New Razer Blade & Razer Blade Pro

have you tried downloading the drivers from killer/

 

I agree, I would have liked to see a better GPU on the Pro and more RAM. Even an option to customize these would have been nice.

Nevertheless, I've always stuck by 17' though, I find anything smaller just too small.

Good to hear of the Pros arriving with no defects!

 

Keep in mind that when playing at native resolution the Pro will get lower fps because of the higher resolution screen.

 

By the way, hopefully someone with the Pro can make a thorough review similar to Sera's! Great review, very informative.

 

I'm not sure where you heard the Pro has louder fans than the 14" nobody on this board has both the new Pro and 14 to compare. The Pro is whisper quiet and even with the GPU overclocked at +135/200 I barely hear it even when gaming (GPU never gets about 72 at that OC). You can upgrade the RAM inside the Pro, and its looking like it has a port for a regular SSD which is much cheaper than a comparable mSATA). Yes these things will void the warranty but you could always upgrade after the warranty expires to get a little extra life out of the system compared to the Blade 14 (or say screw it and upgrade when you want). I'm sure the Pro has a better screen as well, judging from some of the videos the screen suffers major washout in viewing angles. I'm not a fan of TN screens in general but the Pro has a decent screen.

 

I have a feeling that switchblade hardware is not cheap. Razer concentrated on the 14 with this release. For the next 17 release they would have learnt from their experience with the 14. The 17 is pretty much a legacy product at the moment. I have not heard anything good on the utility of the switchblade panel, at the moment their pro apps are really lame. No one is going to take their hands off the house and switch to the touch pad for color swatch selection. Makes absolutely no sense and i think they know it, but since they promoted it so much already its hard to just cut it. Like many reviewers have said the only thing they do on the Switchblade is watch youtube. Razer should take a way the expensive LED keys and just make a bigger, more responsive touchscreen.

 

I agree. The only hope for the SBUI, imo, is if it gets an incredible backing from a lot of the mainstream apps and games. By that, I mean stuff that you can't just on your mouse anyway.

Really good point on the hand never leaving the mouse too, I don't see myself letting go of the mouse during gaming unless it's a huge time saver (like CS buying in the start of each round, maybe).
I don't even think it'd fair that well if they made it a second display altogether, lol. Way too small.

Good on paper, just not so in practical use, imo.

 

^
It might be more useful on the left side of the keyboard, that way we dont need to take hand off the mouse and its more natural for my left hand to wonder over and do something quickly. But it might be hard adjusting to a keyboard offset to the right? I dont know, probably a mental barrier rather than physical. But i can see a lot of people complaining about it without having tried it, and that's not good for marketing.

Putting it underneath the keyboard might be ok but it doesnt look as clean from a design perspective plus it looks like a legacy configuration.

Bottom line is:

Left side-good for shortcuts bad for touch pad.
right side-Good for touchpad bad for shortcuts
Underneath-legacy configuration and looks boring.

I would personally like to see it on the left side since i dont use touchpad that often and can see myself acclimatizing to it. I'm using my left hand to control the touch pad now. haha

 

The answer to #1 from what I have been hearing is the the HQ processors have been mostly soldered to the board where as the MQ allows for easily upgrading to the processors. The only laptops I have heard so far using these versions are Asus which confirmed that the CPU is soldered to the board, MS70 and Razer. If I'm wrong you can correct me but that's what I have been hearing so far.

 

The MQ and HQ naming schemes are more related to the onboard graphics. Im not sure we can say MQs are all socket based and HQs are all soldered...


AnandTech | Hit the Road, Jack: Intel

As for differences in performance you can refer to the anand artical.

 

That's a good point, the left side might give it more utility.

The offset keyboard reminds me of when I first got the Anansi, with the 5 extra keys to the left of the keyboard. I definitely needed a small adjustment since I always ended up on the extra keys instead of the actual keyboard, but I got used to it though.

 

I wish people would get this notion out of their heads. Thanks to Apple for making people think it's REAL. Engineering has nothing to do with the cost. Engineering is cheap, especially in mass produced products. Not to mention integrated components are cheaper too, fewer connectors, fewer cables, less labor, it should be cheaper. Embedded products are all automated. There's no physical labor, no extra parts to solder, it's all impregnated in the PCB. Better quality control because you have very few variations. This is like a game console. One flavor to suit everyone. Only difference is a different off the shelf SSD which users pay an exorbitant amount extra for.

