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Razer gets into the gaming monitor game with the 27-inch Raptor display

Razer gets into the gaming monitor game with the 27-inch Raptor display

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Razer continues its efforts to dominate every aspect of the PC gaming world at CES 2019

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CES 2019 is here, and that means it’s time for the near-annual tradition of Razer’s cool new hardware prototype. This year, Razer is showing off the Razer Raptor, a 27-inch gaming monitor, marking the first time that the hardware company has stepped into the standalone display space. But there’s an additional twist here: the Raptor isn’t just a cool CES prototype. It’s also going to be a real product. Razer is planning to ship the Raptor later this year for $699.99.

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

The Raptor looks like a pretty impressive monitor for PC gaming, too. Putting aside specs for a minute, Razer seems to have really delivered on design here. There are some absolutely razor-thin (pun intended) bezels around the display. Another nice touch is the integrated cord management system on the back. Razer actually includes special flat, Razer green-colored cables for managing inputs without spoiling the design (specifically, a power cord, HDMI, Display Port, USB-C and USB-A).

As for the actual display, it’s in line with other top gaming monitors: it has a 27-inch screen with 2560 x 1440 QHD resolution, a 144Hz refresh rate, and between a 1ms (with Motion Blur reduction) and 7ms (typical) response rate. The screen reaches a brightness of up to 420 nits, and it supports HDR (although Razer hasn’t specified which HDR standard, specifically). The one downside: there’s only support for AMD’s FreeSync tech, not Nvidia G-Sync.

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Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

Razer isn’t skimping on materials, either: the base is built out of forged aluminum with a fabric / metal backplate. And since it’s a Razer product, there are Chroma-compatible LED light strips.

On the software side of things, the Raptor will support picture-in-picture input capabilities, meaning you’ll be able to view multiple inputs at once. There’s also support for screen mirroring a Razer Phone 2 via a USB-C connection, allowing you to use your smartphone with a full screen, mouse, and keyboard.

Image: Razer

In addition to the Raptor, Razer also announced an update to its Razer Blade 15 gaming laptop — the Razer Blade 15 Advanced — which upgrades the existing Blade with Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 20-series laptop GPUs as well as a long-requested Windows Hello-capable camera for logging in.

The Razer Blade 15 Advanced will be available with either an RTX 2060 (with 6GB GDDR6), RTX 2070 Max-Q (with 8GB GDDR6), or RTX 2080 Max-Q (8GB GDDR6) for a GPU. All Advanced models will offer a hexacore 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8750H processor (which Razer already offers on the older Blade 15), 16GB of memory, and they can be configured with up to 512GB of SSD storage. The updated Razer Blade 15 Advanced models will start at $2,299, and they should be available on January 29th.

Razer also offered a tantalizing hint of what it’s exploring for the future of the Blade lineup with two addition tech demos. One is a Blade 15 with a 1080p display that offered up to 240Hz refresh rates, and the second is a Blade 15 with a 4K OLED touch display. For now, these are just prototype demonstrations, but even if they don’t show up on the Blade as actual options, it’s interesting to see what Razer is considering for the future of its laptops.

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