Gadgetory

hi I'm Scott Stein and if you like your gaming laptop super expensive and ultra stylish well the new Razer Blade might be for you we reviewed the Razer Blade last year actually earlier this year in its first configuration and it was a thin but very expensive twenty eight hundred dollar laptop that had specs that didn't quite match up to the types of cutting-edge gaming laptops that we've been reviewing but it did offer some interesting interfaces and designs had a really cool touchscreen trackpad called the switchblade UI that was futuristic but didn't quite have that many apps now in late 2012 the Razer Blade has been upgraded and the price has been dropped down to $2,500 and what you're getting is a very improved set of internal specs in a quad core Core i7 processor you're getting nvidia geforce gtx 660 m graphics and you're also getting a larger amount of hard drive space 500 gigs instead of 256 now once again like the previous Razer Blade there's no optical drive this is a super thin laptop it's actually nearly as thin as a Retina Display MacBook Pro and hey this had the idea before the MacBook Pro did in terms of introducing a very thin initially solid state based laptop with high-end specs as opposed to going the Ultrabook route when you fold this down this is about point eight inches thin it's very thin although it's over six pounds and it will feel a little heavier than your average laptop and it's wide so this kind of surf board laptop will not fit into your average backpack before worn but if you're a hardcore gamer you're probably used to that now what you're getting here is a lot of design this beautiful metal chassis and getting a fantastic 17 inch screen and you're buying into that switchblade UI now instead of a trackpad on the bottom you're getting a touchscreen trackpad over here with 10 programmable LED buttons above fancy stuff but what is it really used for it well the first time we wondered where were the apps they're about ten built-in apps ranging from Facebook apps to browser apps to a calculator nothing tremendously exciting now there are four games that are supported with apps Star Wars The Old Republic Counter Strike Team Fortress 2 and battlefield 3 and what the now two are really more like customizable button sets that you can bring up with a touchscreen interface on the bottom very useful when you're playing a game like Battlefield 3 perhaps but not really true second screen gaming that you may be seeing perhaps on the Wii U coming out now it's a nice touch but is it worth buying into there are more apps that are going to be on their way and you can program these top buttons yourself and add either your own graphic assets or an increasing library that Razer provides but that's a little bit of a hobby type of experience and in terms of an out of the box supported library we're still waiting for more games that brings us to the question of Windows 8 well this is not a Windows 8 laptop although it will be Windows 8 supported razer promises that they will be updating the drivers for this in time for Windows 8 launch or shortly thereafter but if you're buying into this laptop as a cool futuristic laptop just remember that there were going to be a lot of interesting cool laptops coming out in the next month or two a lot of them with touchscreens a lot of them that flip into crazy origami shapes or slider laptops those are going to be maybe even more interesting to show off but if you want a cool gaming laptop one that is specifically meant for gaming well this is probably the most stylish and interestingly designed one that's out there because let's face it a lot of gaming laptops are pretty conservative looking and they're a little thick and heavy and they opt for power over cool factor all in all it's an improved product although maybe you might have an issue with no optical drive and a hybrid hard drive instead of SSD I like the extra storage space and I also like the extra performance this is the new Razer Blade for late 2012 I'm Scott Steiner