I'm not saying it's not good engineering, just that it's not expensive. If you spend $10M (which is probably half that irl) on R&D, 20k units would add $50 to the cost of the device, not $500. And again, fewer parts means less cost overall. Even "regular" laptops invest a considerable amount of capital and R&D for their cooling systems, chassis, and overall design.

 

Wrong. Anandtech tested the rmbp and burn tested cpu/gpu at 100% for half an hour, no throttling. mac is also the most reliable windows laptop.You either owned a umbp or you dont own one at all. Since you said theres no graphics switching then you never owned 1 because it obviously has graphics switching.

 

There is no graphic switching in windows. Anandtech only used cinebench for cpu and half life for GPU, and not at the same time. He never used prime 95 or furmark, and it was for 20 mins.
AnandTech | The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display Review


notebookcheck on the other hand used prime95 and furmark and they got throttling and 104 celcius on the CPU.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Apple-MacBook-Pro-15-Retina-2-3-GHz-Mid-2012.78959.0.html

Where do you get your information from? Im not going to go into the mac being most reliable windows laptop argument.


Edit:

Ok, so your source says the macbook pro 13 is the most reliable windows laptop and the retina macbook pro is at 6th? does that make sense to you? Acer occupies most of the top spots with dell and Thinkpads apart from the consumer carbon are no where in sight? Im sorry but can you honestly say that's a reliable conclusion?

 

i said mac not size of mac and the 15 inch retina is still the most reliable laptop out of all laptops with a discrete gpu in windows, well thats mac being most reliable in windows, ironic but true. I dont own a macbook pro by the way, I'm just saying what it is.

 

^

Ok, my fault. Lets move on.

 

How is the screen on the 14"? I read some posts that it's grainy/pixelated? I don't mind that it's not super bright, but if it's pixelated that's a problem. Would you recommend this laptop to someone who works with a lot videos and pictures?

 

^
go take a look at any 14inch 1600x900 screen. They all have the same pixel density mate.

If you do a lot of graphics and video 14inch screen is a very very poor choice. Get an external screen. don't torture yourself.

 

Razer Blade 14 Brightness and Viewing angles - YouTube

a guy doing some view angle tests on the 14. the verticals looks pretty bad. He stopped abruptly during the vertical test because it got completely washed out.

 

I'm wondering if color calibration can improve contrast and black levels, my
Aunt has a spyder4elite I'm going to borrow just for this screen. But that
Will be a while and until I get my blade, and if anandtech doesn't post it's review up with its graphs and screen analysis. If I get a good color profile ill upload it.

 

Those don't look terrible. Honestly, I'm more concerned about side angles.

Looks like a normal, typical TN panel.

 

Yeah I'm probably going to end up getting another monitor. I don't really mind poor viewing angles.. I'd prefer it if people couldn't see my screen lol. Pretty much sealing the deal and ordering one tomorrow. Hopefully it doesn't take too long to be sent out. Are the only people who have received their laptops those few that stayed up to order the moment they were released? Any news for us "late comers?"

 

All you OCers on this thread, how much thermal headroom is there? How much can we push the shaders and RAM? Also, how are you all OCing? I remember in my old m15x days I was ballsy and did a BIOS flash every time I changed my clocks on my HD 5850 haha. I pushed that thing so hard xD...

Kojaku

 

RE: Viewing angles. The 14" has a very poor vertical range. The sweet spot is probably less than 30 degrees. The display is certainly the weak point, but once calibrated it's acceptable.

Has anyone found a way to use stock NVidia drivers? I upgraded to Windows 8.1 preview build, and neither the stock GeForce drivers (beta or release) or their preview 8.1 drivers will install. I even tried some .inf modding (a la laptopvideo2go), but without success.

 

Umm.. I see nothing wrong with that. The amount of times I would not be looking at it straight on its practically zero.

 

^
True. Laptop screens should never be your primary work monitor. I'm back home on holiday. Going from a cheap dell 24inch IPS screen at work to an alienwarem17x r3 is noticeably fatiguing on my eyes.

I think as long as the screen is ok for mobile work it is fine. Everyone do yourselves a favour and buy a cheap dell IPS 24inch for your homes. It will save your heck eyes and nerves.

 

Time lapse video of Battery Run Time Razer Blade 14 while gaming.

