Razer’s accountability

[Re_Moor]

Hello

long time subscriber to LTT (2015) from the land down under. 
 A bit of back drop to the query up above. 

 

Tech enthusiast from the health industry ( not having built a pc from the ground up, but upgraded desktops (from the 486DX2 to a K6 then the athlon64.). always subscribed to guru3d since time immemorial (should tell you how old I am), and then once life got very busy and relocations for work happened came into laptops. Once NBR went down, I never really went to a PC Forum till now. So while following Linus, I I went from a t40 ( I still have trying to resuscitate), through a HP pavilion and still run an aging T450 (bought refurbed) and then I saw the Razer blades on Linus. Enthusiastically bought the machine (from their 8750H blade 15’s and what a roller coaster). Briefly dabbled in the 15 advanced running the 9750h and promptly returned that too ( massive manufacturing issue). Held back till the early 2021 blade 15 with the 10875H. The laptop has been babied ever since , the battery bulged and finally the cable (at the moment the IR camera lead is working in certain screen angles, which means the screen would follow suit). I recently placed an order and receiving a framework laptop 13 Ryzen(tomorrow) after much research (and a obviously Linus’s review and backing the device) 
 

now my question  is

 

why hasn’t Linus ever called them out about their recurring reliability issues when he is backing FW (and rightly so) about the laptops turning into paperweights ( without having to pay exorbitant amounts to Razer to fix a known engineering issue)

 

1) why not run a secret shopper for laptops

 

2) would be glad to find out a reason for the above queries. 

 

 

 

[TheMcG]

Would love a laptop secret shopper. 
 

i do believe they have discussed various quality control issues with razor over the years. Iirc on wan they discussed buying everyone razor laptops for they Christmas party giveaway only for basically all of them to have issues. 

 

 

[aisle9]

I have definitely seen LMG videos that call out Razer for everything from poor design choices to poor QC to their legendarily bad customer service.

 

A laptop secret shopper would be great, especially if it focused on models with similar to identical specs across different brands. Something that really highlights the differences in cost and quality between brands. Like, brand A's laptop with a 7840HS, 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM side-by-side against brand B's laptop and brand C's laptop with similar specs so we can see who's using the crappiest screen, who's got a cooling system designed for the hardware and who's just dropped a blob of copper and a vacuum cleaner of a fan in there, who used crappy plastic and who used a metal frame, that kind of thing. That would be far more useful than reviews from all over Youtube that spend 15 minutes to get to the conclusion of, "Yep, $189 Walmart Specials with a dual-core Celeron from 2016 still suck."

 

You out there, @LinusTech? I'm guessing you guys have a few laptops lying around with specs close enough to each other to do something like this.

[seanondemand]

It would be hard to do a laptop secret shopper. Laptops are much more “bespoke” than desktops from big oems and system integrators, making comparisons way more complicated and difficult to tell whether an issue is a one-off or a design problem. Issues also often take time to manifest. Secret shopper has also tested basically every big oem’s customer service at this point - the only reason Razer’s been spared is that they don’t have a desktop.
 

Anybody who does a little research will find lots of accounts of their issues, so what value does LTT bring to that conversation? Holding brands’ feet to the fire isn’t really their jam. 

[LinusTech]

15 hours ago, Re_Moor said:

Hello

long time subscriber to LTT (2015) from the land down under. 
 A bit of back drop to the query up above. 

 

Tech enthusiast from the health industry ( not having built a pc from the ground up, but upgraded desktops (from the 486DX2 to a K6 then the athlon64.). always subscribed to guru3d since time immemorial (should tell you how old I am), and then once life got very busy and relocations for work happened came into laptops. Once NBR went down, I never really went to a PC Forum till now. So while following Linus, I I went from a t40 ( I still have trying to resuscitate), through a HP pavilion and still run an aging T450 (bought refurbed) and then I saw the Razer blades on Linus. Enthusiastically bought the machine (from their 8750H blade 15’s and what a roller coaster). Briefly dabbled in the 15 advanced running the 9750h and promptly returned that too ( massive manufacturing issue). Held back till the early 2021 blade 15 with the 10875H. The laptop has been babied ever since , the battery bulged and finally the cable (at the moment the IR camera lead is working in certain screen angles, which means the screen would follow suit). I recently placed an order and receiving a framework laptop 13 Ryzen(tomorrow) after much research (and a obviously Linus’s review and backing the device) 
 

now my question  is

 

why hasn’t Linus ever called them out about their recurring reliability issues when he is backing FW (and rightly so) about the laptops turning into paperweights ( without having to pay exorbitant amounts to Razer to fix a known engineering issue)

 

1) why not run a secret shopper for laptops

 

2) would be glad to find out a reason for the above queries. 

