Razer Edge Pro: Our first look at a Windows 8 gaming tablet

At first glance, the Razer Edge Pro is indistinguishable from other Windows 8 tablets: It’s 2.2 pounds of matte black metal with a 10.1-inch screen and a single Windows button. But pick it up, and you'll immediately feel the heft in your hands. It's bulkier than the Surface Pro, and also runs much, much hotter.

That heat flows from the powerful components nestled inside. An Nvidia GPU and an Intel Core i7 CPU allow Razer's tablet to compete with similarly priced ultrabooks in terms of raw processing performance. The goal? To deliver no-exuses PC gaming in a handheld tablet form factor. Throw in a Gamepad Controller accessory, and the Edge Pro begins to approximate a console gaming experience, care of dual analog sticks, a D-pad and action buttons.

I haven't yet spent enough time with the tablet to know whether it delivers on its promise—look for our full review next week—but Razer's latest gaming hardware began to leave a strong first impression the moment I pulled it out of its packaging.

Playing PC games on a tablet is fantastic

The most important thing you need to know about the Razer Edge Pro is that it delivers in terms of frame rates and battery life. You can use it to play contemporary PC games at decent settings, and the battery lasts long enough to let you play for at least two to three hours at a stretch before you need to recharge. You can augment battery life with an extended battery pack, which Razer sells separately or as part of a Gamepad Controller bundle.

 Having complex PC games like Civilization 5 at your fingertips is amazing.

To use the Edge Pro for its intended purpose, the Gamepad Controller would seem near essential. Most PC games suck when you're relegated to touch gestures, so either a mouse/keyboard combo or a gamepad is essential. I spent a few hours playing Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider and XCOM while curled up on the couch with the Gamepad Controller resting on my lap. Being able to play complex PC games from the comfort of the couch is amazing, but it just doesn't work without the Gampad option.

Controlling PC games on a tablet is an exercise in compromise

At first blush, I was disappointed with the design of the Razer Edge Pro. It feels bulky and unwieldy—more like a prototype than a finished product. It’s heavier, thicker and harder to carry than the Surface Pro, weighing in at 2.25 pounds and measuring roughly 12 inches wide.

Snap the Edge into it's Gamepad accessory and you have a viable handheld gaming platform. But it's hard to use anywhere besides your couch.

Alone it’s not much of a burden, but—as mentioned earlier—it’s also not much of a gaming machine sans accessories. Insert the Edge Pro into it’s Gamepad chassis, and you get an excellent platform for 3D action games that's 15 inches wide, almost 4.5 pounds and nearly impossible to safely stow in a backpack or messenger bag. So, perversely, to make the Edge Pro shine as a mobile gaming device you have to render it practically immobile.

The screen disappoints

Razer built the Edge with a 10.1-inch IPS display bearing a native resolution of just 1366 by 768. It works well enough for browsing the web or playing games from the Windows Store—the Surface RT has the same 1366 by 768 resolution, after all—but it diminishes the fun of playing graphically intensive PC games or watching HD video. Indeed, the Edge Pro looks inferior next to the Surface Pro's vibrant 1920 by 1080 display. 

The Edge has a serviceable display, but it's not very vibrant and can't handle 1080p video. 

I didn't want to put the Razer Edge Pro down, but eventually I had to, because with the Gamepad attached I couldn't hold it steady for more than an hour before my arms turned to jelly (though, admittedly, I kept picking it back up). I've only had a few days with the Edge Pro, and there's still plenty of testing to be done. I'm going to put it through the PCWorld Lab's battery of benchmarking tests, hook it up to my PC and HDTV, and then see how it holds up during daily use. Look for a comprehensive review next week.

No comments

Posted at 03:49 |  by Unknown

Why Internet Explorer 11 is the right browser for business

Today, Microsoft released a Developer Preview version of IE 11 for Windows 7. Newer doesn’t always equal better, but IE 11 has some power under the hood that business users will benefit from.

To some extent, a browser is a browser. They all render and display content from the Web. However, since IE 8 Microsoft has invested significant effort and resources to push the envelope and expand the browser's capabilities. In a world where business is increasingly done online and in the cloud, it makes sense to have a browser that can deliver rich content and interactivity.

The Internet Explorer 11 Developer Preview for Windows 7 is very similar in scope and function to its Windows 8.1 sibling. Microsoft has tweaked performance, improved support for emerging Web standards, and expanded the ability to deliver an immersive experience from within the browser.

In IE 11, JavaScript runs 50 percent faster than in Chrome. It has improved support for HTML 5 features like drag and drop that will allow cloud-based tools like Microsoft’s SkyDrive and Office Web Apps to work more intuitively. IE 11 also supports WebGL for delivering smooth, 3D graphics over the Web.

A blog post from Microsoft explains some of the benefits of IE 11: “IE11 is the first browser to natively decode JPG images in real-time on the GPU, so pages load faster and use less memory, reducing power consumption and improving battery life. IE11 is also the first browser to render text on the GPU. Text and images are the heart of the Web, and accelerated text and JPG performance impacts nearly every page you see.”

More and more business is done through a Web browser. The fact is, for many business users and consumers, the Web browser is by far the single most-used application on the PC.

As I said at the beginning, a browser is a browser in most scenarios. Some support protocols or formats that others don’t, but as long as you’re using the latest version of each they’re all very similar. There’s always one that can claim to be the fastest, but we’re generally talking a millisecond here or there, and that torch is frequently passed among the major browsers.

There’s a new Web, though—Web 3.0. Web 1.0 was about simply displaying static HTML pages. Web 2.0 introduced interactivity, user-generated content, and Web applications. Now, we’re entering the Web 3.0 phase, the “intelligent Web” era of ubiquitous connectivity, data mining, and artificial intelligence.

The new Web requires new Web tools, and new Web tools need a browser capable of rendering and displaying the content. Microsoft is leading the way with Internet Explorer. You can check out Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 by downloading and installing the Developer Preview.

No comments

Posted at 03:20 |  by Unknown

Install any version of Windows using any Windows disc you can find

Reader Chris needs to reinstall Windows 7 Home Basic on his laptop. Just one problem: he lost his recovery discs.

A more common problem is when you need to reinstall Windows and you never had recovery discs to begin with. Few manufacturers provide them anymore, and many new PCs don't have optical drives even if they did.

Thankfully, there's a way around this. All you need is a Windows ISO file (basically the entire Windows operating system in a single container) and the free Ei.cfg Removal Utility. The latter deletes a key file inside the former, thus allowing you to install any version of Windows.

Let me explain that a bit further. Windows 7 and 8 installation discs are version-specific; they're designed to match up with your product key. That's why you can't use, say, a Windows 7 Home Premium product key to install Windows 7 Professional, even if you have a disc for the latter.

Likewise, even if Chris somehow laid hands on a Windows 7 Home Premium disc, his Home Basic license key wouldn't work. That's where Ei.cfg Removal Utility comes in: It effectively creates a "universal" Windows ISO, one that will install whatever version matches your product key.

From a high-level perspective, the process would work like this: Borrow a friend's install DVD, copy the ISO file from it to your hard drive, then run Ei.cfg. When it's done doing its thing, use the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to put that tweaked ISO on a flash drive.

Now, just boot from that flash drive and choose the version of Windows you want to install. Enter your license key and you're good to go. (Don't bother trying to sneak an upgrade; remember, your key will work only with the version of Windows that came with your PC. In Chris' case, that's Windows 7 Home Basic.)

Can't find an install disc or don't have an optical drive? There are "official" Windows 7 SP1 ISO downloads available from the Windows 7 Forums.

No comments

Posted at 02:58 |  by Unknown