Razer Edge vs. the competition: fight!

Audacious claims are starting to become a standard component of Razer hardware announcements -- following the Blade's claim to the title of "world's first true gaming laptop" is the Razer Edge: "a full feature PC and the most powerful tablet in the world." It certainly has the full feature PC aspect down -- with an Intel Core i5 (or i7 for Pro) processor at its heart, the Edge is more of a modular Ultrabook than your run-of-the-mill tablet. Then again, that seems to be the Windows 8 slate trend, doesn't it? We pitted the Edge against some of the category's recent stars, including two other tablets, a slider and a full featured convertible laptop. Read on to see how it stacks up.

Perched on the proverbial auction block, most of the Razer Edge's specs look strikingly familiar -- a 1.7GHz Core i5 (or i7, to match the XPS 12), 4-8GB of RAM and Windows 8. The crux of Razer's claim lies in the Edge's discrete GPU, the NVIDIA GT640M LE. Dedicated graphics aren't uncommon in laptops, but fully featured Windows 8 tablets are a brave new world -- most manufactures don't seem to be willing to risk the inevitable power drain the extra visual oomph demands. A quick peek at the battery category shows why: Razer's early battery estimates carry the caveat of an extended battery peripheral. Razer warned us that it has yet to put the internal power pack through its paces, but even in a best case scenario, the tax for high performance is evident: 2-4 hours of portable gaming, tops. This is hardly a surprise, of course -- fully fledged gaming laptops rarely fare better. Even the comparatively miniscule PlayStation Vita struggles to surpass three hours of non-stop play.

So, is the Edge the most powerful tablet out there? Its dedicated GPU certainly outpaces the integrated graphics its competitors cling to, though it trades in a little screen real estate and visual fidelity for the privilege of calling itself a gaming rig. Even so, that 1,366 x 768 resolution will likely work in its favor, demanding slightly less from its GPU than it might if it attempted to render games in 1080p.

We'll tentatively give Razer a pass on this one -- the Edge Pro's 8GB of RAM and Intel Core i7 CPU can go toe to toe with the best Windows 8 slabs on the horizon, and its dedicated GPU closes the deal. The world's "most powerful" slate? Maybe -- we'll let you know how it holds up in the real world after stringing it through the Engadget review gauntlet. In the meantime, we'll keep our eyes peeled for a worthy contender -- after all, Moore's Law (and the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show) never sleeps.