Razer Blade: hands-on with 17-inches of gaming greatness

Something big’s been brewing over in Carlsbad , and the time has finally come for it to be revealed to the world: the Razer Blade. The onyx aluminum beaut before you is the culmination of over three years of work by a stealth team of engineers — many of them absorbed from the former OQO team , but Razer also pulled talent from other places to build the Blade. Despite being only 0.88-inches thick (thinner than another 17-incher we know… ), the svelte number still packs a punch with a 2.8GHz Core i7 2640M CPU and GeForce GT 555M graphics replete with 2GB of GDDR5 video memory. All that graphical horsepower will splay your exploits on a 17.3-inch LED 1920 x 1080 full HD panel with an HD webcam nestled above. Rounding out the package is 8GB of RAM, three USB ports (one which’ll support 3.0), HDMI out and a 60Wh integrated battery. And it could all be yours for $2,799 when it debuts in Q4 of this year. That’s dandy, but we’re more stoked on the 480 x 800 LCD trackpad just to the right of the backlit keyboard. It works either as a multitouch enabled input device or as an additional display for in-game info when the mood strikes to slay demons with an external mouse. North of that hotness lie ten fully customizable buttons, both in appearance (courtesy of a separate LCD) and in function. The keys and trackpad are running a custom Switchblade UI — inspired by the company’s oh so sexy Switchblade concept that we saw at CES . And just like the concept, Razer’s used a custom lighting panel to ensure you can see those keys clearly from an angle — people don’t look straight down at their keyboards, after all. Follow on past the break for more impressions, video and PR. Michael Gorman contributed to this report. Gallery: Razer Blade Gallery: Razer Blade preview Continue reading Razer Blade: hands-on with 17-inches of gaming greatness Razer Blade: hands-on with 17-inches of gaming greatness originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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