Razer unveils $2800 'Blade' laptop

by JC Fletcher on Aug 26th 2011 12:24PM

How long was Razer waiting to use that product name? Today, with its "PC Gaming Is Not Dead" countdown elapsed, the company unveiled its "Blade" laptop, billed as "the world's first true gaming laptop." What must Alienware think about that?

The "Blade" uses the UI from Razer's "Switchblade" concept -- a set of ten adaptive keys and an LCD touchscreen built into the keyboard, which can be used either as a touchpad or to display in-game information.

What it doesn't use from the Switchblade is the compact form factor. This laptop has a 17" LED-lit screen and weighs around 7 pounds. That's light for a gaming laptop, but heavy for a thing you're carrying around. It packs a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and an Nvidia GeForce GT 555M with 2GB of video memory.

All those big numbers bring another one: the Blade will retail for $2799.99 when it launches in North America in Q4 of this year.

Razer Blade (Announcement)

Source: Razer

Tags: blade, laptop, pax-2011, pc, razer, switchblade

Reader Comments (114)

Way too expensive.

@Dr Changsteen
I just bought an XPS 15 laptop with the exact same specs for 1299.99, will people actually fall for this?

@Dr Changsteen

While it does seem like a lot, it does have that nifty touchscreen with the dynamic buttons...

....I admit it, I want it. If I had $3000 I'd probably buy it.

@Dr Changsteen
And specs are kinda lame . For that price it should have a SSD drive and water cooling system

@HellFlyer
I think they're going for the apple "IT LOOKS SO COOL IT MUST BE EXPENSIVE" technique with this one.

@Dr Changsteen
Agreed, they claim PC gaming isn't dead, but introducing a laptop that costs almost $3000 isn't really the best thing to do.

@Dr Changsteen

If they are.....I'm sold.

And I'm not even a PC gamer, but this looks too cool not to have.

@Dr Changsteen
What this guy said. You can build a desktop with better specs for 1/3 the price of this. I beg you guys, just buy a 300-400 dollar laptop and deal with playing Baldur's Gate or Doom when you're away from home.

@Dr Changsteen

More over, I built a desktop with slightly better specs for 1200...and that was about a year or two ago. I wouldn't be surprised if you could build it today for under a grand.

@Dr Changsteen

Yeah they'd need to shave a bit off that price before I'd consider it.

/giggle

@Misterlee Baaaahahahaha, awesome pun.

@Dr Changsteen

Did you even watch the video? You are paying extra because they spent tons of R&D and money on making the laptop really thin and really high quality. It has tons of extra bells and whistles too. That's why it is so expensive.

@Dr Changsteen

May I direct you to Apple R&D, where they base all of their products development on how appealing it looks to the masses. There isn't a single Apple product out there that has anything to offer that a cheaper, bulkier looking product can.

Yeah you could spend your money on something else. But then you wouldn't have a Razor Blade. And frankly, I want an LCD touchscreen on my keyboard. You want to make me one? Diiiiiidn't think so.

@Dr Changsteen

Also, First World Problem.

@Aguiluz
While a great laptop, that Sagetr is chunky as all hell. The fact that the Razor is so slim and compact is also a factor that people are overlooking. A hulking alienware or sager aren't exactly that portable.

Expensive laptop is expensive.

@Ospov

I do like all the green though. Green is my favorite color :)

@Ospov

Hey, you can watch fullscreen videos of people playing BF3 on it. That's gotta be worth something, right?

@Ospov

More to the point why are they selling a laptop to gamers at all? Desktops are vastly superior in all regards when it comes to gaming.

Wait joystiq, it's a gaming laptop and you don't tell us what type of video cards are in there? It must be something crazy and probably liquid cooled for that price.

@type2red
it says Nvidia Geforce 555M with 2GB of memory

@Dr Changsteen

$2800 "gaming" notebook, with a midrange GPU, how nice..

