Razer Doesn't Make The Cut

[Malibrew]

Business professional by day, dream crusher by night.  I needed to find a computer that was mobile, powerful, good build quality and looked the part to fit in an office environment.  This quickly narrowed what was available on the market at the time, which was about 2 months ago.  I first chose a Razer Blade 15 Base model with a 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD.  After working with our IT company connecting the laptop to our servers, setting up VPN connection, installing MS office and the plethora of windows updates, I immediately ran out of SSD storage which forced an exchange for the pricier but better Blade 15 Advanced RTX 2060 in mercury color.  It was purchased as an open box item through Best Buy, looked amazing and performed well.  That was until I received the "Low Battery" notification.  This normally wouldn't be alarming but since the laptop was connected to the power supply at the time, I knew there was an issue.  Hours of Razer support, IT work and frustration later we were back to the customer service line in Best Buy.  I saw online Razer offered the Blade 15 Advanced with up to an RTX 2080, so I figured since I liked the design, size and specification sheet I'd try to buy my way out of my problem.  A week later the new Blade 15 Advanced arrives with the RTX 2080.  It was such an amazing machine that I went ahead and purchased a dbrand matte black set of skins for the beauty to protect it.  Unfortunately, the build quality of dbrand was higher than my new Razer.  2 days after installing the skin, the laptop started to flicker and change screen ratio.  It got to the point I had to return it days later, forcing me to take the $50 loss on the skin for an identical exchange of the same machine.  This is now Razer Blade 15 #4, and I was so confident in how the previous Blade #3 performed I went to toastmade.com and purchased a beautiful wooden laptop set.  It performed perfectly, looked beautiful and finally gave me some hope that I got what I paid for.  Then I plugged in my HDMI cable... Poof.  Back to weird contrast ratio, aspect ratios changing and eventually produced an audible metallic sound - not coil whine or fans.  I had to return my 4th Razer to a different Best Buy than I purchased from because I was literally embarrassed to go back with another device having another problem.  I also saw a Geed Squad technician destroy my Toastmade cover to "get the model number".  I decided to wait a couple days to let my frustration settle and Razer decided to release some information on 2 new 15" models in 240Hz and 4K OLED 60Hz displays.  Although the 4K OLED looks amazing a 60Hz screen is like having a Ferrari with a Honda GX series (lawn equipment) engine inside.  It will bottle-neck performance on every resolution and drastically reduces the ability to stay competitive.  I wanted 4K BAD, but not enough to be left at a competitive disadvantage over the leaning industry standard of 144Hz.  I also caught wind of the Razer Blade Pro 17 releasing early May from Razer support, so I went and purchased every Top-Tier peripheral Razer makes to complete the setup.  I signed up for every email notification from Razer.com about the release of the products mentioned as well as reached out to Razer support for any extra information regarding the release of the Blade Pro.  The responses were a complete waste of time and I found out through a "lucky" search of Amazon.com that the Razer Blade Pro 17 was being sold.  I watched as the listing went up and was being edited.  I saw the RTX 2060 and 2070 versions go live for sale, saw their deliveries now get pushed back for 3 months, and still no release of the RTX 2080 version I intended on purchasing.  As I was purchasing the peripherals I was shopping for the Razer Blade 15 Advanced.  When this changed to the 17" Pro model, I was concerned the Razer Chroma Laptop Stand wouldn't fit.  Before my purchase I was told by Razer support that their stand works across all their laptops.  On 5/12/19 I asked again about the laptop stand fitting the new Blade Pro and was now told a definitive "no, it will not fit and is incompatible with the new Razer Blade Pro".  I asked the support agent if I should return my stand and they said yes.  I called Razer to start the return (on unopened merchandise) and was pushed back to their online chat support.  The Razer chat first stated it has been 15 days since purchase and I'm stuck with an unopened, incompatible product.  I then pointed out it was intended for a $3500 laptop I intended on purchasing, and the fact of me being misguided through my purchase in addition to the obvious quality-control issues I experienced with nearly the entire Razer Blade 15 Advanced lineup is pushing away a loyal customer.  I also may have throw in a comment about her chat ending up on YouTube somewhere when she responded that I had a special circumstance and "this time only" I would be able to do a return and to await instructions in my email.  It's now been a few days and no instructions have been sent.  At this point I was so frustrated with them as a manufacturer and company that I returned my $1000+ of peripherals purchased alongside the hopes of purchasing their unicorn Blade Pro.

