Razer wants gamers to go broke?
by
Published on 06-04-2013 11:00 AM
Razer makes expensive stuff. That's a fact. However, most of Razer products are very durable, ensuring your investment wasn't a waste of funds. It took them quite a while to nail the sweet spot when talking about gaming systems, but it's possible they've finally arrived to their destination.
30th of May, they made an event to announce the new Razer Blade, an "impossibly thin" gaming laptop, as they call it. Somehow, they managed to pack everything the old Blade had, ditching the hard drive and track pad in the process, into a thinner case. It even features a Haswell CPU, the one that just got released. They pretty much packed everything you will need including 8GB of RAM (DDR3L- 1600MHz), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 756M (2GB GDDR5 VRAM), 256GB SATA III SSD, something they call "Killer Wireless", and a 70Wh battery to keep you going for about 6 hours, or so they claim. Even though it features a 14'' display, many would find that it suffices for gaming or any work you might do. And then they killed all possible future of the device, by setting the max resolution to 1600x900. Designed for gaming? First thing a gamer does when running a new game, Razer, is crank up the settings to the max, including the resolution, especially if they paid $2000 for a laptop that's suppose to be made for gamers.
Despite the resolution, they really nailed the design and weight on this one. It's a huge factor, considering you want to carry the thing around, that it doesn't weight 6 kilograms because someone thought its funny to pack dual graphic cards into a laptop (Hi Alienware). It weights only 4.1 lb, which is about 1.8 kilograms. Very portable, you could put it in a bigger pocket, and have it with you the whole time. And play games at the resolution of 1600x900.
At the same time, the old Blade got removed from their store, and a Razer Blade Pro has been added, which features the same specs as the Blade, with the switchblade (the fancy track pad) update to support many work environments. It also has a 17.3'' screen with a resolution of 1920x1080. Thank you. As they finally realized some, not many but some, people use these systems for work, their new slogan for it is "WORK HARD. PLAY HARD.". And just to show you they mean it, they threw in a new discount program.
If you are an Indie Game developer with a published title, or someone who completed a Kickstarter campaign in the gaming world, making a goal of $50000 or more, Razer is willing to give you this discount you don't really need and let you buy up to two Razer Blade Pros at the price of $999 each. Even though companies like that probably have enough funds to buy the system, it's nice to see Razer supporting uprising game developers. If you are a student of one of the schools listed below, you will get a discount of 10% for the system and 15% for peripherals and accessories:
Art Institute
Digipen
Full Sail
Republic Polytechnic
If you don't fall into neither of these categories, you will have to cough up anywhere from $1600 to $2600 for the new Razer Blade, and probably more for the Razer Blade Pro (prices were listed on the site 30th of May, only for Razer Blade, and got removed the day after). The price scales with the size of SSD, so 128, 256 and 512 options will be available, which is the only customization you can make to the system. On the bright side, shipping is free. Only to US and Canada though.
The "by gamers" part of Razer's slogan is understandable, but they can't possibly justify the "For gamers", as in reality, a very limited audience will have access to their new systems. In April 2013, only 5 stores in the entire world had old Razer Blade, excluding United States and Canada, at a higher price then the retailer, so it would cost you almost double to have one shipped to you.
Are you even remotely considering buying the new systems, or are they just too hyped up and not worth mentioning?
Me? I'm going to go out of my way and try to get my hands on a couple of Razer Blade Pros, as they are everything I need in a lightweight packaging, with powerful batteries and sleek design. They create the perfect balance between a gaming and a work laptop, so I'll try to overcome possibly hyped up prices and no availability worldwide. The question is: Will you?
Fisher- 06-04-2013Fisher- 06-05-2013vBulletin Message