Seriously you can buy one with dual GTX 580m GPUS for that price.

lol someone is trying the mac way expensive shit it be

@MassiveGG
Do you speak english?

im no expert but that price and those specs are not worth it. At least throw some 3D in it.

@PR0F3TA

3D's an overhyped and overly expensive gimmick.
On the other hand, an actually decent GPU for that price range would be a start with improvements. :P

Haha, for a quarter of that price you could get a laptop that will play all the latest games. I bought mine 3 years ago and while I can't run everything super maxed, I can still be confident of all new games working very well. But then there is a hardcore of PC gamers that feel upset if they can't max everything. The polite term is 'enthusiast'. A more accurate term is 'twat'.

For that money, just get the world's best desktop and futureproof your gaming setup for the next 10 years... if that's possible, considering the DX and shader changes that keep happening.

*Looks at price* This is why people think PC gaming is dead. Build a desktop for $500.

@Arsenic13

who ever thinks PC gaming is dead also thinks the PS3 has no games and the 360 RROD's all the time every time.

@Arsenic13

I don't understand this "build your own desktop for $500" myth.
I've been looking into building my own rig, and if you actually want your desktop to run say BF3 or Skyrim well, you're going to be spending closer to $800 not including your keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

@sheisjustaglitch That's still 2000 cheaper than the laptop. Like I said: build a desktop. it's cheaper.

@Arsenic13

true. a lot of people exaggerate how much it costs to build a good gaming rig, but a lot of people also understate it.

@sheisjustaglitch Take a look at this: http://www.destructoid.com/how-to-build-a-480-gaming-pc-to-take-on-battlefield-3-207064.phtml

@geeksunny

i don't know why the title of that says $480. if you look at the bottom, it says the total comes to $698, which is way more. those are also pretty "meh" specs for a new rig, imo. only 4 GB RAM? the graphics card (Radeon HD 6670) is a little weak as well.

@maveric101 Yeah, I don't know whats up with the title, but if you add up the cost of the "alternative options" the price comes up to about $357 (case excluded, pre-tax, etc) for a complete rig that is capable of running the game. Specs aren't all that, but the point is that you can build a PC for pretty darn cheap.

@sheisjustaglitch

Go the newegg.com

I built my gaming desktop for around 400 bucks
(although I only bought things when they were on Sale/clearance)

I run Crysis Max at around 50 FPS.

Here's a tip for newegg:
make an account, put stuff in the shopping cart you want
(But don't checkout)
Wait a couple weeks, and soon you'll get deals on the stuff in your cart.

@PR0F3TA
But the thing about the rrod is sooo true!

@sheisjustaglitch
Just built My girlfriends PC for 970 Australian dollars with 23 inch monitor, mouse and keyboard.
It will max out any game you throw at it.

@geeksunny - I basically give people specs for new builds on a daily basis, and the most basic rig capable of BF3 at 1080p (which is the monitor resolution most people are buying these days) is around $700 to $800. $200 for proc, $100 for mobo, $40 for RAM, $80 or so for PSU (more if you want SLI, or a beefier single GPU card), $20 for DVD drive, $60 for the cheapest case I'd consider acceptable, $100 for Windows, $150 or so for a GTX 460.

People will tell you that you can do it for $600, but these people tend to forget that Windows needs to be paid for (damn capitalism, I know). Add in the cost of a monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc (if you don't already have them) and the price goes up.

The price can go down if you've got parts to re-use (HDD, case, DVD drive, RAM, etc) but not everyone does.

This hobby is way cheaper than it used to be, but it's still a bit of an investment.

Dear Razer,

You're not saving PC gaming with these prices.

btw, please add a thunderbolt port, like the new Sony laptop, so we can plug in external video cards.

With price aside. I think its pretty good lookin laptop. Not sure why it is so hard to make a laptop look attractive, and be something you wouldn't mind taking to public places. I for one thought alienware was cool when I was 15, now its something that is quite distasteful. Also, I hate the wedge design of computers it drives me nuts.