Game: Rift set to High
Screen set at 40% Brightness
CPUID running in the background with result at the end of the vid.

 

Great Video. Redo your video with a darker background if you want to upset everyone.

The white background really masks the poor viewing angles.

Otherwise I'm getting use to the screen. Really only going to use this when I travel or visit family. Else I will be using my desktop when I game.

 

I made this for you, shot it on my iphone. So the video starts dead center then I moved it 1 inch down so you can see how the blacks get negatived out. Then I moved 3 inches up to show where the screen gets better but blacks get washed out a bit. This is your best viewing angle looking down at the screen.

You literally have a few inches of headroom.
Sorry the picture in PS is a blurry one. So don't let that reflect on screens sharpness.




This is less dramatic when you are looking at bright scenes.

 

@Wrecks, can you post your CPU/GPU idle and load temps while playing a video game? Use HWMonitor pls

 

At the end of the battery gaming runtime video has the info you need?

 

This same thing happens on my Sammy which has a great panel. Not concerned..

 

^
If you ever share a movie with a lady friend in bed, then the vertical angle become problematic. Normally one is either sitting up or reclining at a different angle. Macbook pro pre retina sucks at this. alienware M17x r3 has the best vertical angles i know of, which is notably better than the blade 14.

 

You caught me. I've only used this laptop so far in bed. Else I just use my desktop.

 

Actually the screen doesn't look all that bad head on, sure it could be better but it's not as bad as some posters have said.

 

How huge of an impact is 30 degrees? My big concern would be going from slouches to straightening my back. Other than that, pretty much used to having to readjust laptop screens.

These are mostly the Blades, would it be safe to assume that the same goes for the Pros?

 

I never use the notebook in bed. On a lap desk: the couch.

OMG if you move from slump to straight adjust the angle.. it does move.. man some primadonnas in here..

 

Hey guys, I had a question. It seems that the blade keyboard is pretty spacious given that it doesn't have a full numpad. But I don't see any of the following keys on the kb and was wondering if there was replacement buttons or if the labels were just hidden:

HOME, END, PG UP, PG DN, PRT SCR.

Thanks for the posts, it's really helpful!

 

^ Laptops with similar keyboards usually have a function key that has to be kept pressed in combination with another key.
E.g. on my VAIO Page up is Fn+ up arrow; Home is Fn+ left arrow, etc.

 

f12/fn key is prt scr. Although I haven't played with it yet, you should be able to customize any key with the Synapse app.

 

That is how the Razer is.

Fn+Right == End
Fn+Left == Home
Fn + Up == PgUp
Fn + Down = PgDown
Fn + F12 == Print screen

 

HAHAHA! Watched this twice cause of the background acs-awesome-pella background music.

 

Need some help: I was trying to install Windows 7, and now the laptop display isn't working (presumably after the first reboot once initial setup steps are done).

They keyboard lights up, the FN+F10/F11 keyboard brightness combo works, but the power LED on front is cycling (full green > fade to black > full green again). No combination of power on/power off seems to do anything. No luck with an external display either.

Is it possible that some UEFI weirdness turned this into a brick? Any help is appreciated!

 

@wrecks,

Thanks for the video, those CPU and GPU temps are actually pretty good. What are you opinions about the Razer Blade 14'' so far?

 

Ahh ok, thank you so much for that. I had assumed it was something like that, but there were no subscript text showing the combination with Fn so I wanted to ask. I actually prefer that they left the subscript text out.

 

Just asking since my current laptop definitely had to be moved if i shifted positions =p

If it's the same, then it's no big deal. But if i need to adjust it even if I shift just a little, then yeah. Lol.

 

In general I agree with John's Review Razer Blade 14 Review (very unofficial) - YouTube and Serapth's reviw My Razer Blade finally arrived. A closer look and quasi review.

i'll have a better idea in how much I like it next week where I will be on vacation and out of state for a month.

In short if you are looking for a gaming laptop with the best form factor along with great performance this is it. It also run great at 1080p resolution, but you may have to turn some graphics setting down to Medium.

I did connect it to my PLS monitor running at 2560 x 1440 and it struggled a bit.

 

double post

 

Thanks wrecks for your .02 cents! +1

 

Well to me I am fine with TN Panel. Interms of privacy. I don't want others to see what I am doing, viewing from another angle.