It is an odd design choice, I wonder how much it will effect your back after a few hours, from offsetting your right arm, or conversely your next from offsetting your entire body and turning your head.
Anecdotaly I had to get a third monitor as my next was aching from always turning straight to right then back only, no left turning.
Well the problem is the question "how about you devs". This is very much not aimed at developers or professionals of really any kind (well maybe one kind). This is aimed squarely at gamers.
I used to play semi-pro gaming back before it was a televised event, and an offset keyboard was normal. The mouse was of equal importance, and home row was WASD. I controlled the keyboard with my left hand exclusively, so having it offset to the left on a laptop would make sense. Of course, I wouldn't use a track pad but I actually know people who did (believe it or not).
The target market for this device already have their keyboard offset to the left. And they're not typing 120wpm into NetBeans.
(Besides, as a desktop replacement they're almost expecting you're going to have a mouse and keyboard attached)
Exactly. I'm sure there are professionals who buy Razr products for the performance and form factor but the target audience is going to view this as a 17 inch laptop with a 1080 that's way thinner and lighter than the competition. That said an equivalent MSI laptop is $1500 so they're certainly aiming upmarket.
I'm not sure why the off-centre keyboard is a deal breaker.
I use a Microsoft semi-split ergonomic keyboard, and a Razer Naga mouse (heaps of bindings for dev stuff). Prior to getting the ergonomic keyboard (and a decent mouse) I had pretty extreme RSI.
However, if I look at my keyboard setup right now, whilst the keyboard as a whole looks fairly centred, ever so slightly to my left due to the mouse. The keys I actually type on (i.e. not the arrow keys or numpad) are all farther off centre, to my left. I'd assume this to be the case for most devs, excluding perhaps vi/emacs aficionados whom don't ever use their mouse.
It's hard to tell without touching the laptop, but I doubt having the keyboard off centre is going to cause problems. If anything I find using the trackpad on my Macbook below the keyboard gives me extreme RSI pain (I don't do it except when travelling).
The price tag is fairly extreme, but it's roughly on par with a high-end Macbook Pro (which many devs, including myself, use), however unlike a Macbook Pro it has the hardware to back-up the price tag.
My 15" rMBP was "only" $3k. The Razer is 50% more! It's a 2012 and still doing great. The Razer is closer to desktop performance, but that also means the battery life is abysmal.
True, my top-end rMBP from Late 2013 was around the same price and still doing reasonably well.
However, the current top-end rMBP is $4,299.00, whilst the top-end Razer Blade Pro is $4499.99. They're certainly both in the same (insanely expensive) ballpark, with the Razer Blade Pro having:
* a significantly higher resolution display
* twice the RAM
* a touch display
* a higher resolution webcam
* a significantly better GPU.
In favour of the rMBP:
* 15", instead of 17" (although that's my personal preference)
* Faster CPU (I think, I'm not up to date on which model beats which)
I'm by no means suggesting go out and buy a Razer Blade Pro. Just that, whilst expensive, it's no worse value for money than other high-end market laptops that are presently available.
Not only it is off-center but those mechanical switches seem to have attracted quite a lot of criticism.
To me a low-quality keyboard is a deal breaker, much more so than a less-than-perfect trackpad, because if you don't like the trackpad you can always carry a small, portable mouse while if you don't like the keyboard you don't really have a solution.
Being left-handed the off-center keyboard is also a bit right-handed for me. I have no use for a number pad on the right of the keyboard either. I just prefer Chromebook keyboards now, i.e. chicklet, centered and with no funny keys for Windows things or weird Apple keys that should be the right mouse button.
shrug I wouldn't know, but as I understand it, people will sometimes spend a lot of money on hobbies. Also, I'd hope that most software developers don't need the best-of-the-best laptops to do their jobs -- perhaps this is targeted at video editors, or pro gamers?
There is no reason for me to buy this. Laptops like this have a very specific valid use case which is people that travel all the time and want to play video games. If you are not traveling all the time and want to play video games buying a desktop and a laptop will likely give you a better experience in both aspects and could potentially be less expensive.