If this is the "open gaming platform" razer mentioned on its PCGamingIsNotDead website, I am not impressed. This is not an open gaming platform, it is an expensive product.

I figured they were about to launch a public eSports website as a clearing house for tournaments to try and capture that entire market. That would have made sound business sense right now with eSports about to take a major leap (thanks in part to Dota 2 and the new CS), and it would have been an open platform.

@Brendan Drain
I thought they were going to start producing a line of Cases and modified Graphics cards like MSi's modified NvIdia's, big fans, more dakka.

So being under an inch thick warrants the $1000 overcharge?

@PSNSaMav

That's what she said?

320gb Hard Drive.....really? Seems small for that price.

Dammit Razer, when I said compete with Apple I didn't mean copy them, paint it black, make it more powerful and increase the price 2 fold *Facepalm* In the words of Toby Tuner GODDDD DANGGIT!

Seriously this is what i'd expect at Apples MacBook price points :( ok maybe a little more but c'mon!

So yeah i'm calling it now, Razer rPhone which cost's £130 at the start of the contract and £40 a month for 2 years (2000 minutes, 5000 texts, unlimited internet), Razer rPad for £800, rPod for £400 and the Razer Pro for £8000.

I would love to see Razer make an iPhone competitor running Windows 7 phone just to see what it would be like and what they'd do but yeah :/

Waiting for the Switchblade. But judging by how ridiculous the Blade's price is, I don't think I should get too excited.

Seriously? This is the big deal Razer has been talking up for the past few days and posted in the WSJ for? Saying it was going to revolutionize PC and console gaming? I half expected them to re-reveal the Razer SwitchBlade, i was 3/4 right. This is way too expensive for most anyone to even consider. This is the precise reason console gamers don't like PC gaming is because they think it's too expensive (which it doesn't have to be), and this laptop doesn't change that thought, merely emphasizes it.

And seriously? A GT 555m? If it's anything like the 550 Ti, then I can't foresee it playing Battlefield 3 on anything other than near low settings, maybe medium if the res isn't 1080p. That thing will start getting eaten by games within a year, and it's a laptop, so forget exchanging components.

@Alphonze
You can technically change components in a laptop. You just need to make sure they conform to the casing... and the power supply I guess.

| 1 | 2 | 3 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

Razer unveils $2800 'Blade' laptop

Razer Blade (Announcement)

Reader Comments (114)

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:25PM Dr Changsteen said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:25PM Dr Changsteen said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:32PM Xoonaka said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:43PM HellFlyer said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:50PM Dr Changsteen said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:57PM The Cole Train said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 2:15PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 2:36PM Yuutuu said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 2:41PM Mechazawa Prime said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 4:30PM Misterlee said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:28PM JamesMortido said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:32PM KamiKaji said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:37PM JamesMortido said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 6:38PM JamesMortido said

Posted: Aug 29th 2011 12:49PM picxel said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:25PM Ospov said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:43PM Ospov said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 4:33PM TRONdll said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 7:03PM Esposch said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:27PM type2red said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:31PM Dr Changsteen said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 3:26PM aea0a095 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:29PM MassiveGG said

Posted: Aug 27th 2011 12:54PM Timerider said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:29PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 8:30PM StrangeObjective said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:30PM Dick Socrates said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:31PM Arsenic13 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:47PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 1:01PM sheisjustaglitch said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 1:04PM Arsenic13 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 1:22PM maveric101 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 1:22PM geeksunny said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 1:28PM maveric101 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 1:41PM geeksunny said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 4:12PM Schwiizzz said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 8:17PM eNriqeu said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 8:41PM Colorfuljosh said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 10:08PM BananaBoat said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:32PM Mr Hett said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:37PM whoswhoo said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:37PM Brendan Drain said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:41PM iceytoa1 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:37PM PSNSaMav said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 4:00PM A Sandwich said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:39PM FakeJamaican said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:39PM iceytoa1 said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:41PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:44PM Alphonze said

Posted: Aug 26th 2011 12:59PM pluupy said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is a stranger in a strange land

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW