Razer Switchblade: The Future of PC Gaming? Discussion

Fresh from its debut at CES 2011, the Razer Switchblade is turning heads and making people rethink what "PC gaming" means. This Intel Atom-powered handheld mini notebook promises to deliver PC games running on Windows 7 and still run those games at 30 frames per second or more!

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• CES 2011 Pre-show Roundup
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I disagree that it'll make people rethink what PC gaming means, although I'd go with it redefining "mobile gaming", mostly because for me, a 7" screen is too small for the games that I would prefer (largely simulators and strategy). It would make a good showing against "regular" hand-held consoles, though. And the input mechanism is admittedly quite innovative, although it would take some getting used to.

 

It's an innovative idea for PC gaming, but only for RPG & RTS, it will be a direct competitor versus a PSP, since there is no World of Warcraft, Starcraft II for PSP.

 

I still don't understand how this would work. Say for example you are playing an RTS like starcraft or warcraft 3, then how would you move around the minimap. While its probably ok for some games, i still think it would be to slow as far as movement speed to play real games. I just dont think theres anyway to replace a mouse. Plus the keyboard concept was thought of a long time ago although it was too expensive to produce. http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/. So its not really revolutionary.

 

Remember the video "Sheer genius... that opens the door to FUTURE technology"

I just had to laugh with the Iron Chef style dramatization...

I'll admit it's intriguing, but I am trying to ask myself why I wouldn't just get an M11x-R2 when its a good deal for a real computer...

This reminds me how every one complains about 4 wheeled cars, but no one can come up with anything more than a very small, cheap 4 wheel car because it does the job well all around, anything else has serious compromises to live with. Maybe this is the Smartcar of gaming laptops...

 

How can this work without a touchpad? I don't get it...

 

Who uses a touchpad to game?

 

LOL everyone with an iPhone or iPad--- if you call that "gaming"

 

It has a usb port for a mouse for games that require a mouse. (I think only 1 though).

 

For me the biggest thing on interest is note the Switchblade itself but the keyboard. It's a touchscreen display covered with a keyboard frame and clear plastic keys that expose the keyboard underneath. This gives you the dynamic interface options of a touchscreen display but also gives you the tactile feedback of a physical keyboard.

We've seen a few demos of dual-screen notebooks that use a touchscreen in place of a keyboard, but a plain touchscreen is horrible because it's totally flat and there's no feedback from keys as you type.

The Switchblade offers the best solution I've seen so far to horrible touchscreen keyboards.

(I just added a few more photos of the dynamic keyboard to the article while I was in between meetings at CES.)

 

Those use touch screens. Switchblade's got a few of those.

 

True, true... but you see my point. I almost bought one just from the sales pitch...

 

Chief Gamer Min-Liang Tan really sells this thing, so intense.
ATOM powered doesn't sound like much even if it's yet to be announced, wonder what kind of GPU it uses?
Now if it had a ULV Sandy Brigde chipset it would have something.
Still pretty neat, and is a pretty cool idea, don't know if it's viable but if it ever comes to market it looks like it might be expensive.
How much would you people pay for this if RAZER can somehow pull this off?

 

It uses GMA600, bascially higher clock version of GMA 500 (400MHz vs 200Mhz)

 

Vaporware if you ask me. A fancy Atom based "gaming device"? I don't think so.

 

No one, but how else can you browse the web, move the camera, move the cursor to fill in your password, etc.

So there has to be some sort of control to move your cursor right?

Aside from that, maybe this is just the first step for razor in developping a whole line of gaming laptops :d Imo AW/Asus/Msi/clevo could use some more competition ^^

 

Why the hell are they not using AMD Fusion?

Hah. Did they just relate "gaming", "powerful", "rich 3d graphics", and "high definition video" to "Intel Atom"? And too bad Unreal Tournament and Quake are going to be the only things it can handle.

Also, this will be the keyboard for most games:

 

And that dude's accent is so damn awesome. Voice is SO INTENSE.

And I think the price will break everyone's bank. Looking at the Optimus Maximus from Razer ($2400), we can assume that the LCD keyboard displays will up the price by something like 500$.

 

My question exactly. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the Razer tech guys to go into ANY technical detail about the Switchblade at CES. They kept saying the hardware hasn't been finalized and may change if and when the Switchblade is released, but I doubt they would have showed it off at CES with an Intel logo on the chassis nor would they have mentioned "next generation Atom" if they weren't planning to use the Atom.

It's "possible" the next generation Atom processor combined with a decent mobile GPU can deliver an acceptable PC gaming experience with a number of games at low resolution and low detail settings, but even then I have a lot of questions and doubts.

Regardless, I still love the idea behind that keyboard.

 

Maybe that's what the 7" touchscreen is for?

 

Personally I like the idea, it's quite experimental.

I believe it will be fun to use for cloud gaming, I can't imagine a GMA+atom combo working out well for regular gaming

 

Cause, the total platform level TDP of this Atom will be lower than the CPU alone on Fusion chips like Ontario. Ontario to reach 5W = 800MHz/Single core/no GPU/LPDDR2, with chipset: 8-9W

<5W Oak Trail: Includes the chipset/1.5GHz/GPU

Intel also must have worked on the Windows drivers immensely. The previous platform could only muster 4-5 fps everything low on WoW vanilla, this thing is playable in WoTK!

Of course you won't see it right away. The Oak Trail platform itself won't arrive till March.

 

Is there actual gameplay footage or benchmarks? All I've seen of the Switchblade is playback of some pre-recorded game demos. Oak Trail's IGP doesn't have to be super improved to play videos.

 

I'd have to say no, but a quote from Engadget: Razer Switchblade preview: 3G, Intel Oak Trail, almost definitely going on sale -- Engadget

On the GMA 500(the previous generation) platform, you almost can't run anything. 640x480 Quake 3 Normal settings = 25 fps, World of warcraft all low = 4-5 fps, Warcraft III all low = 15 fps

2x that is still bad.

On Linux derivatives like MeeGo or Android, the same chip can run Q3A at 60 fps so maybe we're up for a surprise.

Then again it could be a 32nm Atom chip and with another 2x gain would play those games fine. This site(NBR) is claiming 4-6 hours battery when gaming and much more with less demanding usage.

 

Lol totaly forgot about that But I doubt gaming on a screen filled with fingerprints is gonna look nice xd

 

Razer Switchblade: the future of Nintendo DS and Sony PSP gaming?

This will revolutionize PC gaming just as much as Intel's lame integrated graphics: it won't.

 

>Implying those aren't the best games ever made

The Optimus Maximus is not a Razer keyboard.

 

I can't take any device deemed suitable for gaming seriously when it mentions the Atom CPU.

 

The hardware on this thing can never be finalized because whatever they can cram into that small form factor will probably already be obsolete... unless they think they can create an entirely new platform (ie: Xbox360, PS3, etc.), this thing will never be good enough as a PC for its price to game on.

 

7" and low specs for high cost (of course razer, high cost). Yes, it won't.

It can play an old game like Warcraft, and I saw the video the game is not smooth. Why don't they just make a keyboard with that feature? This Switchblade is...ahh..zzz.

 

Yes, this has a unique feature (Amazing Keyboard Feature) and an ultra sensitive touch screen... but it is too early to call something the future of anythng..

We still don't known if the Switchblade will bring inconvenience or convenience to gamers. I've also done a Razer Switchblade Review myself, and aside from its current feature, it still has a long way to go to become epic. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite excited myself for this product, i just don't want expect.