Razer Blade Pro 2017 specs, price news: Budget big-screen gaming laptop powered by NVIDIA GTX 1060

A promotional image of the new Razer Blade Pro laptop.Razer

The Razer Blade Pro was launched last year, boasting high-end specs and design that hard-core gamers have always dreamed of in a gaming laptop. Unfortunately, those with tight budgets could not afford its $4,000 price tag. Enter the newly-launched Razer Blade Pro 2017, still packed with powerful features but offers a cheaper price.

According to Engadget, the Razer Blade Pro 2017 is a stripped-down version of 2016's version. To note, the premium Razer Blade Pro sports a 17-inch display screen with 4K resolution, backed up with a top-end Intel processor and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card.

In the current version, the gaming laptop is powered by an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics processing unit (GPU). The Razer Blade Pro 2017's hardware is still considered as top-end, although the gaming laptop's price has lessened by $1,700.

The new Blade Pro also includes a regular keyboard setup, compared to the Razer Blade Pro premium variant that came with a special mechanical keyboard. Also, the latest Blade Pro laptop will have 16 GB of random-access memory (RAM), which is a step down from the 32 GB RAM from last year's base model.

The Razer Blade Pro 2017 sports a 1920 x 1080 Full HD non-touch display. This is a downgrade from the first Razer Blade Pro's 4K screen, but it does not mean that gamers will no longer enjoy the best graphics settings while playing.

The new Blade Pro gaming laptop's performance is comparable to the 14-inch Razer Blade, which is known to support virtual reality (VR) gaming. However, the 2017 Blade Pro has a larger body and wider display.

Razer co-founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan announced the new 17-inch Blade Pro 2017 last week, stating that the latest version still packs a punch. He claimed that the gaming laptop can rival the performance of a desktop PC.

"The Razer Blade Pro is the ultimate gaming laptop that packs desktop-level performance with unmatched portability," Tan said. "This latest iteration offers an optimized configuration for gamers and professionals that want a 17-inch display and top-notch build quality. The thin design houses the latest in performance components and features expandable memory and storage capability."