For certain values of ‘cheaper’, obviously. It’s still a Razer Blade Pro!
Some things only get expensive the larger they get. Property, cars, boats, jewellery; bigger is better, and better is going to cost you more.
In the gaming laptop world, bigger is sometimes better. If you’re looking for a knee-breaking, 8kg behemoth like the Acer Predator 21X, you’ll find very few compromises between that and a desktop machine. But also, it’s basically a desktop machine.
And if you don’t mind going big, then you can generally save yourself a few quid. When things get really expensive, is when you start cramming high-end components into relatively small, thin and light, attractive-looking aluminium unibody chassis, like the Razer Blade or Gigabyte Aero.
The Razer Blade Pro is somewhere in between. It’s bloody thin and light – as desktop replacement gaming laptops go, featuring a 4K, 17″ screen, full fat Intel Core i7 desktop processors, and a desktop GTX 1080 – tipping the scales at around 3.5kg. It’s also very expensive, tipping your wallet at £3,799, and stretching it as far as £4,699.
I’ll just give you a moment to clear up whatever beverage you just spat out everywhere.
Are you back? Then we’ll continue.
Razer have today announced a ‘cheaper’ version of the Razer Blade Pro, which swaps out the 4K panel for a full HD alternative, and replaces the GTX 1080 with a 6GB GTX 1060. To be honest you’ll probably be thankful of that panel downgrade, given the reduced cores, video RAM and clock speed on the GTX 1060 part, but it’s still a great card and will give you a fantastic experience. The new model will still provide ample support for VR, and also still includes THX audio.
So what will this ‘cheaper’ Razer Blade Pro cost you? A mere £2,099, or around €2399.99 / U.S. $2299.99 / Canada $2899.99.
Perhaps of more interest is the drop in weight that comes with the parts ‘downgrade’ on the Razer Blade Pro, bringing the unit down from 3.49kg to a mere 3.07kg. For a laptop with a 17″ screen, that’s truly thin and light (even if it’s still not that cheap).
