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Project Valerie Theft at CES 2017

Some of you may have heard of Razer’s Project Valerie, the world’s first triple display laptop. This concept design is not commercially available but it does look really cool, and all of the tech running the laptop is pretty high-end. […]

Some of you may have heard of Razer’s Project Valerie, the world’s first triple display laptop. This concept design is not commercially available but it does look really cool, and all of the tech running the laptop is pretty high-end. Check out Razer’s video on the laptop:

On January 9th, Razer’s CEO and Creative Director Min-Liang Tan’s Facebook page issued a statement letting the public know that two of the Project Valerie prototypes were stolen from their booth at the 2017 CES exhibition. Now, Razer has not stated how much a laptop like the Project Valerie would cost, but we do know that it is absurdly expensive. Why? Well, it features three 17.3 inch 4K screens, is powered by an NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 GPU, and supports NVIDIA Surround View with a stunning resolution of 11520 x 2160. With a product like that, it’s easier to understand the reward offer: “a $25,000 reward is being offered for original information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of a criminal suspect.” That’s in USD, so in AUD that would be more around $34,000.

Razer is understandably upset considering the amount of time and effort put into Project Valerie, and to have someone pinch the prototypes from the booth itself is pretty disheartening. Razer considers the theft to be “cheating, and cheating doesn’t sit well with us. Penalties for such crimes are grievous and anyone who would do this clearly isn’t very smart.” Part of the concern also lies in this being an effort in industrial espionage.

It is more likely this situation was a result of a few people who thought it would be a good idea to steal a really good and rare laptop, rather than another company’s efforts to try and sabotage Razer. The tech for creating a triple display laptop has been there for a while now, so a competitor should have been able to easily make their own. Hopefully Razer will be able to promptly recover their prototypes.