Razer has announced its new Blade gaming laptop, the thinnest and lightest laptop it has ever produced, and the thinnest machine available for serious gamers.
The company, which started as a high-end gaming accessory creator, only joined the laptop game in the last two years. Its new Blade, the third of Razer's laptops to carry that name, is a 14-inch, aluminum-bodied laptop packed with Intel's newest Haswell processor. Razer says this is the most compact gaming laptop ever; the Blade is 0.66 inches tall when closed and weighs four pounds.
Along with the Haswell processor, the Blade includes Nvidia's GeForce GTX 765M graphics card with 2 gigs of GDDR5 video memory, 8 gigs of DDR3 memory and a 128gb SSD standard. It also has dual-band Wi-Fi from Qualcomm, three USB 3.0 ports and a hi-def 720p webcam.
The Blade's backlit LED display renders at 1600x900 at 1080p, which should look impressive with performance-pushing games. Razer claims the Blade's battery lasts for six hours, though it's not clear if that will last as long during intense gaming. The Blade also sports Razer's well-liked Synapse keyboard.
The price is quite steep: $1,799 for the base unit, with hard drive upgrades likely adding up to quite a premium.
Razer also renamed the original 17-inch Blade the Blade Pro, and gave it a bit of a spec upgrade as well. The Blade Pro runs on similar parts as the Blade, but is a much bigger machine. The standard model runs for $2,299.
Both the Blade and Blade Pro are available for pre-order starting Monday, June 3, from Razer's website.
What do you think of a gaming laptop like Razer's Blade? Share your thoughts in the comments.