Gaming laptops seem relevant for VR and/or machine learning developers. I suppose for machine learning you can use cloud based GPUs but it's still not a bad idea to have a decent offline setup.
Yea we have an Alienware laptop with similar specs a work we use for demoing and testing VR projects while on the road, but day to day development in the office is generally done on workstations.
Running 'serious' GPU experiments on your primary laptop is a pretty miserable experience. If the experiment needs a few hours to compute, you have to prevent your laptop from sleeping. I also doubt the laptop will last long if you regularly max out the GPU for 12 hours at a time.
That said...Developing against a cloud machine sucks too. I think VNCing to a machine on the local network from a good ultrabook might be best.
Really depends on where your cloud is in relation to you. I'm currently sitting in a coffee shop, and ping times to my workstation at home (on the other side of the city) are ~5ms.
I work at a games development studio, and we have a couple of similarly extremely specced laptops, we use them every time we go to game conferences and such, to run full suite of servers needed to start the game in a limited environment.
As someone who travels regularly between countries and likes to game, this is really the only option for me (MSI gaming laptops et al have in my experience been absolutely trash in terms of durability). An mITX case albeit very small compared with traditional desktops, just doesn't have the portability this provides.
In saying that, I'll wait 6 months and watch the price ease, decent reviews to roll in and the kinks to be worked out.
Thanks for the correction, that's completely what I meant to write yet typed out the 980 for some reason.
I'm thinking of upgrading my own desktop 980 SLI to the 1080TI, that must have upset my keyboard buffer somehow.
Considering how much stronger the 1080 mobile is to its desktop equivalent (within 90%, iirc) is than what was the case on the 9xx series, it is rather remarkable how much power the Razer packs.
Yes I agree, with the Pascal architecture we have a really solid mobile GPU offering.
For example a thin laptop like the new Dell XPS 15" sports a 4GB 1050 Ti, just 2 years ago a card with that power could be had only by buying some really heavy gaming laptop.
You're comparing a 12" 2-in-1 with a 17" gaming-oriented desktop replacement. Configure the SP4 for its max specs, and the CPU is still lower-powered, it has half the memory, half the storage, and a tiny fraction of the graphics capability. And obviously, is about $1800 cheaper. Faster CPU, more RAM, another SSD, a larger, higher-res screen, and what has to be some amazing thermal management design. In those terms, the price doesn't seem so outlandish.
It's just very different hardware, optimized for very different things.
2- The GPU is a 4GB Maxwell, i.e. 2 generations behind and with relatively small memory. The type of person who might buy a Blade Pro (I am that kind of person) clearly has very different requirements.
PS. At least in my case, support for ECC memory, while nice-to-have, doesn't make up for the above.
It says "With airline approval" you can go up to 160. I have no idea what that means in practice. If nothing else, calling ahead to get approval to bring your laptop along before every flight would be kind of annoying.
I recently got an alienware 15 R3 which has almost the same specs (1070 instead of 1080 and 16 instead of 32 gb RAM, but a higher resolution screen 4K) for $1400. Its thicker and heavier, but if your objection is cost, you can get the roughly the same for much cheaper. Just won't be as thin and light.
4K resolution, also called 4K, refers to a horizontal resolution on the order of 4,000 pixels and vertical resolution on the order of 2,000 pixels.
Every single other resolution was referenced by its vertical resolution: 480, 720, and 1080. But the marketing people wanted to sell TVs so they went with the horizontal resolution because its a bigger number.
"UHD-1, or ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV), is the 4K standard for television and computer monitors. UHD-1 is also called 2160p[6][7] since it has twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of 1080p.[6] It has a resolution of 3840 × 2160 (16:9, or approximately a 1.78:1 aspect ratio). UHD-1 is used in consumer television and other media, e.g. video games."
I doubt it. That is one thing Razer are notoriously bad at supporting, left handers. I don't think they've released left handed models of any of their mice for years. They have "ambidextrous" models, but all that really translates to is "poor ergonomics" models.
