Razer Unveil The Shadow Event - Razer Desktop?!

Razer Unveil The Shadow Event – Razer Desktop?!

The shadow is unveiled...

Min Liang Tan is a squeamish guy. The Co-founder, CEO and Artistic Director of Razer is a friendly and affable chap. I'k sitting contrary him as the first appointment of his European route trip and the start person outside of Razer (I'1000 told) to encounter the "Shadow" which is getting unveiled. I besides take an even better presentation than all the journalists meeting Min after me considering Brad's (from the Usa office) flying was delayed and he was going to do part of the presentation today, and so instead I have the CEO himself giving me the entire presentation. Brad arrives towards the stop of the meeting so I allow myself a pocket-sized hidden fist pump that I got the full Min feel whereas the other journos won't.

Yes, it's a major announcement by Razer for a European production launch which isn't just getting the Usa leftovers and mitt me downs which take already been announced coming over here (the updated Razer Blade Stealth and Razer Blade).

And so why, despite all of this am I slightly aghast at what has simply occurred?

Well, for starters, it's not the 1st of April and although at that place was a rather obvious pedestal at the front of the meeting room with a velvet fabric thrown over it, Min has merely told me that Razer is making its start desktop!

My heart skips a beat as I imagine the Project Christine concept, the ridiculously ambitious and innovative, modular desktop which Razer unveiled at CES a couple of years agone. I glance nervously downwards at my notebook with question topics to ask Min about after he's finished presenting to me. The topic in 3rd identify leaps out at me from the folio: "3. Projection Christine?"

Is Christine actually coming true?!

He gets upwardly and pulls dorsum the covering and stands there grinning at the fact that I conspicuously believed him and his trick worked, because under the cloth, is none other than a cute looking large chassis, just nonetheless thin laptop.

I tin't imagine what my confront looks like, I've already seen 2 Razer Blade laptops today (the Stealth and the Blade, read about them here), a 3rd makes sense but I was obviously hoping for something different. The Razer Blade Pro has been around for a while and it stood to reason that there would be an update to it too, but information technology always struck me every bit a bit of an oddity before. The Pro was something more alike to what I viewed as a traditional gaming laptop every bit opposed to the other Blades. A large 17" course factor which makes no real concessions to portability and yet merely had a 960M despite the smaller Blade having a 970M GPU.

Hmm, and then what practise we have here? Min explains to me that they wanted to have a major product launch in Europe, non just news that Europeans would finally be able to get the Blade Stealth and Bract. This is information technology, the new Razer Blade Pro is launching, and it's a bold claim they're making. The first slide Min shows me after the unveiling is the now traditional "Don't touch me you filthy casual" meme below and goes on to explain that this is the first laptop that tin can truly exist called a desktop replacement.

Min aims to practice away with this...

Personally, I'yard sceptical. Laptops are smashing and useful machines. But everyone knows what the phrase "Desktop Replacement" means: heavy, large dimension, ungainly pieces of equipment which although they give y'all a good degree of the capability of a desktop, never really manage to compete at the summit cease. Usman refers to them as "luggables" and it'southward a fitting word, most of the time...

The New Razer Blade Pro

And then let's take a look at the car. Min tells me the objective here is to practise away with the filthy casual tag so let'due south meet how they've tried to become about that.

Min presents the new Razer Blade Pro to me...

An Intel Core i7 is of course standard then no surprises in that location, but the first big shock is that they've managed to squeeze an Nvidia 1080 into a chassis that is 22.5mm thin! Exactly how they plan to absurd that matter effectively is anyone'southward guess, merely Min, clearly proud of Razer'south achievement explains to me that Razer'southward engineers have designed what is the earth'due south thinnest manufactured vapour bedroom cooling system in a laptop and that it's sitting right inside the Pro.

PCIE SSDs in RAID 0 is the gild of the day with either 2x256 GB drives or 2x 512 GB drives for respective totals of 512 GB or one TB and 32 GB of DDR4.

Adjacent up, the Razer Blade Pro has an (evidently Chroma) mechanical ultra-low profile keyboard.

Min explains to me that the big ask around desktop replacement for gamers has always been ii things. Flagship level desktop grade graphics and a desktop grade peripheral experience, I take a quick play on the keys. They certainly have a proper mechanical feel to them. This is impressive.