 

I was left with such a bad taste in my mouth from Razer I decided to give other manufacturers like Acer, Alienware, Asus and MSI another look.  Like I said in the beginning I am a business professional and can't lug around a 2" thick desktop replacement, although I'd certainly enjoy the performance of one.  This is when I found a portable SkyNet - MSI's GS75 Stealth 479.  It first caught my attention while comparing to the Blade Advanced 15 with the sleek look, bronze/gold trim alongside the perimeter and logo, but decided against it for reviews of poor build quality.  I was a little skeptical of the Stealth series so I went back to researching anything and everything about them.  Their build quality was decent and has since been further upgraded with thicker aluminum chassis/housing and reinforced sections around the screen which drastically reduce the flex.  I went ahead and took a leap of faith with MSI's Mac Daddy version housing Intel's new i9 9880h CPU, RTX 2080 GPU, 32GB Ram and 1TB SSD.  Compared to the Razer Blade Pro 17, for an additional $200 MSI offers double the Ram, double the SSD storage, alongside the best laptop processor to date.  There is almost no comparison between the MSI GS75 Stealth 479 and the Razer Blade Pro 17.  I had a fun time purchasing my peripherals from Best Buy again though, making sure my steelseries laptop keyboard syncs up with the rest of my new steelseries peripherals.  Once I get the MSI I'll update with a true comparison between the two manufacturers.

 

If you're undecided between high performance laptops, consider cooling just as important as the performance of the hardware inside the chassis.  Without adequate cooling, high performance devices are known to generate high levels of heat which could produce thermal throttling and decrease performance.  Most newer model laptops, with the exception of the Alienware M17 (on the i9 model), do a remarkable job at distributing heat from the CPU and GPU across heat pipes, fan systems and vapor chambers.  I'm on the hunt for an adequate laptop cooling stand for my portable SkyNet to increase the life of the hardware by keeping temperatures lower.  So far the CM Storm SF 17 looks like it'll take the win.

 

[hconverse02]

Dude I think you have an issue with just not learning.  After a completely new laptop malfunctions not once, but twice, you bought another one.  Do more research before buying a $2000 laptop because it might end up turning into a brick if you don't.  The msi laptop is great from what I hear, but the specs won't live up to their numbers 100% because it's in a portable system that will thermal throttle.  If you go back on this one again, I recommend taking a break from buying laptops for a while.  I personally took about a month of research before deciding what I wanted to get.  Even while I wanted/needed more performance, I settled on the gigabyte aero 15w which has an i7 8750 and a 1060 6gb, and it was a great decision that came with its own problems that I eventually figured out and fixed (like its notorious battery drain that requires you to uninstall a couple default programs to fix).  

[kelvinhall05]

As stated above, I'd say this is your fault, not Razers. Yes, their products didn't work right, but instead of moving on to another brand, you bought three more of the same laptop...

 

I'm going to guess you're a Razer fanboy judging from the four faulty laptops you bought as well as the plethora of other Razer stuff on your desk?

[Malibrew]

6 minutes ago, hconverse02 said:

Dude I think you have an issue with just not learning.  After a completely new laptop malfunctions not once, but twice, you bought another one.  Do more research before buying a $2000 laptop because it might end up turning into a brick if you don't.  The msi laptop is great from what I hear, but the specs won't live up to their numbers 100% because it's in a portable system that will thermal throttle.  If you go back on this one again, I recommend taking a break from buying laptops for a while.  I personally took about a month of research before deciding what I wanted to get.  Even while I wanted/needed more performance, I settled on the gigabyte aero 15w which has an i7 8750 and a 1060 6gb, and it was a great decision that came with its own problems that I eventually figured out and fixed (like its notorious battery drain that requires you to uninstall a couple default programs to fix).  

