Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
If you want hardcore gaming performance, but need it in a system that's portable, if not completely lightweight, then Razer's new Blade Pro could be just the ticket. Razer is calling it the "desktop in your laptop," and they the company has a point.
On the inside, the system packs a quad core Skylake processor, an 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU, 32GB RAM, up to 2TB of NVMe SSD storage in RAID 0, Thunderbolt 3, and a 4K G-Sync capable screen. That's a machine that isn't giving much up in performance to most desktop PCs, so already justifies Razer's strapline... but it's the next thing they did that really makes this a laptop desktop.
The Blade Pro doesn't have the usual membrane keys found in laptops. It has a full mechanical keyboard, with switches—not rubber domes—beneath each key. OK, it's still a laptop, so it's a low profile mechanical keyboard with reduced key travel and chiclet style buttons. But it's a mechanical keyboard nonetheless (Razer also has a similar mechanical mechanism for its iPad Pro keyboard). And of course, being a Razer laptop, it's not just a mechanical keyboard. It's a mechanical keyboard that can be lit up with any color of the rainbow. Alongside it sits a giant touchpad.
[...] There is of course the small matter of the price; it's a little eye-watering. With 512GB of storage, it starts at $3,699/€4,199/£3,499.
Related Stories
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11611/razer-files-for-ipo-in-hong-kong-to-raise-600-million
This week Razer has made a preliminary filing for IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company plans to raise $600 million for future growth, particularly in Asia. In addition, the funding is supposed to improve the company's overall march with investments in R&D as well as the brand. Razer's recent financial filings indicate Razer operated at a $20m profit in 2012-2013, but ran a loss of ~$70m in 2015-2016 because of multiple acquisitions as well as a tripling in R&D activities with a small uptick in revenue.
Razer started as a subsidiary of a computer peripheral maker Kärna in 1998 and quickly became famous for its Boomslang mouse designed specifically for FPS gamers and launched in 1999. Kärna ceased to exist in 2000 because of financial issues, but the Boomslang was so popular despite its price tag (which was high by the standards of the year 2000) that Terratec brought the Razer Boomslang back to market in 2003. Min-Liang Tan and Robert Krakoff (who used to be the GM of Kärna back in the day) acquired rights to the IP and the brand sometime in 2005 and established Razer Inc., as we know it today. Initially, Razer focused on mice, but the company gradually expanded its product portfolio with keyboards, headsets and other peripherals. Sometime in 2009-2010, Razer began to hire engineers from PC companies like Dell and HP with an aim to develop actual systems and go beyond peripherals. Today, the company offers various gaming gear, laptops, co-developed Razer Edition PC systems, and licenses its designs to others. Meanwhile, Razer is always in pursuit to expand its lineup of products and their distribution.
Previously: Razer Acquires Ouya Software Assets, Ditches Hardware
Razer's New Blade Pro: Desktop Performance in 0.9 Inches and 8 Lbs
Razer Prototypes Stolen at CES
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Monday October 24 2016, @12:49AM
Until it heats up enough to throttle itself or generates so much fan noise your ears start to bleed.
Did not RTFA (Read the fucking advertisement)
(Score: 4, Touché) by takyon on Monday October 24 2016, @01:50AM
I'll give it this: the "4K G-Sync capable screen".
Whether the 4K resolution is necessary, that's up to you, but G-Sync/FreeSync is a good trend.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday October 24 2016, @07:05AM
I've had gaming laptops and I don't think they've ever come even close to the noise from a desktop. The PSU is entirely separate (and uncooled) which is one source of noise gone.
Heat, sure, that's unavoidable, but a laptop is a basically a giant flat heatsink and any fans on it are going to be smaller and lower-powered than anything in a desktop - and they'll be direct on the main heat-producing components rather than in a metal box that also needs to be vented. Most high-end laptops have large copper heatpipes to bring the heat to one place and vent from there. I can run the fan on mine at full speed for you if you like. You'd struggle to hear it from across the room and you can happily watch a movie while it does so (hey, I generally run Bitcoin or Steam games similar in the background while I watch movies on it - without headphones - and that tends to ramp up the CPU and nVidia GPU).
It's also running off battery some of the time, so it's unlikely that you'll be gaming mobile, that's not what a gaming laptop is about. Battery gaming sucks, and you'll be lucky to get an hour out of it.
Gaming laptops are, however, the perfect compromise. A device I can take on a plane, use at work, sit on my lap at home and watch a movie or browse or whatever, that I can also just double-click one of 1000 games and play instantly.
