Razer unveiled the 2017 update to its popular Razer Blade lineup on Monday and the new notebooks are just packed to the gills with high-end hardware. The new 14-inch Razer Blades come in two flavors, starting at $1,900 and both boast seventh-generation Intel i7 quad-core processors alongside a powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU.
The 1080p model is slated to hit the Razer online store on Monday and other select retailers on February 20, while the 4K touchscreen model will likely be hitting store shelves sometime in the second quarter of 2017.
This release follows on the heels of a banner year for Razer, according to CEO Min-Liang Tan.
“More users embraced this flagship computer model in 2016 than ever before. Beyond gaming it has been really gratifying to see people enjoying the power and portability of the Blade for video editing, music creation, and software development,” Tan said.
The new 14-inch Razer Blade has some big shoes to fill. though. The 2016 Blade was one of our favorite gaming notebooks of 2016 with its unique blend of style, portability, and performance. Packing that GTX 10-series, alongside a seventh-generation Kaby Lake quad-core processor, it will very likely run circles around the 2016 model when it comes to performance.
That said, those high-end components might come with an unseen cost. The 2017 models feature more horsepower, but they still rely on the same size battery, so it will remain to be seen if the new model is an overall improvement over the 2016 model.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.