It sounds like it’s a Motorola phone (Razerzone/Razr phone?), but the Razerzone, better known in some circles as ‘Project Fiona’, is actually a tablet, one that’s primed for heavy duty gaming on the go.
The Razerzone is the work of Razer, a company that makes high-end PC gaming accessories, and it’s a very interesting-looking concept.
According to the press release, current-gen PC games will “run natively on the tablet concept without the need to be ported, optimized, or developed from scratch,” alongside casual touchscreen tablet games. So Angry Birds can co-exist peacefully with, say, Assassin’s Creed Revelations.
“While multi-touch screens have become the de facto user interface for tablets, they are not the right interface for serious PC gaming,” says Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan. “The user interface we have designed for Project Fiona allows all existing PC games to be played right out of the box and also provides game developers new opportunities as they develop next-gen games on a highly-intuitive platform. Both developers and gamers are going to love the new user interface that combines the best of a gamepad, multi-touch screen and accelerometers for an all-new gaming experience on-the-go.”
Much like the WikiPad that we heard about the other day, the Razerzone touchscreen tablet is augmented by a pair of analogue control sticks that sit either side of the screen. These grips feature force feedback, so that when you’re playing something like FireFall, you get active recoil rumble from your big guns.
Sounds nice; we can imagine all that feedback wont be too good for the battery though. While we’re definitely with Razer on the basis that playing an FPS doesn’t feel right on a tablet, we’d like to have the ability to remove the analogue sticks for when we’d want to use the tablet as, well, as tablet.
We’re definently intrigued though; a proper, portable PC gaming rig could, if priced correctly, go down a storm.
Mooted ‘specs’ of this concept device include Intel’s Core i7 CPU, a 10.1-inch screen with a res of 1280 x 800, Dolby 7.1 surround sound, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 and ‘ultra-precise accelerometers’ for tilt-control gaming.+
‘Estimated’ price for the Razerzone is pitched at being ‘below’ $1,000 US which works out to about £650. Let’s hope that Razer can get on Dragon’s Den for a bit of funding before Q4 of this year, when it’s expected to ship.
Check out our hands-on pics of the Razerzone and Razer’s own concept video below.
Source: Razer
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