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Friday, June 22, 2012

PROJECT FIONA - ultra high performance gaming tablet


In recent years we have seen the tablet market boom with the release of the Apple iPad. Many tech companies all want a share of this new unprecedented market and have created their own makes of tablets. These oversized smart phones are all aesthetically appealing with slim cases and large screens. However, aesthetic appeal aside, no one expects that any of these tablets will be used by hardcore gamers to play the latest video game titles such as Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3. Casual games such as Angry Birds and Farmville are more often associated with tablets.

Even though it is generally accepted that tablets do not have a high processing power, Apple has constantly been pushing the limits. Each new generation of the iPad is a lot more powerful than the previous and currently, the iPad 3 runs on a dual core processor. Microsoft's newest tablet product, the Surface, uses a quad core processor. The PRO version of the Surface has an i5 and can run Diablo 3.

However, the iPad 3 and Surface are all designed for purposes besides gaming. So what is the result of a company that is designing a tablet specifically for hardcore gaming? Razor's PROJECT FIONA is the end product. 

Although so far the details are scarce, here is an overview of what FIONA has to offer (http://www.fudzilla.com/notebooks/item/25518-razer-details-its-project-fiona-at-ces):
  • 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 pixel screen
  • i7 Ivy Bridge CPU
  • Multi-touch supported 
  • 3-axis gyro
  • magnetometer
  • accelerometer
  • Dolby 7.1 surround sound
  • force feedback
  • Bluetooth 3.0
  • WiFi 802.11bgn 
FIONA will also use Windows 8 as its OS, which means that a multitude of the latest hardcore games will be available on it. 

One of tablet-gaming's greatest setbacks is that the touch screen interface isn't efficient for game genres such as an FPS. The virtual joy sticks on the screen are not perfect and using them can be quite annoying. FIONA meets this problem with two attached nun-chuk like controllers on the sides with joy-sticks and several buttons. The nun-chuks do not sacrifice a whole lot in terms of portability and makes gaming on the FIONA a lot more fun and easy. 

The price-tag of the FIONA is rumoured to be up to $ 1000 and it is slated to come out sometime in the Fall/Winter of 2012.


WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: At CES 2012, Razor showed off its FIONA prototype running SKYRIM on ULTRAHIGH settings with minimal lag. Now THAT is impressive.

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