Razer Blade 14 Some general questions.

Hi all, I've spent the last month researching the Razer Blade.
I'm currently running a stock Retina Macbook Pro 15" (512 HDD 16GB RAM)
I also own a Samsung 17" Chronos that I use for windows gaming.
I've really wanted to dump both and pick up the Razer Blade 14" but there are a few things that are really tripping me up.
After a million reviews that all say the same thing I've decided to just list out my situation and hope you all can push me one way or another.

- I'm currently playing Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universallis 4 (Both run in OSX but not splendidly), and The Secret World which is DX11 heavy (played on the Samsung) as well as a little bit of GW2

- I also do -A LOT- of photo editing on the RMBP in Lightroom. This is my biggest worry due to the screen of the Razer Blade. Everyone talks about screen viewing and quality, it deeply concerns me for getting anything even closely resembling an accurate color calibration. This is what really worries me. At the end of the day I love everything else I can see about the Razer Blade 14 but this is making me really nervous.

Has anyone here utilized Photoshop and Lightroom? What results do you get?
I'm really looking for that last push to dump my other two laptops and move into this.

OS choice is not an issue for me I'm comfortable in Windows 8 and OS X ML

Thank you in advance.

 

The Razer Blade 14 has one of the worst LCD panels on the market. It should be on a $200 Chromebook or netbook, not a $2000 premium gaming machine.

Look at it this way: Would you do photo editing on a netbook? Exactly.

Going from a rMBP to a Blade 14 is an enormous downgrade in screen quality. I don't know how anyone can stand that, I certainly can't.

You have the Radeon 8870M in the Samsung Chronos, correct? It's not much worse than the GTX 765M.

The setup you have right now is superior in every almost every way to just having a Blade 14.

 

You know what? That was what I needed to hear. Point blank. Thank you.

 

You're welcome. It was an easy call as soon as you mentioned that you do a lot of photo editing.

 

Sorry. Double post due to internet glitch.

 

Agreed. However, most people I know do their photo editing work on a desktop. The Razer is a desktop replacement. If you can plug it into a decent monitor, there should not be a problem.

To make the internal screen look better in terms of colour accuracy, you could use a custom ICC profile. Someone has posted (in this section of the forum) a very good ICC profile for the Razer Blade 14" developed using a hardware screen calibrator. You could use that as is, or as a starting point for your own custom profile.

 

So let me get this straight, you're suggesting he spend $2000 to get a Blade 14, and then another $600-$1000 to get a 27"-30" 2560x1600 IPS monitor to plug into it, just to match what he already has with the Retina MacBook Pro?

ICC profile or otherwise, no amount of hardware calibration is going to turn the Blade 14 into an acceptable screen for photo work. It suffers from a rather severe case of "no correct viewing angle" syndrome not to mention the limited color gamut and blacks aren't even black but gray.

 

No, I dont think that is what he is saying and I very much doubt you edit photos much.

1) Unless he has a 2012 Mac Book Pro Retina, he doesnt have an IPS display panel which is really a prerequisite for photo editing.
2) In my view photo editing on a 14"/15" screen is a total waste of time - you will almost certainly have to re-edit on a decent monitor.
3) A Razer Blade 14" plus say 27" Dell IPS monitor and decent memory (necessary to store your photos) will cost less than a MacBook Pro Retina.

Having said that, the screen on the Razer is totally unsuited to photo editing - it has a color gamut equivalent to 45% of aRGB.

 

actually let me get this straight.

What you guys are saying is a bunch of bollocks. there is no beating around the bushes here.

the screen is far, very far from the horror of 200 bucks notebooks, its not what we expect from such a expensive machine and it won't work if the op is going to edit photos on it

which is pretty much a given if there is a need for colour accuracy and other stuff you go for the hp dream colour 2, the dell precision screen or the AUO 95% NTSC gamut panel

NO photo editor would use the "poor" retina screen (compared to those other panels that I mentioned) to edit photos

in the end you go big or go home in this matter.

 

I don't edit photos much? Whatever you say man.

The rMBP is an IPS display. That's what the OP says he has.

I just looked at the I/O ports on the Blade 14 and I doubt it can even output 1440p/1600p @ 60 Hz, unless someone can prove otherwise.

 

currently no one bothered to get a HDMI 1.4a cable and try it

 

didn't this guy tried it? http://forum.notebookreview.com/razer/729074-razer-blade-14-maximum-display-output-2.html

or is the hdmi 1.4 + ethernet not the same as 1.4a?

I have the cable, I just don't have the monitor

 

from what I know its not the same cable

 

I think it is the same cable..

Not sure why there would be a limitation on output resolution?

Of course, it might not just depend on the NVIDIA chipset, but the integrated video needs to support this as well.

 

Please check this forum, someone with hdmi 1.4 monitor:

https://communities.intel.com/thread/43713

 

First thanks for all the responses here, it's given me a lot to think about. I should clear a few things up. I do have a desktop that I use for photo editing. However I do a lot of traveling and often find that on the go people are requesting nice copies of some of my work. The Retina MBP has handled it like a pro. My problem is, when I travel I also want to game on lonely nights stuck in a hotel room. That's where I was hoping to bridge the gap.

So maximum output to an external monitor isn't really a concern for me. I'm curious about the ICC profile though, I'll do some searching. In the end this was Razer's sale to lose. I just can't believe they chose such a substandard screen (And yes I do accept the gaming arguments0 with such a gorgeous beast of a machine. Ugh.

 

As someone who went from an rMBP equipped with 16gb to the Razer Blade 14, I highly recommend not doing it. Razer literally built a perfect laptop and attached a piece of junk screen to it. Then to add insult to injury they forgot to install a real display connector, thus limiting you to 1920x1080/1200 over HDMI.

This all may sound harsh, but it is definitely not a machine to edit photos on. If you're gaming, it has a great GPU and you won't find a nicer form factor. Here's to hoping they go IPS and add DisplayPort next year