Razer's "Dime" Tease is World's Thinnest Gaming Laptop
It's the world's thinnest gaming laptop, says Razer.
In addition to the refreshed Blade Pro laptop, Razer introduced on Thursday during its special press event the mystery device behind its "dime" teaser video released earlier this week: The Blade. The company says it's the world's thinnest gaming laptop, and here is where the dime reference comes into play: it's a mere 0.66 inches thin, slightly shorter in height when compared to a 0.7 inch dime standing upright. Clever, but a bit misleading.
Razer boasts that this new laptop packs more power-per-cubic inch than any other laptop in the world, cramming a future fourth-generation Intel Core "Haswell" processor, the latest Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M GPU, and a SSD into a rigid all-aluminum chassis. Crowning this portable gaming monster is a 14 inch LED-backlit HD+ display, a custom-designed trackpad and a backlit gaming-grade keyboard.
"We’ve designed and built the thinnest, most powerful 14 inch laptop in the world," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder, CEO and creative director. "Thinner than a dime and more powerful than other traditional desktop replacements today, we’ve created an entirely new category of thin and powerful laptops that is generations ahead of other PCs."
As with the previous Blade Pro laptop, pricing depends on the amount of storage provided by the SSD. The 128 GB model presumably costs $1,799 USD, but unfortunately Razer isn't providing prices for the 256 GB and 512 GB models. Pre-orders will begin on June 3, so that will be a good time to check back for additional pricing. Expects price increase increments of $200 at the least.
On the specs level, Razer can't really reveal what Haswell processor powers this device until the fourth-generation series is properly introduced by Intel next month. However the list reveals 8 GB of DDR3L 1600 MHz memory, a built-in 70Wh rechargeable Lithium-Ion polymer battery, 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM set aside for the GeForce GTX 765M GPU, and Killer Wireless-N 1202 connectivity (Wireless N and Bluetooth 4.0).
As for the actual dimensions, the laptop measures 13.6 x 9.3 x 0.66 inches, and weighs 4.1 pounds. Gallery shots reveal HDMI output, three USB 3.0 ports, a possible Kingston Lock, and a 3.5 mm microphone/headphone combo jack. The display has a 1600 x 900 resolution, and like the previous laptop, this portable rig likely features built-in speakers supporting Dolby Home Theatre v4.
"Incredible innovation is happening across the computing landscape, and the new mobile gaming experience Razer is delivering with the Edge, and now its Blade, is remarkable," says Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobile Client Platforms. "Powered by a future 4th gen Intel Core processor, people can expect the highest level performance from the Blade for the most discerning gamer."
Pre-orders for the Razer Blade laptop begin June 3.
While I would usually agree with such statement, I do find myself needing a thinner laptop than I what I've been using currently. I'm thinking of picking one of MSI GE series laptop since I've personally seen them close up and they are pretty good for the price and heat doesn't seem to be an issue either.
Wtf with laptop and desktop displays already? They are cramming QHD displays into PHONES!! Handhelds that cost $300 have better displays than this! Why?!
Wtf with laptop and desktop displays already? They are cramming QHD displays into PHONES!! Handhelds that cost $300 have better displays than this! Why?!
maybe a larger screen is more expensive to manufacture. it sure would be good to see 2560 X 1440 diplays sell for 200$..
But there is one difference, like overclocking my i7-930 from 2.8ghz to 4.1ghz, when can we get these laptops with with good OC'able motherboards? And Im sure we can find some aftermarket coolers that would work outside the box, if not connected in some form or anther?
Discussion please
Wtf with laptop and desktop displays already? They are cramming QHD displays into PHONES!! Handhelds that cost $300 have better displays than this! Why?!
maybe a larger screen is more expensive to manufacture. it sure would be good to see 2560 X 1440 diplays sell for 200$..
I bet you this laptop costs more than $2k. If I'm forking out that kind of cash for something that competes with sub-$1000 computers, I expect it to have AT LEAST the standard, which is 1080p.
That GPU has less than half the memory bandwidth than a 660ti. At 1080p with the settings turned up I don't think this thing could've handled 1920x1080. That probably had more to do with the choice of monitor resolution by Razer than anything.
Believe it or not, it actually costs money to redesign the entire inside for sustainable cooling management. Cramming everything into 0.70 inches and there is going to be a lot of redesigns for nearly everything. You're paying a premium for this. The Macbook Pro has been doing this for a while, and people thought you were only paying for the brand name, disregarding the aluminum body and different air flow system.
great idea, excellent weight, just curious over the cooling.
great idea, excellent weight, just curious over the cooling.
From Anandtech (about the previous models):
"A quick refresher from last time: the Blade was hot. Damn hot. We saw internal temperatures of 95C on the CPU and 80C on the GPU under loaded conditions, numbers that we were simply not that comfortable with. But it wasn’t just at load; this was a system that got relatively toasty even at idle, where we saw temperatures in the 50-60C range. This resulted in a system that ran hot to the touch (though most of this heat was directed away from areas that are commonly touched like the keyboard and palmrests) and constantly had the fan running, even when bouncing around the internet or YouTube. Put simply: not great.
Thankfully, the redesigned cooling system has helped tremendously, particularly at low load. The system now idles in the 37-42C range, significantly lower than the 55ish it used to go for, and it’s very rare to see the fans spool up until you start gaming. I put it through my typical 100% system load, basically using Furmark 1080p and wPrime 1024M looping to peg both CPU and GPU load at 100% for a sustained period of time to see where temperatures settled. wPrime is multithreaded so with 8 threads it's loading all four cores equally. I saw CPU temperature settle in the 85C range, while GPU temperature maxed out at 90C. It’s still pretty hot, but even at a sustained hour-long clip, I never saw throttling—the GPU core was pegged at 950MHz—and the fan itself was much less intrusive than before."
Unless their thermals have improved dramatically since late 2012 (haswell and gk106 might have done wonders, who knows?) this thing will idle at around 40C and max out at somewhere just shy of boiling. lol. Great if you live in Alaska or Canada.
The Razer Blade Pro (same hardware except bigger screen and a few goodies) topped out at $2800 for the 512GB SSD version.
Price gouging needs to be reduced, and an option to bring the laptops to 16GB of RAM is needed.
It looks very similar to the Asus U47a.
I can't believe they can stick in a 60w GPU + a non-lowvoltage 35W(~47w with VRMs & integrated GPU) into a 4.1 pound laptop. The AC adapter is 150 watts.
This is around the same thermal capabilites as my 8 pound Asus G50VT laptop.
I don't doubt it's possible though. This Razer Blade has 2 fans so it could have enough air flow to manage it.
1 concern is the temperature of the battery and how that is affected long term. In a plastic chassis, the battery can be more easily shielded from heatsink heat.