess it's all down to preference. I personally prefer a 17" laptop, even if it needs a bigger bag.

Hmm? My comparitively ancient 3870Ms, which are together equivelant to less than a 555M (even then assuming good multi-GPU scaling) still manage to play modern games in high settings at 1080p.

Can I play EVERY game in high settings? No. Do I need to? No. They still look fantastic. Even playing the likes of The Witcher 2 on Medium looks fantastic.

Still, that's just my opinion. The graphics my GPUs are capable of will never get worse; the 'setting' I can play on the latest games might drop from 'high' to 'medium' or even later to 'low', but it'll still look as good.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that for some people (like me) the 555M is 'good enough'. Would a 560M/580M/6970M be preferable? Of course. They'd probably melt the laptop though. If you want to go this thin and light you have to make sacrifices, unfortunately.

I see your point here. However, given how 'weak' the 555M is, it's unlikely that the fastest mobile dual core you can get today will bottleneck it.

I'm well aware you can get more for less. I'd personally rather get a fully loaded M17x with a 580M and 3D screen for 2800. (Still hoping they'll drop the price on the Blade though.)

However, its selling point is the fact that it's so thin, and nothing close to it packs the same performance. Believe it or not, people will pay premiums like that for thinner, lighter machines. (That's why ultrathin notebooks exist in the first place.)

I never believed for a moment that the machine is worth $2,800. Then again, I don't believe that MacBook Pros are worth that sort of money either for what you get, and yet they still sell easily. Razer are probably hoping that the Blade will do that same.

Then I assume you'd call notebooks like the M14x mediocre as well? Granted they're a lot cheaper but I was never trying to justify the price, just that the machine is only mediocre in your eyes.

We don't have any stats for the 555M yet apart from the fact it has 2GB of GDDR5 memory. And I can't find a single notebook on the market with a 555M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. That means that this could have higher clocks than 'stock' and/or more shaders than normal. Am I getting my hopes up? Yes, but it's still entirely possible, it's not 'definitely' stock as you seem to believe. Once again, we know nothing of what they've managed to do with the cooling system, so we don't know if that will be a limiting factor.

I'm not saying anything about Razer's service, I know little about it. I was comparing it to MBPs because they're very similar in terms of the machines themselves. Both use similar processors, similar GPUs and are a similar size, and with similar pricetags when spec'd closely.

 

Using the point that your four year old laptop can play games is not valid. It was top end at one point, and much bigger, but still lacking in performance. A laptop that's supposed to prove that gaming is not dead that only packs components that fit in a 14" form factor, and is one year old, is not game breaking. It's failure. And have you even TRIED to play any recent games with a ULV dual core? Games like Bad Company 2 are so CPU dependent, and Battlefield 3 will be too, as will many new games run so much better with a quad core. With $2800 you want to expect future performance, and a lightweight dual core isn't it.

You're dreaming if you think the GT 555m will pack any more performance even with as many improvements as they can get, than a GTX 460m. Just because it has 2GB RAM doesn't mean anything. ODM's throw 3GB on GT 525m machines. The GT 555m at best will be 192-bit GDDR5 like the M14x.

Which gets back to the point they are late to the game. Same components from a six month old 14" laptop put in a 17" at twice the price is not game changing, it's not understanding the market, period. I don't care if it's made of titanium and platinum.

 

You've missed my point entirely. MY point was that, for some gamers, the 555M is powerful enough.

However, I see your point. I don't think they could have fitted anything more powerful in the same form factor though. I'm not saying it shouldn't be more powerful as a machine meant to 'save PC gaming', but that's just marketing.

As a machine that's meant to be both highly portable and pack a punch, it's excellent. They've priced it out of that market, though.

Okay, wait, what? Where do ULV processors come into this? The Blade doesn't use a ULV processor? It uses the fastest dual core i7 there is on a mobile platform!

Once again, it was probably to save power and heat, however I do agree that they should have fitted a quad core. Still, a 2.8GHz dual core (with turboboost as well) isn't exactly 'slow'.

Except that the M14x uses 192-bit GDDR3. I was never saying that the RAM itself would make a difference (although it does), I was saying that it could potentially indicate it's a 'new' 555M. And I never said for a moment that it can get to the same level as a 460M. It could get close with more shaders and higher clocks, although I do find more shaders unlikely.

People buy ultraportables because they're thin and light. This is, for the type of laptop, thin and light. That's the selling point; the fact that it's thinner than a MBP and only weighs the same as an M14x.

Is it game changing? No. Is it well priced? No. But it's a good product nonetheless, and if it was priced more competitively, it could well be a winner. I was never trying to justify the price, just that it's a good notebook for what it's meant to do.

 

I will keep my "Brick" thanks but no thanks, priced way to high