Razer is best known for its gaming peripherals, but during CES 2011 it revealed a whole new product that targets about the same group of consumers – gamers – but something whole new. Switchblade is a 7″ mini-PC focusing on mobile gaming with a special keyboard adjusted for gaming.
Considering the formfactor Razer Switchblade is a mini-netbook or UMPC. Under the hood we find a full version of Microsoft Windows 7 with a custom GUI that according to the previews actually work surprisingly well. Here you can choose between games, multimedia and other applications.
Hardware is based on Intel’s Atom platform and even if we don’t know the exact generation Razer uses, Switchblade was powerful enough to run World of Warcraft at 1024×600 pixels (default screen resolution).
Keyboard with screen keys
With its 7″ screen Razer has had to fit the keyboard in the case, but the keyboard isn’t like anything we have ver seen before. Each key is like the OLED-based Optimus a mini-screen and can show different symbols and icons, what makes this concept extra interesting is how Razer uses this for games.
When a game loads it automatically loads the best possible keyboard profile, e..g. in World of Warcraft you get nagivational keys a bunch of colorful activity keys, like the action bar on the screen.
Razer Switchblade comes with USB ports, WiFi, Bluetooth and perhaps even 3G – not decided yet. The fact is that Razer hasn’t confirmed whether Switchblade will go into mass production, but according to most evaluations it has created an interesting product that stands out in a good way.
Source: Engadget
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