All on the same device, no swapping machines, no keeping things on multiple PC's, no "Oh, where did I put that work document", etc.
I've used a gaming laptop as my only machine for about 8 years now. They are quiet, fast, powerful (more than powerful enough), have a built-in UPS, can be used while travelling and it means your system setup follows you wherever you go.
Hell, I once ran a school from it. When we were initially virtualising servers a few years ago, I used my gaming laptop and a copy of VMWare to host the initial copies of physical machines while we shuffled them about and got them onto the right server. For a brief period, that laptop was doing the job of high-end servers and nobody even noticed. And it barely made a whisper while it was doing so.
If you're paying that kind of money, you're going to be putting some decent cooling on it. And I doubt, beyond the usual PC breeze from the vents, that you'll ever care about the fan noise.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday October 24 2016, @09:59AM
All great except that desktop is generally tucked behind your desk while laptop is in your lap, on your bed etc. where all the theoretical outlets are blocked and the keyboard becomes a frying pan (or brittle if it made of plastic).
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday October 24 2016, @11:20AM
You mean - the box is hidden under the desk with the vent outlets all facing the wall and your laptop is out in the open-air with vents on all sides?
Doing it on soft furnishings that block vents is indeed stupid but so would be resting your desktop on your bed.
Literally, not an issue for anyone with a brain, and again - nothing a desktop would survive either. The laptop will if you have half a brain AND can do all the other stuff that the desktop can do.
Honestly, have used a gaming laptop for the last 8 years, sitting on my lap, on my sofa, in my car, in a plane, abroad, as the primary "desktop" on a table, etc. and never had a problem. Two different models, and the first only died because the hinges went.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday October 24 2016, @02:32PM
I don't know which games have you played on your 8 year old gaming laptop but I know not a single person whose gaming laptops survived 3 years without frying their palm.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday October 24 2016, @02:55PM
One lasted five years (hinges broke because of weak construction). The other lasted three.
And on this latest one I've played through GTA V and the Batman's from beginning to end.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:01PM
Rich kids! :D
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday October 24 2016, @04:18PM
I'd argue that a bit differently.
The PC case on the floor is positioned towards the front of the desk leaving quite a bit of space between the back of the case and the wall. The bigger problem is the dust on the floor which coats heat sinks with a nice layer of thermal insulation. Floors are a terrible place for the PC. I have mine on a printer stand that came with my desk set. And you can easily fit silent or near silent heat sinks to the CPU, GPU or even go water cooling.
Laptops have this problem of getting rid of heat because your legs aren't great heat sinks and neither is a desk. So the entire bottom is partly insulated and you are dependent on small fans, vents, and convection to remove the rest of the heat. This results in hot keyboards and noisy fans.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday October 24 2016, @10:08AM
I do the same, with one of the System76 laptops. It's a very minor compromise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @01:06AM
yeah, well, my thinkpad has that, and it's awesome.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @01:09AM
The fucker's a fat bastard, ain't he. That ain't no crime, but what's with the mug shot being printed on the piece?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @02:19AM
No, it doesn't.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Kenny Blankenship on Monday October 24 2016, @01:58AM
I went to the website and saw the pictures of their expensive new laptop showing pictures - on my cheap old laptop!
It reminds me of the explosion-laden "This is DVD" ads that used to be on VHS tapes for a few years before they stopped renting them.
Someday, even Killer Meteors must fail.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ShadowSystems on Monday October 24 2016, @02:58AM
First we have a manufacturer (not just these guys but nearly all of them) that tears out all the standard ports in an effort to make their devices as "thin & light" as possible, & then proceeds to charge a premium for the thing.
Then because they've stripped out all the ports that were once standard & replaced them all with a USB type C port instead & expect you to use dongles to replace said ports, they now get to charge you AGAIN for the dongle.
So you've just paid a premium for a device that the maker stripped to the bone & then again to add back the parts they stripped out.
WTF is the point?
Now you have to get a "desktop replacement" or "mobil workstation" (and pay the premium for them) to get the ports that are still standard.
See that wired Gigabit LAN port? *Pointing* That's got to be there because not everybody has access to WiFi, nor is WiFi ubiquitous everywhere.
See that video port? *Points* That's got to be there because not everyone has access to a WiFi enabled streaming monitor or projection system.
See that headphone jack? *Pointing* That's got to be there so we can listen to our stuff without having to recharge yet another device in order to do so, then hope like hell it pairs properly, & then that nobody else is ALSO connecting unobtrusively to listen in as well.
