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    Razer Blade gaming laptop announced, features SwitchBlade multitouch display trackpad

    Razer Blade gaming laptop announced, features SwitchBlade multitouch display trackpad

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    Razer Blade
    Razer Blade

    Razer just entered the high-end laptop market in a big way: the new Razer Blade gaming laptop is a $2,800 beast of a machine that features a 17-inch, 1920 x 1080 display paired with a secondary multitouch display in the palmrest that acts as a trackpad in normal operation, and turns into a shortcut screen when gaming with an external mouse. It's a wild idea we've seen half-implemented in the past on machines from Acer and Asus, but Razer's execution goes much farther, building on a custom software layer called SwitchBlade UI that powers the secondary display and the 10 LCD shortcut buttons above it. SwitchBlade is "fully customizable," but it'll come preloaded with layouts for popular games like Battlefield 3 and End of Nations. The Blade runs on a dual-core 2.8GHz Core i7-2640M with 8GB of DDR3 memory and sports GeForce GT 555M switchable Optimus graphics with 2GB of VRAM, all housed inside an aluminum chassis that's just .88-inches thick. Unfortunately, it also weighs nearly seven pounds, but we get the feeling the target audience for this thing won't care about that.

    Oh, and you might remember the SwitchBlade name, actually -- Razer was showing off a crazy Intel-powered gaming netbook called the SwitchBlade at CES, but it never actually shipped. Guess we know where all that tech went, though. Check a video after the break, and expect to see the Blade arrive in the fourth quarter of the year.

    Source: Razer