Razer has dubbed itself as the world’s leading ‘lifestyle’ brand for gamers, something it looks set to embrace further in the coming year if the products unveiled at CES 2022 are any indication.
Razer usually supplies some of the weirder gaming tech and product concepts at the annual show such as Project Hazel and Project Brooklyn from CES 2021, and this year is no exception.
Alongside upgraded models of the beloved Blade laptop series, we got to see a few surprises thrown into the mix that takes us one step closer to the possibility of kitting out our entire homes with the Razer family of products and ecosystem. We’re still no closer to getting that Chroma Toaster though.
Razer Blade 14, 15 and 17
We saw three updated models of the popular Razer Blade series of gaming laptops that are kitted out with the latest and greatest hardware.
AMD’s new Ryzen 6000 series processors will be found in the Blade 14, with every configuration being made available with a Ryzen 9 6900HX. Small form factor laptops have been catching our eye of late, and we’re especially excited to see what the Razer Blade 14 (2022) can do with all that power under the hood.
If you’re wanting to side with Intel instead then both the Blade 15 and Blade 17 come equipped with the newest 12th generation of Intel processors, with up to an Intel i9-12900H being available in both models, hitting frequencies of up to 5.0GHz.
All three will also be rocking the freshly announced Nvidia RTX 3000-series GPUs, up to an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti. We’re also seeing a few other upgrades, such as a new 1080p webcam on the Razer Blade 14, as well as having high refresh rates and Windows 11 across all three devices.
The new Razer Blade 14 starts at $1,999.99 (around £1,500 / AU$2,750) MSRP on Razer.com and will be available for pre-order at Razer.com, Razer Store locations and select retailers on February 10th and for purchase from select retailers in Q1 2022.
The new Razer Blade 15 starts at $2,499.99 (around £1,850 / AU$3,500) MSRP and will be available for pre-order exclusively at Razer.com and Razer Store locations on January 25th and for purchase from select retailers in Q1 2022.
The new Razer Blade 17 starts at $2,699.99 (around £2,000 / AU$3,750) MSRP and will be available for pre-order exclusively at Razer.com and Razer Store locations on January 25th and for purchase from select retailers in Q1 2022.
Fantastic furniture
If you want some wacky gaming innovation then two products stand out, and neither are a peripheral, something that Razer is best known for. After having released the Iskur gaming chair last year it would seem that Razer is looking to see how far the gaming experience can be affected by your physical environment, and have taken a leaf out of the Playstation 5’s DualSense controllers.
The Enki Pro Hypersense gaming chair is powered by an advanced haptic engine that has been developed to simulate a range of vibrations, textures, and motions. This makes games feel more interactive and apparently already has native support for over 2,200 games, movies and music titles. Being a Razer product, it also has a customizable RGB headrest so you can match the rest of your setup.
Razer also assures consumers that even games not directly supported through the software can still be enjoyed with haptic feedback through “Direct Input Haptics, where controller, keyboard, and mouse inputs will generate physical feedback when used.”
For something that reads like a glorified vibrating chair, this does sound genuinely intriguing, though some people do find haptic feedback to be as distracting as it is immersive, so we’ll just have to see if there’s enough demand for this for it to take off.
“With the Enki Pro HyperSense, Razer and D-BOX have built the most advanced gaming chair to date,” said Sébastien Mailhot, President and CEO of D-BOX. “Our combined efforts have resulted in a product that physically transforms the experience of games, movies and music through the use of cutting-edge high-fidelity haptic feedback”.
The most notable thing Razer revealed at CES 2022 is a concept desk dubbed as ‘Project Sophia’, which is much wilder than you might be thinking. This ‘desk’ looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, with thirteen different modular sections that can be reconfigured for different tasks, such as working from home, streaming and gaming, allowing you to switch out slots for temperature readouts, audio mixers and other useful functions.
The desk itself also has a PC built into it, containing a custom PCB and a glass top that houses an Intel processor and Nvidia GPU. We’re unsure if this allows for any future upgrades, but it’s hard to imagine that Razer would allow something so futuristic to be held back by physical hardware, even if it might be a pain to open up and tinker with.
That said, It’s likely that this concept is going to remain as just that – a concept, as many of these ‘future of gaming’ projects are fanciful imaginations and 3D renders rather than a plan to actually create the product itself. It certainly does look cool though, and is designed with that familiar Razer Chroma RGB lighting wrapped around the edge of the desk.
Razer and Fossil create a smartwatch…for gamers
Smartwatches and fitness trackers have gained some serious popularity over the years, so it’s little wonder that Razer is trying to get in on the action. That said, you’ll be pretty hard-pressed to find this offering in the wild as only 1,337 units are being produced. Because of course there are, this being both the Hong Kong stock code for Razer, as well as representing the word ‘elite’ in outdated gamer speak from the early days of the internet.
Created in collaboration with Fossil, a well-established watch brand, the Razer X Fossil Gen 6 will be launching globally this month for $329 (around £250 / AU$450) and is the first smartwatch powered by the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ Platform. Alongside the Chroma RGB you’d expect, it has plenty of other functionality such as sleep tracking, health & fitness tracking and fast charging, reaching 80% charge in just 30 minutes.
Addie Tan, Associate Director, Business Development at Razer states that “We are always on the lookout for opportunities to compliment gamers’ lifestyles and to bring them products that not only look good but bring value to their lives as well. This is why we kept the gamers’ well-being at the heart of the Razer X Fossil Gen 6. Leveraging Fossil’s innovative technology and Razer’s iconic design aesthetic, this smartwatch will be the perfect accessory to keep you ahead of the game.”
After looking through the information, there’s no actual ‘gaming’ functionality to the watch itself, so this mostly appears to be a marketed aesthetic rather than something to actually improve performance while playing something.
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