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Razer’s awesome Blade laptops spotted in SA

Ever since Razer announced that it was getting into the laptop game last year, I’ve wanted to play around with its jet-black Mac-a-likes. They come in two flavours, the Blade and Blade Pro, and are superthin and sporty. armed with Intel’s Haswell processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M graphics processors.

The Blade is a 14inch machine that weighs 1.88kg, while the 17inch Blade Pro is just over a kilo heavier but also sports a secondary touchscreen where the number pad should be, and 10 customisable buttons with built-in screens that can display full colour icons specific to the game you’re playing or macro commands.

They’re the closest thing the PC world has to the elegance and power of the Macbook Pros, but sadly just as expensive. The Blade costs from $1 999 in the US and the Blade Pro starts at $2 300. I mention dollar prices as they’re only available in the States at the moment, and have been since launch.

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The Blade Pro, backstage at rAge

That may change soon, hopefully. According to Razer’s EMEA spokesperson, Jan Horak, the Blades should be available in Europe just after Christmas, from whence they may find their way into South African distribution. Horak bought along a couple of samples of the laptops to last week’s rAge show, which curiously was my first chance to get hands on with them.

Definitely machines to file under ‘want’. They are better in the flesh than I’d hoped, to be honest, and I’d love to get my hands on one for a full review.

Horak also bought along one of Razer’s Edge tablets, which also turned out to be better than I suspected. The Edge is very similar to the Microsoft Surface Pro, which I’ve been playing around with recently. It’s a 10.1inch tablet which runs Windows 8 and has a full power Intel Core processor inside, but it also includes an NVIDIA graphics chip of the GT640M variety for gaming.

The twist over the Microsoft tablet is that there’s a docking station available already, so this could be a work PC, and a gaming cradle which clamps around the tablet and adds console-like thumbsticks and triggers. Not my preferred way to game, if I’m honest, but much better than I was expecting.

Again, it’s a machine that isn’t necessarily slated to appear in South Africa, but may well find its way here before too long.

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The Edge is surprisingly powerful for a tablet.

What’s definitely coming, however, is a new version of the Naga MMO mouse. This has newly raked macro buttons on the side that are easier to hit and supported by a mechanical action, and there’s variant for lefthanders. The firm is also releasing a new virtual surround headset, the Kraken 7.1. This is actually a stereo headset tuned to work with 3D audio algorithms performed by Razer’s driver suite, but it’s hella comfy to wear.

We should have both of those to review soon. Galleries below.

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