See that USB type A connector? *Pointing* That needs to be there for all the trillions of devices that still use that version, since type C isn't as prevelent as you might like to think.
"Just buy the dongle/doc & stop whining!"? Really? So now I've got to spend even more money and carry around yet another device just so I can do what's still a standard function?
So if all those ports still need to be there to let us get shit done, then why the HELL do you strip them out?
Simple. Greed. You want to sell us the dongles to put back the bits that you've ripped out. You want to sell us a dock to plug the device into to add back all those ports. You want to charge us a premium for having removed them and then again for giving them back.
Fuck you.
I refuse to play that game & "thin & light" can kiss my fucking ass.
I've just purchased my new computer & it's due to arrive on Monday. It's got all the ports, it's got a 4GHz CPU, it's got 32Gigs of DDR4 memory, it's got a 256Gb NVMe SSD, and it has a DVD DL writer. Guess what? It cost less than your "thin & light".
*Rude gesture with both hands, a foot, an elbow, my Navigation Cane, & I'd include the Guide Dog if it weren't busy on the other machine trying to play Minecraft*
=-}p
/s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @03:06AM
Just like a decade ago. :)
(Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Monday October 24 2016, @03:40AM
Except that most computers now don't have much above 2~3GHz in them. You have to customize the machine to add the 4GHz part, which adds more money to the build (obviously).
So for my eight core 4GHz I7, that's a damn sight better than the mobil version that most makers tend to foist upon folks.
I'd love to have something in the TeraHertz range by now if Moore's Law held true, but then I'd probably wet myself in squealy glee at that much computational horsepower.
*Sheepish grin*
Razor's "desktop in a laptop" is a nice enough concept, but it falls far short on too many points to make it much of anything to crow about.
I've just bought a better system for less money (including shipping!) & it'll be in my greedy little paws by end of day tomorrow.
Razor can bite me. =-)p
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday October 24 2016, @03:54AM
Just be glad you're not in the machining industry, where you still need RS-232.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Funny) by ShadowSystems on Monday October 24 2016, @04:05AM
BAH!
You WhipperSnappers & your newfangled ports!
Back in my day we had to arrange amino acids into zeros & ones, prod them with a pseudopod to get them to move where we wanted them, & hope they stayed in order while they went.
We didn't have any fancy ports and that's the way we LIKED it!
*Shakes a palsied tentacle*
Now get off'n my LawnGnome!
=-D
(Score: 4, Funny) by mhajicek on Monday October 24 2016, @04:14AM
Any port in a storm, eh?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Monday October 24 2016, @04:28AM
*Holds nose & chases after you with a dead fish*
Bad pun! Bad! Hahahahahahaha...
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:32AM
Ditto for electrical, at least if your facility is using old PLCs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @04:05AM
To me, the only truly essential legacy port that you listed is the headphone jack. That one I cannot live without, and I would never buy a machine that lacked one. Most of the rest of the stuff you mentioned is stuff you won't always need to do. How often do you really need to do presentations on your laptop with someone who has no WiFi streaming projection system? How often do you have to connect your laptop directly to a wired network? How often do you need to plug in a legacy USB-A device? The adapters required for the latter two will in total cost less than $10 and weigh less than 100 grams. The adapter needed for the first one is the only really expensive one, but even that costs less than $50. If you're spending $1000+ on a new laptop, how is an expenditure of $10 or even $60 such a big deal? And in exchange, it's the difference between lugging around a laptop that weighs 1 kg versus one that weighs 2-4 kg. When you're really mobile and have to carry stuff like that on your back around a city it makes a big difference.
I'm a lot more concerned about how it's almost impossible to get a new laptop without Microsoft's new misbegotten operating system preinstalled. I will not pay Microsoft for their latest iteration of malware.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Monday October 24 2016, @04:52AM
I use a wired LAN connection each & every day. There is no wireless available in the building due to it being old, a natural Faraday Cage, & security demands that nobody be able to Man-In-The-Middle a wireless transmission that will almost certainly include data that we *Can Not* allow to get out. Not everyone works in an office with ubiquitous WiFi, lunches with their laptop at the local coffee shop & surfs via WiFi, or travels on a train/subway that allows one to do much of anything if the device can't be held in one hand with the other hanging on for dear life to the overhead strap.
