This year’s CES is almost upon us, and the flow of barely useful product teaser videos has started. One that has caught our attention, if only for the cheeky riffing on Apple marketing is Razer’s ‘Fiona’ video. Hosted on its pcgamingisnotdead.com website, the video claims the product to be neither simple, delightful nor magical.
It also claims to be PC gaming on a new form factor, which in combination with the Apple-esque intro to the video seems a pretty clear nod to Project Fiona being an x86 based Windows 8 tablet. Not only that, but if you watch the video closely you’ll notice that the gaming footage is being shown on a screen, with the camera slowly panning back.
This pan ends around the 20 second mark, at which point you can see the telltale rounded corners and black bezel that screams ‘sue me Apple, I’m a tablet’. Some are speculating that it is the previously announced Razer Switchblade, but we doubt that due to a few factors. Not only is the Switchblade concept hampered by the severely underpowered Atom processor that dwells within its clamshell design, but we would argue that because it was announced at last CES it is hardly a ‘new’ form factor.
At 20 seconds you can see rounded corners and a black bezel surround the screen
What will be most interesting if this is indeed a gaming tablet is how Razer handles the control issue. PC games aren’t designed to have your hands obscuring a chunk of the image, and a tablet that needs custom games isn’t going to make much of a splash in a world dominated by games designed for ARM CPUs rather than x86.
If any company can come up with an interesting control compromise though, it is going to be Razer. Both the Switchblade concept and the Razer Blade laptop that was announced late last year have innovative keyboard and touchpad designs, which are tailored for gaming.
With the video pointing to a January 10th announcement, it won’t be long until we have a good idea of just what Project Fiona is. Here’s hoping that it is an actual product, not a curious concept design like the Switchblade.
