Thinner than the thickest edge of the MacBook Air but packing next-gen processors from Nvidia and Intel, Razer's new 14-inch Blade is the smallest, most compact gaming laptop on the market. It's unlike anything I've seen before, but how does it look, feel, and perform in person? I went hands-on to find out.
The new 14-inch Blade takes on the name of Razer's 17.3-inch gaming laptop, now known as the Blade Pro. But naming convention isn't all the two share. The Blade is constructed from the same black anodized aluminum, but sheds a few pounds and roughly .22 inches. Up close, the variation in thickness isn't readily apparent, but the overall weight and size is drastically different. The Blade is without question the smallest gaming laptop available.
The core aesthetics remain unchanged with Razer's signature black-on-neon green color scheme with a near-identical, albeit considerably smaller, keyboard. The keys are low-profile and packed tightly together, which is obviously can't compete with a desktop keyboard, but they're more than sufficient for the form factor and gaming-on-the-go. Extended gameplay might start to feel cramped, but I'll have to wait until formal review testing to find out.
But the big question is how well does it play games? As one of the first announced products for Intel's new Core i7 Haswell CPUs and Nvidia's GTX 765M GPU, the Blade is packing a ton of power. I was able to check out the system running BioShock Infinite on ultra settings at the Blade's native 1600x900 resolution at framerates well above the accepted standard of 30 frames-per-second. Naturally, games like Crysis 3 and Metro: Last Lighter were more demanding and I had to drop settings down a level in order to maintain a steady framerate.
At just above 720p, the resolution of the display isn't the highest pixel count available, but at a 14-inch screen size, games look crisp and detailed. What's more concerning, was the panel's limited viewing angle. In an optimal position, the display looked great, but as you moved to the sides or tilted it up or down, colors started to wash out. It's by no means a dealbreaker, but when you compare it to some of the other products on the market — like Alienware's M14x or the MacBook line — it's a bit of a letdown.
What was most striking, however, was how quiet it ran. The dull roar generated by gaming on a laptop can often disrupt the experience, not only for the player, but those around them. The Blade, on the other hand, was practically silent even when running maxed out games.
Based on my experience today, the Blade has quickly risen to the top of my list of most-anticipated products of 2013, but there are some lingering questions: how's the battery life? How does it run during more prolonged sessions? Is it worth the $1,799.99 price tag? I'll be answering these questions soon in my review, but as things stand, I'm very optimistic.
Scott Lowe is IGN's resident tech expert and Executive Editor of IGN Tech. You can follow him on Twitter at @ScottLowe and on MyIGN at Scott-IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
No comments:
Post a Comment