CES 2011 has brought us tons of innovations this year but perhaps one of the biggest isn’t something that would help you out in your business ventures. Meet the Razer Switchblade, a palm-sized, touch-screen gaming PC with a transforming keyboard that is quickly becoming one of my personal favorites from CES. The Switchblade is powered by an Intel Atom chip and is about the size of a hardback book when folded up, but flip it open to unveil a 7-inch touchscreen display and a smallish style keyboard. The innovation here is the keyboard, which can change on the fly to anything from an English language qwerty keyboard to gaming icons or any picture that the user wants to put on a key. How Razer accomplishes this is by using one 7-inch LCD display located under the keyboard instead of trying to use an array of tiny (and much more expensive)  LCD screens. The display has the ability to show a different picture for each button and there’s no real limit to what the picture can be.

But there’s still a chance that Razer isn’t even going to be able to the Switchblade. Robert Krakoff, president of the computer accessory company, said that a lot is still up in the air about the slick prototype that’s garnering a lot of buzz at this week’s Vegas show. The problems right range from heat issues all the way down to settling on system specs and whether or not the device would be upgradable. On the bright side,  the PC will have USB ports for a mouse and other gaming devices. Its very likely it will be shipped with Bluetooth support, WiFi and hopefully built-in mobile broadband support. Krafoff says that there hasn’t been any deals cut but it would be interesting to see if a branded versions such as a World of Warcraft or Valve are ever to be released. Valve’s Gabe Newell seems extremely impressed with the devices potential, he said. The famed developer wanted to know if the device really worked, if it was doable. Krakoff says that the system is shooting towards playing most games available at the time of its release, nothing like higher games like the latest version of Crysis. Another question is pricing, with notebooks hovering around the $500 range the Switchblade is going to have to be competitive in pricing. Do you think Razer will be able to make this a viable option in portable PC gaming?

Check out video of the Switchblade running a demo below:

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[Source: Kotaku]

Authors: TechHead

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