Razer’s attempt to prove that PC gaming is indeed not dead, which came in the form of the Razer Blade gaming laptop it unveiled at PAX Prime this year, has been delayed and will come out in January, 2012. A Note on the company’s official Facebook page has revealed that as a result of a decision to upgrade from a 320GB HDD to a 256 SSD drive, it wasn’t able to secure enough quantities of the new SSDs for the laptop to arrive in stores before the holiday season.
Razer has supposedly negotiated with its manufacturers and component suppliers to bring the cost of this product down. The savings that resulted from this action were then used to enhance the performance of the system from a 320GB HDD to a 256 SSD drive. Such an upgrade is said to cost anywhere between 300 USD to 500 USD excluding the list price, but the company will be offering it as a standard component, thus keeping the price of this laptop the same.
“We expect to be able to ship our initial quantities of the Razer Blade only in mid to late January for our customers in North America. We will be doing everything humanly possible to bring this date forward if we can. We worked really hard to have the Razer Blade ready for launch and it was a painful decision for us to delay this till after Christmas but we decided the upgrade from the HDD to the SSD drive was just something we wanted to have as gamers ourselves,” explained Min-Liang Tan,Co-Founder, CEO and Creative Director of Razer.
Furthermore, the company has also announced a fresh offer under which a new Razer Orochi Blade Edition mouse will be doled out to buyers of the Razer Blade gaming laptop. Those who enter the official Razer Blade store page and sign up at the ‘Notify Me’ button will receive a notification when the device ships in January, 2012 as well as a coupon code for the mouse. The peripheral will later be included in the order for no extra cost when gamers purchase the laptop. The Orochi Blade Edition has been custom designed for the Razer Blade with a matte black finish and a green LED.
The Razer Blade gaming laptop can be pre-ordered currently through the company’s official website at a price of 2,799.99 USD (approx. Rs. 1,47,360).