EDIT: To clarify they do sell left handed mice, but to my knowledge they're all models from years ago. For example, I'm unaware of any left handed models with Chroma lighting.
I believe the trackpad is laid out that way so that you can comfortably rest your left hand on WASD and right hand on trackpad for mouselook, when playing FPS or RTS type games. For non-gaming uses or left-handed users, I agree it is a complete non-starter. Also I tend to think that if you are serious enough to spend $4k on a gaming laptop, you can probably just shell out for a decent mouse instead of using the trackpad.
>> The issues with the display calibration and lack of an sRGB color mode make it unusable for much of the work I do. On top of that, product decisions like using two SSDs in RAID0, using Intel's slowest Core i7 H series quad core part, and using Killer's networking chips just don't make sense
What is the market like for gamers who are going to drop nearly $5,000 on a laptop to play games on? A couple thousand units?
I honestly thought this was an article reviewing razor ("o") blades. The domain was a bit confusing but given how in depth their tech reviews, was looking forward to a scientific comparison of various shaving systems.
I'm kind of disappointed it's really about a (very) expensive gaming laptop.
Off-topic but related: Nvidia's Geforce Experience software recently implemented a similar system - you must now create an account and log in to use core functions that previously didn't require any network connection.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 149 ms ] threadI can't justify that as a chef, what about you devs?
in fact, you probably couldn't even pay me to use it.
Anecdotaly I had to get a third monitor as my next was aching from always turning straight to right then back only, no left turning.
I used to play semi-pro gaming back before it was a televised event, and an offset keyboard was normal. The mouse was of equal importance, and home row was WASD. I controlled the keyboard with my left hand exclusively, so having it offset to the left on a laptop would make sense. Of course, I wouldn't use a track pad but I actually know people who did (believe it or not).
The target market for this device already have their keyboard offset to the left. And they're not typing 120wpm into NetBeans.
(Besides, as a desktop replacement they're almost expecting you're going to have a mouse and keyboard attached)
I use a Microsoft semi-split ergonomic keyboard, and a Razer Naga mouse (heaps of bindings for dev stuff). Prior to getting the ergonomic keyboard (and a decent mouse) I had pretty extreme RSI.
However, if I look at my keyboard setup right now, whilst the keyboard as a whole looks fairly centred, ever so slightly to my left due to the mouse. The keys I actually type on (i.e. not the arrow keys or numpad) are all farther off centre, to my left. I'd assume this to be the case for most devs, excluding perhaps vi/emacs aficionados whom don't ever use their mouse.
It's hard to tell without touching the laptop, but I doubt having the keyboard off centre is going to cause problems. If anything I find using the trackpad on my Macbook below the keyboard gives me extreme RSI pain (I don't do it except when travelling).
The price tag is fairly extreme, but it's roughly on par with a high-end Macbook Pro (which many devs, including myself, use), however unlike a Macbook Pro it has the hardware to back-up the price tag.
However, the current top-end rMBP is $4,299.00, whilst the top-end Razer Blade Pro is $4499.99. They're certainly both in the same (insanely expensive) ballpark, with the Razer Blade Pro having:
* a significantly higher resolution display * twice the RAM * a touch display * a higher resolution webcam * a significantly better GPU.
In favour of the rMBP:
* 15", instead of 17" (although that's my personal preference) * Faster CPU (I think, I'm not up to date on which model beats which)
I'm by no means suggesting go out and buy a Razer Blade Pro. Just that, whilst expensive, it's no worse value for money than other high-end market laptops that are presently available.
To me a low-quality keyboard is a deal breaker, much more so than a less-than-perfect trackpad, because if you don't like the trackpad you can always carry a small, portable mouse while if you don't like the keyboard you don't really have a solution.
That said...Developing against a cloud machine sucks too. I think VNCing to a machine on the local network from a good ultrabook might be best.
Really depends on where your cloud is in relation to you. I'm currently sitting in a coffee shop, and ping times to my workstation at home (on the other side of the city) are ~5ms.
