The lesson one should take from a Razer press event is that there’s no challenge the company doesn’t think it can’t take on.
That’s the personal attitude of CEO Min-Liang Tan, so when he wanted his engineers to meet customer cries for an ultra-portable gaming laptop with a smaller screen, they put their noses to the grindstone.
Gamers’ calls were answered as Tan introduced the new Razer Blade, a gaming notebook with a 14-inch screen that measures 0.66-inches high when closed. Thinner, Tan demonstrated during its an event to introduce the laptop on May 30, than a standing dime.
Razer drew inspiration from two sources – Apple’s MacBook Air and the Alienware M14X gaming laptop – for form factor and power.
The result isn’t a machine that makes you say “wow” – until you pick it up. It’s an airy 4.135 pounds and while we didn’t have any dimes handy ourselves, is undoubtedly thin. It is, as Razer hoped, portable while still performing at an enviable clip.
Specifications
The 14-inch screen, which is 3 inches smaller than previous Blades, sits at a resolution of 1600 x 900. It’s not the most dazzling display, to say the least. While the resolution on the 16:9 display was lacking, the color saturation and viewing angles left much to be desired.
Drift too far to the side and the image on the screen became a washed out dark grey. The pigments lacked crispness and vibrancy.
It’s a bit of shame because the game play is snappy thanks to its CPU. We only know that it’s the 4th generation Core i7 processor by Intel, formerly known as Haswell.
Aside from the fact that it’s a 37 Watt chip, details are scarce. Razer folks were remiss to release specifics or performance figures like frames per second until Intel’s Computex announcement comes to pass next week.
On the GPU end there’s an Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M. Anticipating the problem of gamers everyone, Razer threw in a 70 Wh lithium ion polymer battery that can last 6 hours of normal use and about 3 of gameplay.
The device comes standard with 128GB of solid-state storage, though users can bump it up to 256GB or 512GB. Memory-wise the new Blade has 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L.
Because of its Killer NIC N1202 Wi-Fi by Qualcomm, Razer didn’t feel the need to include an Ethernet port. There are three 3.0 USB slots – two on the left and one on the right – plus a headphone jack and HDMI port.
Performance
Windows 8 is the Blade’s operating system and there’s nothing much to say about it. You’ve got your tiles, and your standard apps. Flip from email to BioShock Infinite… you know the drill.
Metro: Last Light, a graphic intensive game, popped off the screen, though there was some flatness one often encounters on LCD TVs.
We were pleased to learn that while there’s a noticeable zippiness to games played on the Haswell chip, users of professional apps like Adobe Premier will also see a performance improvement as well.
The Dolby Home Theater v4 speakers were more than sufficient – after we commented on the volume, we found out they weren’t even turned up all the way. The grids are located on either side, providing a quasi-surround sound experience those who like to hear the splatter of zombie guts are sure to appreciate.
The track pad is a joy – it’s responsive and needs the lightest of touches to move from one spot to the next. It has a soft finish that’s almost velvety, a sensory experience repeated on other parts of the Blade as well.
Early verdict
The biggest disappointment of the 14-inch Razer Blade is its screen. With so much compute power and a form factor just begging to be taken wherever you want, it’s quite a let down when you flip it open to see limp icons and fuzzy outlines.
It comes to life more when a game is going, but hopefully Razer can figure out a way to give the next Blade more pixels and a greater resolution, otherwise going for something heavier may be better cash spent.
There’s a sleekness to the matte black finished and punctuations of radioactive green that make you just want to touch the Blade, always a good sign if you plan on spending hours beating bosses and saving the universe. It feels solid enough, though unlike a Sudden Valley home, isn’t as solid as a rock.
One design aspect we couldn’t get over was the thickness of the plastic on the top part of the screen. Yes, we may be too picky, but it invaded our eyesight at times and proved distracting.
All in all, Razer has put together a machine that, starting at $1,799 (around UK£1,182, AU$1,860) plenty of gamers are going to want. It’s also set the stage for a whole new niche of gaming laptops, one that should accelerate rather rapidly…
- If you’re looking for a laptop cheaper than the Razer but still powerful, try our list of the top 25 laptops.
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