Last year, Razer introduced the Razer Blaze gaming laptop, a notebook that packs a 17-inch display with some serious gaming power on the inside. As the serious as the specs were in the Razer Blade, it was criticized for being too under-powered for its $2799.99 asking price. Razer has since listened to the critics and consumers, by announcing a more powerful version of the Blade which is also less expensive.

The looks of the new Razer Blade have not changed, but the insides matter the most. Known as the Razer Blade R2, the new gaming notebook is packing some serious heat which can compete with anything coming from Alien or MSI. The new Blade now features a quad core Intel i7 processor, and an NVIDIA GTX 660m GPU. The old Razer Blade only had a 2.8GHz dual core Intel i7 chip, and a NVIDIA GT 555m GPU.

Razer chose to decrease the SSD drive size in the Blade R2, something that many gamers might not see as a good idea. The original Blade has a 256GB SSD drive, while the newer version only comes with 64GB SSD storage and 500GB normal hard disk drive space. The cut down on the SSD drive storage seems to be the main reason for the cheaper price tag when compared to the Razer Blade.

The Razer Blade 2 will be $300 cheaper than the original Blade at $2499.99

This move could be a bad one for Razer, as the Blade was only out on the market for eight months. Cutting the price so soon may draw anger from gamers who purchased the first generation Razer Blade only to realize the laptop has been upgraded with a price cut so early in its life. In deference to those customers, existing Razer Blade owners who upgrade to the Razer Blade 2 will get a $500 discount.