Permit's take a look at the full spec sheet:

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 (8GB GDDR5X VRAM)
Intel® Cadre i7-6700HQ Quad-Core Processor (ii.6 GHz / 3.v GHz)
17.3-inch IGZO UHD G-SYNC, xvi:nine ratio, 3840 x 2160, with LED backlight, with capacitive multi-touch
Windows® 10 64-bit
512 GB SSD RAID 0 (2x 256 GB PCIe G.2) / 1 TB SSD RAID 0 (2x 512 GB PCIe M.2) / ii TB SSD RAID 0 (2x i TB PCIe One thousand.two) options
32 GB Dual-Channel Organization Memory (DDR4, 2133 MHz)
Anti-ghosting individually backlit ultra-depression-profile mechanical keyboard
Killer DoubleShot™ Pro:
Killer™ Wireless-Ac 1535 (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/air-conditioning + Bluetooth® 4.1)
Killer™ E2400 (Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/chiliad)
Thunderbolt™ 3 (USB-C™)
USB 3.0 port x3 (SuperSpeed)
HDMI 2.0 video and sound output
SDXC carte du jour reader
Born stereo speakers
Dolby® Digital Plus Dwelling Theater Edition
vii.one Codec support (via HDMI)
three.five mm headphone/microphone combo port
Built-in webcam (two.0 MP)
Array microphone
Razer Synapse enabled with programmable keyboard, trackpad, backlighting, and fan command
Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0) security fleck embedded
Kensington™ security slot
Compact 250 W power adapter
Congenital-in 99 Wh rechargeable lithium-ion polymer battery
Approx. Size: 0.88 in. / 22.v mm (Height) ten 16.seven in. / 424 mm (Width) ten 11 in. / 281 mm (Depth)
Approx. Weight: 7.eighty lbs. / 3.54 kg

That's a pretty impressive list right in that location. The new machine is expected to ship to customers in Nov in the US and Europe. That'southward correct, once again a fully localised version with UK, French and German layouts at launch!

New Razer Blade Pro Hands On

The keys feel as gorgeous equally y'all'd await. Non quite upward to what I get on a mechanical desktop (I'yard personally a loud clicky key fan) only they have a quality experience to them. The touchpad is huge of course and that screen. I take it in with a sigh. THAT, is a screen. It'southward besides a G-Sync panel I'm told.

Right, enough daydreaming, I don't take much time before the next journo is due in to meet Min and several laptops to get through. I fire up Steam and become into Rising of the Tomb Raider, allow's meet what this bad male child can do.

The fans kick in every bit expected, I become into the benchmark and offset information technology upwards. The now long familiar Mountain Height set slice starts. This is ridiculous, native 4k in a laptop and it looks smooth...

The fans have kicked into overdrive which is to be expected, the system is pretty loud like this and I start feeling around the chassis for hot spots. Feels similar the GPU is in the infinite above the keyboard, there is probably four finger widths worth of infinite there (see below) and this feels the hottest. It's pretty hot, not the hottest I've had in a laptop, just as well not far off. All that performance comes at a cost.

And performance it does indeed have, the overall score in DX11 on very high preset at UHD comes in at 42.98 FPS. For reference, when I reviewed the 1080 Gaming Ten a few months ago, that came out at 51.42 in like circumstances. That's close to a xx% comeback although of course the Gaming X is clocked higher than a reference 1080, additionally the space in a desktop volition plain allow yous a significantly more effective cooling solution than a small enclosed chassis like the Blade Pro'due south. Reference 1080'due south typically arrive the loftier forty's under similar scenarios.

Looking at the auto itself, it has a scroll wheel at the tiptop right of the keyboard for book control. I also have a quick peek in the windows control panel to see what the scaling is ready to given the UHD panel and small size. 250% is the figure chosen. It feels a little large to me, I'grand used to running a 32" UHD at 100% at dwelling house so I'd probably lower this a bit.

Lifting the auto up, despite its svelte physical thickness (or thinness as anybody insists on calling it these days), information technology's still a hefty machine. Unsurprising again, only light when you consider the ability inside the Pro. Yet, I wouldn't be particularly cracking to be a road warrior having to cart that around solar day in day out. The charging brick is also smaller than comparable ones I've used on loftier spec desktop replacements, which is of class some other decent engineering feat, although again, to telephone call information technology light would be wouldn't be entirely accurate.

Ultimately, it's a keen looking and feeling machine. Personally, the size of the machine is a compromise as well far for me, simply that'southward neither here nor there. Plenty of people want desktop replacements and in that regard, if I were in the market for such a car, this one would have to be at the summit of the pile.

I'd be interested in getting more time to play with it though. The thermals/acoustics are noticeable and information technology would be interesting to go some GPU-Z stats from an extended gaming session to see how GP104 throttles in such a constrained surround, but for those looking for a desktop replacement which doesn't break the back, this has to be the prime candidate.

But don't expect it not to break the bank. Razer makes good kit and good stuff doesn't come cheap. The Razer Blade Pro starts at $three,699, €4,199 and £3,499. It besides looks similar pricing was set before Sterling hit its current level of about $1.21- $i.23 to the pound in contempo weeks since if you take the Britain price excluding VAT, information technology comes out at under $3,600. Whether Razer adjust pricing in the time to come to more accurately reflect current commutation rates is another matter just I'd be surprised if their CFO isn't keeping a very close eye on US$ strength vs. the Euro and Sterling for the side by side few months.

Although the Razer Blade Pro isn't on sale today, y'all can get to here to annals your interest for when it goes on sale, with the first units expected to ship in Nov.

The fit and cease of the machine is extraordinary though and the touch on screen is responsive and cute. If you were trying to make up one's mind betwixt a desktop and a laptop, Razer may have just made the determination for you…