The thing was so expensive that I had to declare it through customs.
The thing was grunty though; not a machine for document editing and email.
Yes, that sounds like the spec we sent to E3 2 years ago to run our servers for the demo booth - had to be fully encrypted as well.
In saying that, I'll wait 6 months and watch the price ease, decent reviews to roll in and the kinks to be worked out.
Not saying one is better or another, just letting you know they are out there and that you should consider them too :)
Currently on a W541.
Still light enough to carry, has enough 3D juice (NVIDIA Quadro K1100M) and way cheaper than that.
I care mostly about Ram for virtual machines.
The GPU is whatever I don't need it as much, maybe if I get into neural network.
CPU just needs to be fast but not insane to burn my wallet really.
I'd like mine to be portable to do work not play games.. This laptop is not it.
I think Dell got a nice 32 gb ram one with good spec and decent price.
(at least in the UK)
A little bit more, but at about 8 hours of battery.
http://imgur.com/a/ibQNl
How does this justify the MASSIVE price increase?
Actually, it is the even-more-ludicrously-so 1080.
I'm thinking of upgrading my own desktop 980 SLI to the 1080TI, that must have upset my keyboard buffer somehow.
Considering how much stronger the 1080 mobile is to its desktop equivalent (within 90%, iirc) is than what was the case on the 9xx series, it is rather remarkable how much power the Razer packs.
For example a thin laptop like the new Dell XPS 15" sports a 4GB 1050 Ti, just 2 years ago a card with that power could be had only by buying some really heavy gaming laptop.
It's just very different hardware, optimized for very different things.
1- Lenovo's website says it is not available yet http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p51/
2- The GPU is a 4GB Maxwell, i.e. 2 generations behind and with relatively small memory. The type of person who might buy a Blade Pro (I am that kind of person) clearly has very different requirements.
PS. At least in my case, support for ECC memory, while nice-to-have, doesn't make up for the above.
Can't they go up to 160Wh? See https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
No one said the term "4k" had to make sense. :-)
4K resolution, also called 4K, refers to a horizontal resolution on the order of 4,000 pixels and vertical resolution on the order of 2,000 pixels.
Every single other resolution was referenced by its vertical resolution: 480, 720, and 1080. But the marketing people wanted to sell TVs so they went with the horizontal resolution because its a bigger number.
"UHD-1, or ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV), is the 4K standard for television and computer monitors. UHD-1 is also called 2160p[6][7] since it has twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of 1080p.[6] It has a resolution of 3840 × 2160 (16:9, or approximately a 1.78:1 aspect ratio). UHD-1 is used in consumer television and other media, e.g. video games."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution
Plays games fine. 400eu in total.
Dafok are these people thinking.
Give us better battery life plz. I'd pay 4500 for a laptop that can go a week on a single charge and weigh/have the size of my x220.
I was looking at one but the egpu only is over 400.
Thanks a lot!
Ud need an external power supply to feed it, and u gotta see if it runs as a 1x or 2x on your machine to see if it's upgrade worthy -
It's won't run the newest, heaviest games at max, but I'm Happy to get my 60fps on darksouls 3!
It's a dyi project, not a ready made bundle, do some research, itsreally well documented!
U sure can!
I look that the stupid trackpad placement and then promptly lose all interest in the laptop, the specs become completely irrelevant.
EDIT: To clarify they do sell left handed mice, but to my knowledge they're all models from years ago. For example, I'm unaware of any left handed models with Chroma lighting.
What is the market like for gamers who are going to drop nearly $5,000 on a laptop to play games on? A couple thousand units?
I'm kind of disappointed it's really about a (very) expensive gaming laptop.
It has an on-board ARM chip and firmware that handles 100% of function through simple Fn key combos: http://www.duckychannel.net/download/user_manual/DuckyOneRGB...
1. An upgrade to a Samsung 2TB 960 PRO M.2 (which I will do soon).
2. A fucking Intel HD 530 driver which doesn't cause intermittent flickering. Note: this is absolutely an Intel borne issue. I have tested, at length.