 

 

 

We called them out when we experienced reliability issues. 

Beyond that, we haven't experienced anything first-hand, so we don't really have any evidence for their reliability one way or the other.

[Re_Moor]

But, all of  (tech reviewers) have had concerns regarding the display cable that runs over the heat sink . Is there no way to run it through the proverbial gauntlet at the labs and determine that their laptops are portly engineered. Perhaps a list of laptops used by the LMG group and its durability over a year or 2. Thing is Linus is a good tech reviewer (gets a bit technical with networking (* shudders) and the in-depth info like fab manufacturing that is over my head. But all in all I have followed his advice and I feel (barring framework) that laptop manufacturers should be taken to task so we can get some semblance of what to buy. Razer has a long litany of failures (recently noted reddit when my blade started exhibiting issues) and with no option to repair it (apart from sending it to razer for 600 Aussie dollary doos ) it seems poor form for others to spend their hard earned cash for same.

[Gpusarentintimidatingtome]

Personally, I have had Razer products for a very long time and i love them!(this is my opinion) I have never had any problems wit any of my Razer products ever. The software is great and their hardware just feels so well built. I will stick with Razer for as long as I continue to have reliable products and great customer support. ( contacted them once about changing the shipping address i put in for an order and they were so helpfull)

[denco101]

56 minutes ago, Gpusarentintimidatingtome said:

Personally, I have had Razer products for a very long time and i love them!(this is my opinion) I have never had any problems wit any of my Razer products ever. The software is great and their hardware just feels so well built. I will stick with Razer for as long as I continue to have reliable products and great customer support. ( contacted them once about changing the shipping address i put in for an order and they were so helpfull)

I've recently gone from a Zephyrus G14 to a Blade 14, and my first impressions of the Razer have been great so far: very Apple-like in terms of build quality/solidity (in a good way), and you can't beat the performance, either... Compared to the Zephyrus, it's got much better specs, performs better, is MUCH more stable, etc... and that is with me keeping in mind that the Asus is a couple HW generations old at this point.

[Lunar River]

3 hours ago, Re_Moor said:

But, all of  (tech reviewers) have had concerns regarding the display cable that runs over the heat sink . Is there no way to run it through the proverbial gauntlet at the labs and determine that their laptops are portly engineered. Perhaps a list of laptops used by the LMG group and its durability over a year or 2.

this is basically impossible to test objectively as it will entirely depend on the type of laptop, it's use case, the user and i myriad of other variables that would much such a test useless.

 

For example, lets make a theoretical test of 3 different laptops. doesn't matter what they actually are, but lets go with:

 

Laptop 1: This is the employee's main computer, they do everything on it and take it everywhere, it comes with them between home, the office, on work trips, coffee shops and on holidays.

Laptop 2: This is the main computer, but it only stays at home on their desk and is always plugged in, maybe occasionally taken to the couch

Laptop 3: Is a secondary machine that is only really used for travel and every now and again at home.

 

 

Based on the above, how do you determine a good reliability metric? i would imagine Laptop 1 would be most liekly to fail given it's used the most, is constantly being moved and therefore could be knocked around, ports could wear out faster being unplugged and replugged in over and ever every day, and laptop 3 being the one most likely to last as it gets the most use.

 

During the test Laptop 1 dies, but laptop 2 and 3 is still alive, how do you know that Laptop 2 and 3 are better quality when they just dont get used as often?

 

Laptops are incredibly hard to do comparative reliability tests on as you would expect most of them to last at least 1 to 2 years even if you're throwing them around everywhere, so any tests would be incredibly long and filled with caveats that would much such information rather useless.

[Gpusarentintimidatingtome]

22 hours ago, denco101 said:

I've recently gone from a Zephyrus G14 to a Blade 14, and my first impressions of the Razer have been great so far: very Apple-like in terms of build quality/solidity (in a good way), and you can't beat the performance, either... Compared to the Zephyrus, it's got much better specs, performs better, is MUCH more stable, etc... and that is with me keeping in mind that the Asus is a couple HW generations old at this point.

Razer products definitely have an AMAZING build quality. They are like the Apple of gaming when it comes to build quality and solidity. They just aren't focused on MONEY MONEY MONEY!!! Their prices are definetly reasonable. For example, My Razer Leviathan V2 X is a mini soundbar for only $100 (USD, I live in the USA). For that price that thing is AMAZING!!! The bass on that thing kicks and it will get loud while still having amazing sound quality and the sound is very crisp and clear while being very well balenced out. I recommend that as a PC speaker for your desk. It is small and is so worth the money. Sorry i talked so much about it but i realluy lovethat thing. I have started to prefer it over my headset! my astro headset is still awesome though.