Razer Raptor monitor hands-on: Gaming screen made unique

Today we're getting up close and personal with the Razor Raptor monitor – a display that's apparently quite a few years in the making. This machine has a 27-inch panel and a super sleek exterior – and barely a bezel to speak of. This machine is one of Razer's design concepts that the company is known to bring to CES – the place where they often wow tech blogs with devices that may or may not ever find their way to the final cutting floor.

The Razer Raptor has a 27-inch WQHD (2560x1440) IPS edge-to-edge panel with thin 2.3 mm bezels. It's rolling with AMD Radeon FreeSync adaptive sync technology (when paired with an AMD GPU in a powerful desktop PC.) With this tech, Razer suggests they'll be working with 1 ms Motion Blur reduction and a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz. NOTE TOO: Razer is in the process of hopefully getting some NVIDIA G-Sync action here as well – or maybe instead? We'll see.

It's immediately apparent that this monitor is made for the discerning gamer. It has an array of "modes" for play and viewing angles at 178 Degrees (H/V). The stand this display comes attached to has a 90-degree tilt, allowing the user to access ports on its back with ease. The base is forged aluminum with Razer Chroma LED strips all around. The backplate is finished with a combination of fabric and metal "to add a touch of elegance."

Also along the back you'll see five lines of green. In the back of this display (in the stand) are five CNC milled channels, each one able to "hide the five unique Razer green performance cables included with the display." With this setup, said Razer, the user will be assisted in "creating a clean battle station setup."

The aspect ratio for the panel is 16:9, contrast is up to 1000:1, and brightness gets up to 420 Nits. You'll have a color gamut of 95% DCI-P3 and HDR capabilities too. Connectivity includes 1 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x DP 1.4, 1 x USB-C (supports DP1.4), and 2 x USB 3.0 Pass Throughs. With these inputs, this monitor offers picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture capabilities. Multiple sources can be displayed on this one panel at once.

Dimensions here are 24.15" (613.4 mm) W x 15.29 in. 19.23 in. (388.4 mm – 488.4 mm) H x 7.46 in. (189.4 mm) D. Weight rings in at 25.4 lbs. (11.5 kg) (stand included).

While this is an early concept design, Razer DOES list "included cables" as follows: 1 x Power, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Display Port, 1 x USB-C (also supports DP and Power Delivery), 1 x 2 USB-A 3.1. They also gave us an MSRP at approximately $700 USD. As for release date, Razer's sticking with "later this year" from Razer dot com in the U.S. and Canada.