Razer Blade gaming laptop delayed until January 2012

[Jos]

Razer's highly anticipated Blade gaming laptop won't make it to market in 2011 after all, according an announcement posted on the company's Facebook page. Apparently the delay was caused by the recently announced upgrade of the laptop's 320GB HDD to a 256GB SSD. Because this change was made 'at the eleventh hour', the company says it was only able to secure limited quantities of the SSD in question and thus won't be able to fulfill their initial launch orders of the Razer Blade before the holidays.

The company now expects to start shipping its 17-inch gaming laptop in mid to late January to customers in North America. To make up for the delay, Razer is offering a coupon code for a Razer Orochi Blade Edition mouse to anyone who signs up to receive a notification when the Blade starts shipping in January. The coupon is redeemable only when you purchase the Razer Blade, of course, which is already a hefty $2,800.

As previously reported, Razer's gaming machine offers a 17.3-inch 1080p display, a 2.8GHz Core i7, 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GT 555M with 2GB of VRAM and Optimus, an HD webcam, USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, HDMI-out, and Bluetooth 3.0. Its standout feature is a unique "Switchblade UI" that's adjacent to the standard keyboard and offers 10 customizable hotkeys above a multi-touch screen. The latter serves as a trackpad when you're on the go, but it can display handy in-game data if you're using an external mouse.

This is the second Razer product to be delayed in recent weeks. The firm's Tiamat 7.1 surround headset is also being pushed back until late January due to some finishing touches that still need to be made.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/46774-razer-blade-gaming-laptop-delayed-until-january-2012.html

 

[igotdembombs]

Highly anticipated? Sounds like you were fooled by Razer marketing to think anyone gives a crap about this laptop.

 

[Vrmithrax]

It's funny to me... Highly anticipated? Maybe, it will definitely be interesting to see how well it performs. Actual big seller though? I'm thinking it will tank at that price point, unfortunately.

I still think they were onto something with that little original Switchblade concept and the configurable touch/key/screen input combination. If they could have done that small form factor at a decent price with good performance, I could see it chewing a corner off of the handheld gaming marketplace. Ah well.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

I was actually excited about the switchblade, this is just another giant gaming notebook.

 

[ghostchili]

Gaming notebook? Not with a Nvidia GeForce GT 555M. It should be $1499 with that video card.

 

[howzz1854]

i still don't understand... are they trying to sell it to the guys or selling it to the girls... someone at the marketing department really needs to be fired.

 

[tehbanz]

Asian chuck norris wants you to buy this laptop

 

[DokkRokken]

howzz1854 said:
i still don't understand... are they trying to sell it to the guys or selling it to the girls... someone at the marketing department really needs to be fired.

Gay dudes typically have higher income than hetero's. At that price premium, Razer could be trying to sell to that market specifically.

And he is pretty hot.

 

[Mudvayne819]

This lagtop is so bad, first, there's no gaming laptop, every laptop are lagtop, you dont buy a laptop to play games, that the first error you do with buying this laptop.

second, why is the led display on the right side. its a left handed laptop or something?

third, can you actually use these led buttons because if they are just there for the show, very useless of a feature... when they show thigns taht you can already look on the monitor.

 

[agissi]

I thought the same thing, thats some pretty lack-luster hardware for $2800.

 

[Rick]

mudvayne819 said:
This lagtop is so bad, first, there's no gaming laptop, every laptop are lagtop, you dont buy a laptop to play games, that the first error you do with buying this laptop.

Any hardcore gamer who travels would love to take their games on the road. A laptop like this one is really your best option, like it or not. Taking around even a "mini-rig" is impractical most times, so I kind of disagree with you, although not entirely.

Second, why is the led display on the right side. its a left handed laptop or something?

They replaced the number pad... I imagine they felt the numpad was useless and replaced it with something flashy that may be useful? At least they think it will be, I guess. The jury is definitely still out on this one.

I thought the same thing, thats some pretty lack-luster hardware for $2800.

I agree. I think what you're really paying for those is the fancy chassis, the possibly useless LCD pad and hopefully (just hopefully) a well-designed, high-quality laptop. But personally, none of that is worth the $2800 to me... Plenty of people buy Macbook Pros for just as much though.

All in all, I'm thinking Razer is digging themselves a nice little hole here to crawl into and die by not making something more reasonably priced. I'm willing to bet this will be the last Razer laptop we see for some time, but I do believe a thriving customer base exists for a "gaming laptop". It just needs to hit some middle-ground on pricing because not everyone is the in the 1%.

 

[Ranger1st]

I believe it's a misprint, it should have said " .. delayed till Razer gets a clue..."

 

[Guest]

Gay dudes dont have higher income, they just don't spend money on their kids, because they haven't any.

 

[Guest]

Omg lol! That thing is huge!

 

[Guest]

AMAZING laptop, it's hard to find a great laptop that actually looks neat as well without overdoing it. I really love the sleek design, it's pretty much exactly what I've been looking for. But I do really agree that the price is WAY too high; especially since the specs are starting to become pretty 'outdated' for a gaming laptop at that price range.
But then again, people are still willing to buy Macbook Pro's for $2500++ and it's not like you can game properly on those, so whatever.