We scheduled a meeting with Razer to check out what they have coming up in 2008. Much like last year, Razer was stationed in a "CES Meeting Place" rather than having an open booth on the show floor. I was a bit confused, however, as to why they were located in the car audio section.

Razer was once again showing off their Mako 2.1 THX speaker system. The Mako suffered some setbacks last year, and thus, the original May 2007 release date was not met. The specs on the Mako are pretty similar to those of last year: ~300 watts of total power, six built-in amplifiers and an amplified headphone jack.


We also had the opportunity to try out the Mako with some of our own music. I connected my iPhone to the Mako and tried out a few different songs. Much like last year, the sound quality was really good with no distortion, even at near-max volume.


Here we have the control module. This unit looks a little different than last year's model, but still has the same basic layout. The volume dial is touch-sensitive like an iPod - you just drag your finger to turn the volume up or down.


Well, that is how it is "supposed" to work. I tried this myself, but when I went to turn down the volume, it would go the other way! I tried a few times before I nearly had the unit maxed out and Robert had to turn it down for me heh.


This year's Mako is slightly different in looks and functionality from what we saw last year. The new satellite speakers are now more of a flat black instead of the chrome-ish finish we saw last year. Another neat feature on the Mako is the use of Cat 5 cable instead of the traditional audio cables.


We were told these cables are proprietary, so you can't just use any Cat 5 cable.

The Razer Mako 2.1 THX speaker system is shipping worldwide as of January 8, 2008 at a price of $399 USD($100 more than anticipated at last year's CES), although I could not find anywhere online that carries this speaker set as of writing (even Razer's website lists them as unavailable).


Razer also had their latest gaming mousepad on hand, the Destructor. The Destructor is engineered for optical and laser mice and uses a special surface (Razer Fractal) for high-precision gameplay. Look for the Destructor to ship this month at a price of around $40 USD.