so razer has been coming out with a lot of stuff lately it all started with the
Viper Wireless Gaming Mouse and then Huntsman keyboard now those new blade
stealth 13 with a 1650 max q in fact if you're interested in our full review and
performance analysis of that gaming laptop you can check it out right over
here but today we're taking a look at the Raptor we first saw this back at CES
this year and a lot of you guys had concerns with the design and some other
things and now that we have a full retail sample here in the studio let's
see if anything has changed but first a quick message from our sponsor we've all
been there looking at our RAM thinking what a weakling well no longer
introducing tough frame by Thermaltake the toughest RAM around with a discrete
built in logo and premium heat spreaders design the toughest addressable LED
system with super brightness compatibility with all the usual
motherboard software even raise a chroma and voice control through Amazon Alexa
available in the toughest capacities of 16 gigabytes per kit with speeds between
3040 400 megahertz considered the tough frame RGB link below alright so let's
get to the specs of this monitor so it's a 27 inch display with a resolution of
2560 by 1440 with the refresh rate of 144 Hertz it's also g-sync and creasing
compatible do keep in mind that it does not have a physical GC module
it's just that Nvidia is supporting display for adaptive sync and then they
valeted that so that you don't get any artifacts it also features a one
millisecond great agar response time but you have to enable the motion blur
reduction through the OSD settings for that to take full effect I want to give
credit to Razer for naming the gaming monitor Raptor instead of just some
jumbled letters and numbers this is just simple and it's more easier to
differentiate within the rest of their product lineup but with that being said
this is one of the most expensive 27-inch 144 Hertz 1440p gaming monitors
on the market and the specs don't really sound that great because there are other
monitors out there in the market featuring similar specs I think the
biggest competition right now would likely come from Oris we
the ad 27 QD and that's $150 cheaper there's also the pic Co px7 Prime which
can sometimes be found for as little as $400 both of these use 10 bit panels
instead of Razer's 8 bit and so if interested in those two alternatives
links will be in the description down below
out of the box Razer does include display cables and they do look quite
fancy classic rageous style in green so you can an HDMI cable DisplayPort 1.4 a
USB adapter power cable and a type C cable it's a cool flat design with a 90
degree connector on one end it's great to see them including so many but the
problem is that these are custom-designed cables by Razer's so if
one of them breaks you're gonna have to purchase another set directly through
Razer and I'm pretty sure they're not gonna be cheap now the design of the
Raptor is pretty interesting it's not a traditional monitor style at all in fact
the back comes with this fabric finish instead of a glossy plastic surface it's
pretty unique in my opinion but I'm worried about lint accumulation over
long-term use there's also a small joystick at the back to control your OSD
there's no base amount support on the Raptor which is a bummer in my opinion I
feel like Razer just decided to go with what they thought would be more unique
instead of something that's standard you can adjust the height of the monitor as
well as tilted all the way up to 90 degrees but you can't pivot it it's also
very limited in terms of height adjustability which is something to take
into account if you're taller the back of this monitor includes these cool
wiring channel switch Heights the cables basically all the interesting stuff
won't be seen if you place this monitor on a wall but let's talk about those
wiring channels because they look great when everything is in place but actually
getting to that point is a pain in the butt the first step is to remove the
cable covers and then route your cables but remember to not plug them in because
if you do and then adjust the height of the monitor they can bend and even break
if you don't realize what you're doing like us this is because the cables are
too rigid and too thick so they don't actually move in their respective
channels even with the covers off honestly this is a pretty major design
oversight from Razer I think they should go back to the drawing board and we
designed something that's more user-friendly because the
maneuverability that you get once you plug them in is very limited in fact you
could start seeing those cables when you have them at a very lower position
especially when you plan on tilting in 90 degrees with the cables plugged in
trust me it there's just it's just really not a great experience trying to
set this up the base looks cool and it incorporates Razer's chroma RGB lighting
which is of course expected as for IO you get a USB port that powers chroma
lighting power in USB C port that also functions as DisplayPort I was easily
able to drive this panel using my blade 15 over a single USBC cable and I was
able to comfortably push it and 144 Hertz there also two USB 3.1 gen2 ports
which can be used for peripherals so the u.s. PC can also act as a single
connection between the PC the display and your mouse and keyboard you also get
a DisplayPort 1.4 HDMI 2.0 B and a headphone / mic jack one thing to keep
note of is that the USB type-c port only supports power delivery of 15 watts so
you can't really charge your notebook so keep that in mind
alright so now I'm gonna get to the one thing that I've been avoiding until now
and that is C chroma RGB lighting that Razer has graciously added to the raptor
monitor but I'm gonna let Mike chime in on this because he's actually spent a
little bit more time with his monitor Mike take it away chroma synapse I know
