The Razer Switchblade, a small portable PC with a keyboard that can be customized for gaming, will first be released in China and feature games developed by one of the country's' largest Internet companies, Tencent. Razer, the U.S. company behind the gaming platform, made the announcement on Wednesday at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The company has touted the Razer Switchblade as a revolutionary product that will allow users to enjoy PC games on the fly. The netbook-like device runs Windows 7 on Intel's latest Atom processor, the Z670. While it can be used like any other PC, Razer built it for gaming. It has a 7-inch touch screen, and a programmable keyboard built over an LCD panel so that keyboard legends can be changed from a standard QWERTY layout to a gaming configuration, displaying specialized icons depending on what's being played. The Razer Switchblade was shown off in its conceptual stages at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. But now the product is being localized to meet the demands of Chinese gamers, said Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan. "We think we have a phenomenal opportunity in China," he said. "I think that our focus is on China, and then we'll explore the rest of the world." The country has 457 million Internet users. This has helped support an online gaming market that reached about $4.8 billion in transaction volume last year, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. The Razer Switchblade will ship with four games installed. Tencent, China's largest online game provider and operator of the country's most popular instant-messaging client, QQ, will supply the games. They may be offered in other markets when the Razer Switchblade goes on sale elsewhere, Tan said. In developing the Razer Switchblade, the company also partnered with Intel, which wants to promote its low-power Atom processor chips. Intel has been involved in optimizing the device, and will help market the product for its eventual launch, said Brad Graff, an Intel director of marketing. Razer provided no launch date for the device, saying only that more announcements will come soon over the course of the year. The device will be "affordable," Tan said. This should greatly increase the productivity of all those MMO Gold Farmers! Joking aside, I want this... Badly..
I can't do PC gaming with a keyboard. Just can't do it. not for me. I have a high-end laptop, but I only game on this laptop using a 360 controller. If neccessary, I use a program that allows you to add 360 gamepad support manually to any game that does not include native support.
I play a few games with a 360 controller, like worms, GTA, Just Cause, and Trials... BUT for FPS games it must be mouse and keyboard for me, I'd be crazy not too.. I have really fast reaction time, and a crazy sensitive (Razer) mouse... Most games like Badcompany 2 and TF2, I'll stay in the top 3 all night... plus RTS are much better with mouse + keyboard IMO..
I'm a big fan of netbooks and portable pc's in general and I do like Razor as a company I still use their gaming mice but to me it really depends more on the hardware in the box than gimmicks like an oled keyboard. If it's powered by an atom that's not a brilliant start for pc gaming and the ION graphic chip being included recently aren't anywhere close to a proper card they are at best a very small step up from intel integrated graphics. I'd be far more likely to go for an alienware notebook where you can get proper cards and i7 chips inside as long as you pay for it. To me netbooks are great but their all about portability and the focus should be on battery life they just aren't really for gaming even though they may run older games fine. The reason I always buy Samsung netbooks is they put a lot of focus into making it last the entire day and being very useable out and about I don't really see the point of trying to play crysis 2 on one and having a battery that lasts an hour or less. My opinion is if you want to game on a PC buy a desktop system or at least a high end normal laptop, as much as it would be nice to play new games on netbooks the technology and battery ability isn't there yet and fancy keyboards won't change that.
