The Razer Edge Review
by Vivek Gowri on March 28, 2013 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Mobile
- Razer
- Razer Edge
Dock and Keyboard
The docking station is pretty simple, just a wedge-shaped plastic part with a rubberized base that features a dock connector and two pins to hold the Edge in place. The back has a power connector, separate 3.5mm jacks for line in and audio out, an HDMI port, and three USB 2.0 ports. It’s worth stating this again, but the dock is actually the *only* way to get video out from the tablet. The lack of USB 3.0 ports is related to a bandwidth limitation for the dock connector and not a case of Razer being cheap with their port selection, though I’d still have liked to see at least one of the three ports be USB 3.0.
There are two primary use cases for the dock that I can see it serving pretty well – hooked up to a TV and Xbox controllers in what Razer calls “console mode”, as well as at a desk with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Razer had a number of Edges set up as consoles at CES both in their booth as well as in their meeting room suite – they also announced the Sabertooth controller for Xbox 360 at CES, so it made for a nice two-in-one product showcase. It worked pretty well, though it’s worth mentioning that the displays were mirrored at 1366x768. This goes back to GT 640M LE being not suited at all to gaming at resolutions above that – running new games at 1080p on anything lower than a GT 650M can be a bit painful. But if you’re willing to play at the native resolution of the tablet and not the native res of the TV, it’s a pretty enjoyable way to game. I spent an evening with some of Razer’s marketing guys playing Dirt Showdown on a docked Edge hooked up to a 60” TV and a few Sabertooths, and the Edge acquitted itself well in this type of situation. If you just leave the dock hooked up to the TV and controllers, it’s really easy to just drop the tablet into it when you want to play.
The desktop use case is the other one where the dock is ideally suited. Connected to an external display and a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it makes for a decent setup. This is one of the few tablets powerful enough that I could use it as a main day to day work machine, especially in the i7/8GB/256GB configuration I have here. Now, I’m not going to give up the M18x I’m currently using at my desk, but if you had to use a tablet as your primary machine, wouldn’t the Edge be very close to the top of your list?
The only remaining piece of the puzzle is the keyboard dock, which we saw displayed in very early preproduction form at CES. Back in January, it was a really rough build – the keyboard was tiny, there was tons of flex, the hinge was questionable, and the mechanism to keep it closed was a very high tech elastic band. Rough is probably understating it. I know that Min was using one during the show, but it looked like the primary intent of those hand-built preproduction units was to have the keyboard dock on display and not necessarily in a usable form. The final keyboard dock is slated for Q3, and will likely look pretty similar to the one shown previously (though with a substantially different latching mechanism). I feel like the keys will need to be bigger for the keyboard to be comfortable, and there’s enough number of perfectly good tablet-size keyboards out there for Razer to look at. I’d like to highlight, in particular, the Surface Type Cover and any ASUS 10.1” keyboard since, say, 2008, as good examples. Borrow liberally from those designs and it’ll be great.
In absence of the keyboard, I’ve turned to Microsoft’s Wedge mobile Bluetooth keyboard and paired it with the HDMI docking station to come up with a workable temporary solution for portable typing. When it arrives, the keyboard dock will be compatible with the extended 41.44Wh battery that works with the gamepad controller, offering a potential 10 hours of usable battery life in netbook mode. Given the pricing of the accessories we’ve seen thus far, I’d expect the dock to come in at no less than the $129-149 price range.
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kyuu - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Because Razer operates on large profit margins, and judging by the Blade and this thing, I'm pretty sure they don't really have any interest in putting out cheap "me-too" platforms. They're more interested in pushing innovative platforms and don't need or expect to move large volumes of the product.B3an - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
The Vita isn't a full PC with a real OS and Ultrabook level hardware with a game library anywhere near as big as Windows. Stupid comparison.Jumangi - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Lolz, this is designed fist as a portable gaming device even though it makes every compromise you can. its price its stupid high, and it looks plain goofy. This thing is stupid and has no place in the market. It sits right up there with the N-gage in the history of dumb gaming devices.Visual - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
How can you not include IVB integrated results in the games charts? What is wrong with you? That is the ONLY important test that needs to be done to the Edge - is it worth the cost and added bulk over integrated or is it not...Also, saying Civ V is not playable is ridiculous. You did something wrong in the testing. It was playable on my ancient HP tm2 tablet, and that is worse than even the IVB integrated GPU. With the Edge it should be a ton better.
NeedsAbetterChair - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
I really do love the idea of this but it is obvious to me I'll have to wait a year of two for this category to mature. The next few years are going to be interesting.Hrel - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Once again their first attempt is not viable. At 1000 dollars I'd like to see a higher resolution screen, 1600x900 at least. I realize the gpu can't take it, but you can run games at 720p and you'll be fine. Resolution comes down to screen real estate. I need more than 768 vertical pixels. Especially at $1000!!! Furthermore I agree a 64GB SSD is almost useless. 128 should be the entry point with a 256 and maybe a 380 option. I know they can get 256GB SSD's for 150, probably less if they buy in bulk.The thickness of the screen bezel makes me feel like it belongs in the late 90's/early 2000's. Expand the screen .4 to .6 inches and keep the same chassis with a smaller bezel.
I see no value from the i7 "upgrade" and don't want to be forced into it just to get a reasonably sized SSD.
Hrel - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
On the controller, maybe try moving ab xy to the back, so they line up with you ring and middle fingers? Not sure how well this would work as I've never used anything like it.Shadowmaster625 - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Can they get any more stupid? They just trashed any hope of any future for this brand name. This is way way waaaaay too much money to pay for something that gives you such a small boost compared to a bargain bin AMD A10 notebook. They should have just waited for Richland and made a deal with AMD. They could have gotten about the same gaming performance, with 50% better battery life and $400+ cut from the price tag. They could have brought us something decent without the outrageous price that is going to make most people laugh and never look at this brand again. People commenting on facebook and twitter are just morons. It is easy for people to say they want all these things from a product, but it doesnt mean they are actually going to buy what they claim they want.anubis44 - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
They should use an AMD Jaguar for this. Only an AMD APU will provide the kind of low power consumption and great GPU performance stuffed into a 15w power envelope. Jaguar's GPU destroys the GT640.Silma - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
So basically this is a tablet thicker than an Ultrabook, with less i/o ports than an Ultrabook, and overpriced gamepad that make it wider than a 17" gamining laptop, all for the pleasure of playing at 1368 resolution?No thanks I'll keep my Alienware notebook. For gimmicky games at low resolution I have a phone.