You must not do much in the way of interaction with projectors nor external monitors not directly under your control. There are too many "old school" projector systems that still require an SVGA plug, or monitors that need one, or (shudders) ones that have some benighted Apple connector that refuses to accept anything but an Apple product on the other end. Colleges, Universities, small business', "Mom & Pop Shop", & private sources are all notorious for having an absurd amount of ways of connecting to their equipment, very little of which will involve a WiFi connection.
That USB connector is still used on printers, media devices, port replicators, docs, projectors, scanners, CD/DVD changers, external CD/DVD units, and nearly every single "computerized" device available from shops like Amazon, BestBuy, NewEgg, ThinkGeek, et al. You can't dismiss it so readily without also refusing to buy (or have bought) anything as an accessory... you know, like a keyboard or mouse.
As for not wanting the weight of a fat laptop to burdon your bag, then why do you like adding every dongle under the sun to your kit to cover the attachment of the devices that require the ports they ripped out of the laptop in the first place? You may save some weight by buying a "thin & light", but then you lose those savings by having to lug around a kilo or two of dongles, docks, & adapters. Wouldn't it be smarter to just buy a albeit heavier laptop that included them in the first place?
TL;DR: not everybody has a WiFi connection, we still need the ports, & we're sick & tired of the "thin & light" marketing bullocks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Monday October 24 2016, @05:51AM
I regularly connect to my laptop: my tv, my 3d printer, my corded trackball (don't have to worry about batteries), thumb drives, external speakers and headphones. Whenever available cords work better than wireless.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @06:08AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @07:14AM
I use 1Gbps wired everyday too. WiFi is flaky and slow. In theory 1Gbps WiFi is possible in practice not if there are other people trying to use it too. Copying gigabytes of stuff over WiFi takes longer than I wish to wait.
USB A is also a required.
Anyway the Blade Pro seems to have the ports I want and the ports you want: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro#specs [razerzone.com]
Except for perhaps the video bit - it's only got an HDMI port, no VGA port. But that's acceptable to me.
So your original rant mostly doesn't apply to the Blade Pro, but then you can add a rant on if they can squeeze those ports into a Blade Pro they should be able to squeeze those ports into something fatter and lower spec.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @12:41PM
"How often do you really need to do presentations on your laptop with someone who has no WiFi streaming projection system?"
How often do you do presentations? It is pretty unusual to find a conference room that has wireless video. VGA is standard and will likely be for a long time to come.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @04:17PM
I entirely agree with what you said. However, I will note that the people who are willing to spend over $3500 for a laptop in this day-and-age are not ones to balk at spending another $100 for the different connectors and peripherals needed to make it work.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Tuesday October 25 2016, @12:45PM
May I play Devil's Advocate here for a moment?
But you only have all those USB devices because previous machines dropped all the specialised keyboard connectors, mouse connectors, modem connectors, serial ports, microphone ports, and all the various other connectors that were in common use at the time.
If they'd continued to support all those, then USB devices wouldn't have taken off in the way they did; many people at the time would have been happier, but today we all benefit from the early adopters.
So manufacturers have to balance the needs of people today with lots of existing gear against those who are starting out now and have to buy new stuff anyway, and the many more who will (probably) benefit in the future from ubiquitous USB-C.
And at least you can get simple dongles to tide you over until that time.
I'm not saying that manufacturers should ignore current needs. Yes, it's very annoying when current gear isn't (easily) supported. (And I certainly can't see any reasonable excuse for dropping something like headphone connectors for the foreseeable future; they're tiny and far too widely used, and I do not want to be forced into proprietary and encoded formats.)
But I also don't want to spend a lot of money on a device that should last many years, only to find it can't work with newer accessories or features in a year or two.
Where does the balance lie? That'll be different for different people, depending on their needs, existing gear, and wallets. But I don't think that this game is only about greed; yes, there's plenty of that, but I think it's also about improvements and future-proofing.
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:34AM
What laptop is that, if I might ask? I know the ASUS ROGs have *ALL* of the necessary ports, and multiples of each, and run cooler than my desktop does under load - and quietly.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Monday October 24 2016, @09:39AM
Shame it comes with Windows 10.
As long as it has drivers for other OSes I would be happier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @01:11PM
I almost feel bad for the guy who had to write the paragraph about Windows 10:
With the Razer Blade Pro and Windows 10, you can start from the desktop you’ve always known. Windows 10 is the best combination of Windows – with lots of similarities to Windows 7 including the Start menu. Enjoy access to stunning DirectX 12 visuals while getting the most performance out of your Razer Blade. Also stream games from your Xbox One console right to your Blade Pro.1
Best combination of Windows? Holy crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @06:00PM
As usual.