The Razer Blade Review
by Vivek Gowri & Jarred Walton on March 15, 2012 3:01 AM ESTThe matte display is beautiful. Razer specced the Blade with an AU Optronics B173HW01 V.5, one of the higher-end 17.3” display panels found in gaming notebooks today. The contrast ratio is pretty stellar at 806:1, trailing only the ASUS G74SX, and the maximum brightness of 250nits is decent. The color gamut is also excellent, exceeding the sRGB color space at 84.6% of the AdobeRGB 1998 color space. The one issue we found in our testing was the color accuracy, which was slightly poorer than average.
The decision to spec the Blade with a matte display is one that should be commended highly—the matte screen finish trend is slowly but surely re-emerging in notebooks, and it's a change that can’t start happening quickly enough. My only real complaint is that in a notebook of this caliber, it would have been nice to see an IPS display. We’re seeing a lot of tablets get IPS panels, as well as some of the smaller thin and lights or ultraportables, but other than relatively specialized models (the Sony SE16, HP Envy 15, etc.) and workstation models, we haven’t seen the kind of widespread shift to IPS technology that we would like to.
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1ceTr0n - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
but then I took a reality check arrow in the walletnathanddrews - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Great review. Finally, a gaming notebook that looks like it was designed by adults.I have to say that I find the use a 1080p panel on a notebook (especially a gaming notebook) without the power to feed it as a wasted expense - no matter how beautiful it may be. Is there an option for a similarly gorgeous 1600x900 display instead?
Snotling - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Seriously? have you ever looked at a 17" 1080p panel? it's the minimum acceptable resolution. below that you're in smartphone territory.Flunk - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
The pixel density on high end smartphones horribly destroys even the most high end notebooks. The Galaxy Nexus has a 720 x 1280 (720p) screen that's 4.65" across. There isn't any competition there. 316 ppi vs 127 on the notebook.aleyon - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
the gnexus has a pentile display, which, aside from sucking, doesn't possess quite as many real pixels as specified.you probably hate apple, but a truly high pixel density is the realm of the 4/4S/new iPad.
DareDevil01 - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
You seem to be forgetting The HTC Rezound & Sony Xperia S which both have 720p screens and are below 4.3"Excerpt from Xpereia Swiki page:
"The capacitive touchscreen display measures 4.3 inches with a resolution of 1280 x 720 and at 342 ppi, is tied with the HTC Rezound for the highest pixel density in any mobile phone released."
Spunjji - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
No no no no no. Apple invented high resolution displays! Especially on laptops. Silly person! ;)Special people are special.
b3nzint - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
yes, but if they use that high density into 14' that would increase the price way high, just dont sells!drew_afx - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
well, i'm not sure if you thought about gaming on that laptop..all those high end games that will come out soon is gonna take
more than GT555M, especially at 1080p
you need enthusiast level of graphics to run 1080p smoothly on a laptop.
CPU's definitely not the bottleneck, but the thermal requirement for
that thin laptop is keeping Razer from using power sucking gpus
santiagodraco - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link
Adults that don't understand what gamers really want, performance first.Sure it looks great and has lot's of glitz and glamor, but I'll take my much better performing M17x R3 thank you very much.
Now if Razer can figure out who to put proper performance hardware into that thin a package and keep it cool then I'll be impressed. Well at about 900 bucks less along with it.