Razer Edge hands-on

After taking a quick peek at the NVIDIA Shield, we came upon another gaming centric device in the Razer Edge – a gaming conscious Windows 8 tablet. Underneath it all, it’s a fully functional Windows 8 tablet that’s enabled to meet the demands of productivity individuals, mainly because it’s stuffed with some beefy internals. On the other hand, it’s also a gaming minded tablet, as many accessories are being made for it, that help define and engross users into its gameplay.

Quickly picking up this thing, we have to admit that folks over at Razer didn’t care for something that's thin and light. Rather, it’s undoubtedly the clunkiest thing we’ve ever seen! That’s not a good thing per se, since it’s both heavy and ugly looking. Sure, it’s able to play a myriad of games at the highest settings, but we notice the thing heating up like a toaster oven in the rear – so yeah, it makes us wonder if all that hardcore gaming will be taxing the hardware in the long term.

Still, the neato factor found in the Razer Edge is the various controllers that are available for it. From your usual gamepad that you connect to it, to the two strap-on controller setup, it definitely seems like a hardcore gaming system – though, we have to say it’s far from being the most comfortable thing to use for an extensive amount of time.

As for configuration, there are two models that are going to be made available – the Razer Edge and Edge Pro. With the former, it’s packing along a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage. Meanwhile, the Edge Pro is bearing some stronger internals in the form of a 1.9GHz Intel Core i7 chip, 8GB of RAM, and either a 128GB or 256GB SSD. However, both are relying on the same NVIDIA GT640M LE GPU to kick things up over in the graphics department. With all of those goodies tucked inside of this thing, it doesn’t surprise us to see the Edge and Edge Pro sporting price points of $1000 and $1300 respectively. Overall, it’s going to come down as to whether your gaming needs can really support that heavy cost of ownership.