I went through a total of 4 Razer Blade 15's.  First one the SSD was too small, second didn't charge (but it was open box so that explained it), 3rd should have been the final return but it performed so damn well I had to see if I was the unluckiest Razer consumer ever and the 4th pushed me away for good.  I'm sure I'll find something I don't like about the MSI (starting with the price) but you usually get what you pay for.  I feel like with MSI I am purchasing the internal hardware.  With Razer I felt like I was paying for a nice chassis and marketing overhead costs, and their launch dates were terribly inaccurate for their refreshed models. All in all it is still a gamble but one I feel more confident with than another Razer.  Thermal throttling is more prominent with "desktop replacements" pushing high performance hardware than even the "thin and light" class.  I've had some time on the Aero and it did perform extremely well during work related tasks, but the gaming performance you pay for doesn't translate quite the same as in a gaming targeted device.  Also, the cooling MSI uses on their GS75 is pretty amazing.  I've ran Metro Exodus on a lower spec'd machine than the one I've purchased while monitoring thermals and performance and experienced zero throttling with safe temperatures.  As long as the laptop is elevated on a stand or cooling pad the machine will run optimally without any thermal throttling (unless you manually bypass MSI Afterburner and Dragon Center to further overclock which is not needed or recommended).  As for what you've heard about MSI specs, I'm sure you haven't heard about their refreshed 8-core i9 laptop processors in regards to performance and throttling (as they are currently being made available for release at the end of this month).  The reason I'm going all out, especially on the CPU, is because Intel is making some HUGE changes in the coming months.  The first generations of their new CPU architecture will probably have unforeseen issues that'll be fixed through release of later generations (across a number of years).  For this reason, I feel like I'm investing in the finely-tuned high performance version of what Intel has been working on for years instead of the newest tech that hasn't been tried and true as of yet.  I also didn't want the 9th gen performance to disappear from the market after the 10th gen architecture changes and be "stuck".  As for a comparison between our two CPU's, yours reaches 4.1Ghz with turbo boost active and scores just above a 12,000 CPU score.  The i9 in the MSI GS75 reaches 4.8Ghz (17% increase) and scores just above 14,000 CPU score (17% increase).  This is comparing the top-end 6-core 8th gen i7 to the top end 8-core 9th gen i9, both of which are very powerful laptop CPU's and shows the i9 transfers the additional power into additional performance.

[Malibrew]

32 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

As stated above, I'd say this is your fault, not Razers. Yes, their products didn't work right, but instead of moving on to another brand, you bought three more of the same laptop...

 

I'm going to guess you're a Razer fanboy judging from the four faulty laptops you bought as well as the plethora of other Razer stuff on your desk?

I tried 3 different models.  The first was Razer's Base model with a GTX 1060 and it performed perfectly fine but with extremely limited SSD which made it incompatible with my needs.  The second was Razer's Blade 15 Advanced RTX 2060 Mercury that was a previous return from another customer (so I figured the previous customer damaged the device and didn't really count this against Razer).  The third was the Blade 15 Advanced RTX 2080 and it was absolutely amazing running games.  So well that when it had problems, I wanted an identical replacement without problems.  Last try was Razer's last chance.  I'll also add I have a few friends running on identical Razer Blade 15's without any issues which definitely affected my decision to keep trying to make it work.  I was also limited to the options that look professional in an office environment.  Your opinion is stating I am at fault.  I am at fault for attempting to be a loyal customer and not just purchase a laptop, but an experience.  Razer's peripherals work really well and have earned themselves a strong reputation in the gaming community for this reason.  Their laptops this year seem to fall short, across the board.