Cramming all the bombastic excess of a “battlestation” gaming desktop into a portable package is not a new idea. The latest version of it is certainly turning heads over on Kickstarter, where a design for a dual-screen gaming laptop with a true mechanical keyboard has already surpassed its funding target. But I am wary — I think this design might be impossible for its purported starting price.
The Krayzor laptop in the Kickstarter is certainly impressive, with a secondary full-width touchscreen and similar to the Asus Zephyrus Duo design, a Core i9-12900K processor, RTX 4060 graphics card, and a full mechanical keyboard. And I mean a really mechanical keyboard, as in full-height Cherry-style switches and hot-swap sockets, supporting standard keycaps and RGB. There’s also three full-sized turning knobs, all in service of a machine that can game and handle serious media production. It seems like the creators are taking another stab at the Acer Predator 21x design.
And I should say that the hardware shown off in the Kickstarter video certainly looks possible, at least in purely electronic terms. While it’s possible that some video flim-flammery is in effect, all those parts should at least fit in a chunky 16-inch laptop frame, even if the battery will last about an hour while you’re playing Cyberpunk. Note the extra space between the main body and the screen making room for those tall switches and keycaps, and the somewhat older specs (12th-gen Intel processor, last-gen Nvidia card).
No, what gives me pause is the price. Right now the cheapest backer option that I can select is 6632 Hong Kong dollars, $853 USD, according to Kickstarter’s currency converter. That’s without memory or storage. You can add on 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD for $190 USD, or double both of them for $259. Frankly a sub-$1000 USD price for this kind of hardware, not to mention a lot of custom engineering even if all those various components are “off the shelf” from suppliers, seems incredibly ambitious for a “December 2025” launch date. To say nothing of the idea that all taxes and customs fees are apparently included by the Shenzen-based manufacturer, and this is its first Kickstarter campaign.
Even with those older specs, I’d expect to pay something in the range of $1500 for this laptop at a minimum. For a bit of context, you’re going to spend at least $3000 on that dual-screen Asus design, and that’s with the much more established company’s distribution and economies of scale. To be blunt, I don’t think this price is possible for this kind of hardware. And as Kickstarter itself warns right on every bnacker page, “Rewards aren’t guaranteed.”
Since this campaign is already fully funded past its modest $643 goal, Krayzor will be paid when the campaign ends in a little under three weeks, baring some kind of disaster. Whether you’ll see an all-out, insanely overdesigned laptop in your hands before the end of the year…well, I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I’ve seen too many crowdfunding campaigns buckle under the weight of reality before delivering a final product.