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Razer Blade Might As Well Be the Ultimate Gaming Notebook

Posted: 16 Mar 2014 11:30 AM PDT

Despite having a 14″ display, the new Razer Blade sports a QHD+ resolution as well as a better CPU and GPU, a combo that could bring all the other gaming laptops out there down on their knees.

In an interview with Wired, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan stated that “Many people were asking us for a 1080 screen. We’ve gone way above that with a QHD+ display… This is, hands down, the world’s best laptop screen there is right now.” The 3200 x 1800-resolution IGZO touchscreen display is without a doubt the major selling point of the new Razer Blade, as currently there aren’t any other gaming notebooks with such a great resolution and pixel density.

Tan emphasized that the display technology used in the Razer Blade is superior to the ones of IPS panels: “There’s a huge premium that we are paying for this (Sharp IGZO panel) versus a normal IPS panel, but the difference is that the IGZO panel’s response rate is incredible. It’s much better than a normal IPS screen, so it fulfills our need for great resolution, super thin, and super fast response rate. Its color vibrancy and color gamut is incredible.”

The new Razer Blade is not only cooler (both literally, and figuratively), but it also has a greater battery life, mainly thanks to Nvidia: “We’ve completely reengineered again the thermal system around the Blade, and we’re now using a GTX 870M. It was all about making sure we optimized the thermals in this. We really made as much space as possible to put the battery in there. We’ve got a 70 Wh battery. We’ve also worked with Nvidia to do a battery boost.”

According to Tan, Razer is always looking to move forward, to create something great and then work hard to surpass it: “We constantly design and iterate over and over again, and it’s a little nuts. But that’s how I think we’ve gone from launching our first laptop three years ago to probably the best laptop in the world right now.”

Besides the GeForce GTX 870M GPU with 3GB of GDDR5 RAM, the new Razer Blade features a 2.2GHz Haswell quad-core Intel i7 CPU and 8GB of 1600 MHz RAM, plenty of horsepower for even the most demanding games out there. One thing is certain: Razer Blade has the looks, but also the power necessary for making its competitors tremble in fear.

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Valve’s New Steam Controller Sports a D-Pad and Regular Buttons

Posted: 15 Mar 2014 01:30 PM PDT

Even though the Game Developers Conference only starts next week in San Francisco, Valve has decided to present the redesigned steam controller before the event.

Valve must have figured out that the world is not quite ready for touch screens on game controllers, even though PS4′s success might suggest that. In fact, it ditched that feature right after exposing the concept, as the first versions included some square buttons instead of the tactile displays. The new version (or rather versions, since Valve means to exhibit not less than 10 hand-built iterations of the redesigned controller at GDC 2014) features normal buttons and a D-Pad. This takes away a bit from the originality of the initial design, but attests the fact that Valve is receptive to its customers’ feedback.

The video game developer and distributor promises to not go unnoticed at this year’s Game Developers Conference: “For those of you able to attend GDC next week, please drop by our booth, as there will be some demo stations set up with the latest prototypes for play testing and feedback gathering. For those of you not able to attend GDC, for now we wanted to at least share a photo of the latest design changes.”

Steam Controller’s new design makes the device similar to the one found on Xbox consoles. Sure, the version including a touch screen seemed a bit ahead of its time and would have placed Valve at the top of the chart in terms of innovation, but most gamers still prefer hardware buttons. Mind you, the two touch surfaces from the sides are still there, so Valve didn’t give up entirely on its initial design.

In the middle of the controller there is a logo-emblazoned glowing home button that is flanked by a Start and a Select button. A bit lower are the D-pad on the left and the A, B, X, Y buttons on the right. While the current iteration looks more like what we call a controller, it might take a while until Valve settles for a design.

It’s a known fact that Valve will enable users to upgrade their Steam Machines once these become available. While this is a great idea that would help the company distinguish itself from other console makers, some people believe that creating a standardized hardware configuration for most if not all of the Steam Machines could help game developers figure out what gaming technologies to focus on.

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