Razer has built a number of Blade laptops, including an early, massive 17-inch device that cost $2,800. In 2013, Razer released a thin, 14 inch laptop that still contained impressive gaming guts. Best known for its gaming peripherals like high-end keyboards and mice, Razer had hit on a laptop design mix that people liked.
Reviews of the 2013 Blade were generally positive, though its screen was held up as a negative. In the age of Apple’s Retina displays, the market’s standards have been raised.
Enter Razer’s new Blade, which the company was kind enough to bring by the TechCrunch office for some hands-on time (they were also nice enough to bring along their CEO for a chat, which was quite polite of them). The main differences that you need to understand is that the display in the Blade now has a pixel array measuring 3200 x 1800. And it has touch support. Last year’s Blade had pixels measuring 1600 x 900, and didn’t support your greasy mitts.
To power those new pixels, Razer included an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M graphics card to power the entire affair. Playing around with the new Blade’s screen was, if I may say, great. Battery life is said to be around six hours, if you were curious.
What’s the catch? The new Blade will cost you more than last year’s model, starting at $2,199. For the weak of heart or wallet, this is not. But as Razer has proven in the past, demand exists for this sort of computer.
Pre-orders for the new Blade’s start today, and they’ll ship next month. The broader PC market is in decline, but there is life along the fringes.