how much you guys hate it and i hate synapse - or at least I did until I saw
what it could do on on this monitor so first of all all the same things that a
lot of you guys don't like about synapse are there you need to sign up for a
Razer ID it needs to be initially online to sign up and in this case you actually
need a USB C cable running from your device to the monitor at all times even
if you're running on DisplayPort to control the the lighting on there if
that cable is unplugged for any reason well you're gonna lose the the synapse
profile and it's gonna start looking like this now on the positive side of
things synapse actually comes in handy on the Raptor the reason for that is
that a lot of the OSD functions can be controlled from within the synapse
software and it does it extremely well so you don't have to worry about
fiddling with a joystick while you're doing anything on your PC you can just
go into the synapse software modify your settings see the map applied in real
time and you're done on the flip side of that coin the
these really simple everything's right there at your fingertips there's picture
in picture and picture by picture the picture in picture allows you to modify
the size of that second screen things like that that you would normally expect
from a high-end monitor are there but what I want to know is what does uber
think about gaming because he just finished a gaming session on this so his
thoughts are gonna be hot off the press all right gaming experience on the
raptor and guys right off the bat it was absolutely amazing I tried using other
modes like gaming and streaming but the sRGB mode actually turned out to be the
best because the color reproduction was just spot-on
even though razer doesn't claim it the raptor felt calibrated perfectly right
out of the box even without srgb enabled contrast was
on point as well personally I think 1440p is the perfect resolution for a
27-inch display the potential to use free sync and gsync is great it's also a
super bright panel I didn't keep HDR on since it actually tended to introduce
artificial brightness a small word about that one millisecond response time when
you enable motion blur reduction in the OSD settings the panel gets quite a bit
dimmer but it's another setting that it just turned off viewing angles are super
consistent regardless of the angle seriously guys this is one of the best
IPS panels that I've encountered but there is backlit bleed on this monitor
but you can't really notice it with your naked eye as you can see by this shine I
had to crank up the ISO on my camera all the way to 3200 to actually start to see
some around the edges but really for the naked eye it's it's alright you can't
really spot it conclusion time and guys I'm gonna start with the positive things
about the Razer Raptor the first things first display it's absolutely gorgeous
one of the best IPS panels that I've encountered the 144 Hertz refresh rate
GC and compatibility it just all turns out to be a beautiful gaming experience
I can't really complain about it now I also love the design of the Raptor sure
you are gonna be losing on some things like vase amounting support and the
height is just perfectly fine for me I don't have to worry about that and I
don't I don't think I'm gonna miss the versatility or the maneuverability like
pivot adjustments or all that kind of stuff but some of you might definitely
find those as drawbacks and that's totally fine that being said I really
wished it razer added some more features to make it stand out from the rest
because it is way we're talking about for instance I would
have loved to see a wireless charging pad on the base station so that I could
charge my phone for convenience or other features that were typically used to
seeing on gaming monitors from other brands for a lot less this just feels
like there's nothing really spectacular about the monitor by itself other than
the Razer II design if that makes any sense but now I'm gonna invite Negative
Nancy mr. Mike to talk about the cons of the Raptor Negative Nancy here reporting
for Here I am and I'm about to sort of crap all over Ebers love in with Razer
hey and and I think that might be the issue right is what Razer is designing
this for is to enhance their brand and it's not necessarily to say look we've
got the cheapest minor we've got the most features they're doing this to
appeal to an ecosystem approach so if you're gonna buy the smarter you
probably have other Razer things and that's also the problem because there's
absolutely nothing other than these design elements and some of them are
really quirky like that ridiculous cable management channel that really make this
a justifiable purchase for $700 and that's it's a crazy amount of money and
when you have companies like gigabyte pic Co AOC that have specs that are
similar to this and they cost so much less well Razer is gonna have a serious
problem selling this and convincing people who aren't part of the Razer
brand to actually buy this it's form over function and personally it's not a
monitor for me Mike I think that was a great conclusion I think you just said
it it's not the monitor for everyone I think it's just a monitor for Razer
fanboys I just started this tour I just started a storm let's do it the Raptor
from Razer is not the monitor for everyone I mean it's for people who
desperately need Razer in their life they just want to laser gaming keyboard
or Razer Mouse the Razer display a Razer a notebook Razer alright so with all of
that out of the way I want to know your about the Raptor from Razer let me know
what you guys think about it in the comments down below also make sure to
check out certain relevant content right here subscribe and hit the notification
bell so that you don't miss out on a new video
I'm Eva with Hardware Canucks Mike is behind the camera and I'll talk to you
guys in the next one