The Razer Blade Stealth (7500u) has broken Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C support. Most popular devices simply won't work at all, even though they work with other Kaby Lake computers, and even though they work with Razer's own previous Stealth laptop (6500u model).
The Razer Core has broken display software (double vsync lag) which makes it not work properly if you use an external GPU and monitor (which is ostensibly the purpose of the device)
Additionally, the Razer Core's USB ports just flat out don't work. There's a power short of some sort in the internal USB hub, so that if you plug in a device that draws any more than the lowest amount of power, it cycles through a connecting/disconnecting state, looping forever.
All of these are fundamental flaws with the product itself, so you can (and will be asked to) RMA units over and over for eternity, but you'll never get the problem fixed.
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Razer Support has known about all of these issues for months now. There is zero communication coming from Razer -- they won't discuss their design flaws, they won't support their devices, they won't even acknowledge these issues as happening.
When asked directly, the CEO claimed he "wasn't looking at product reliability because we're actually one of the top few in terms of product quality". - https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/5v8zkh/improving_raz... Since Razer's leadership doesn't care about quality at all, I can't imagine the company will ever care either.
At this point, I'm not spending another dime with Razer ever again, and certainly couldn't recommend any one else do so.
This probably isn't a short; it's more likely a software problem. I can see how they could get into that mess. Remember, with USB, you're only allowed to draw 100mA until you've negotiated with your power source for more, and the power source can say no. USB interface chips enforce this[1], and cut power and send a fault signal if a device pulls too much power.
The Razer Core is basically a docking station. USB-C power is complicated to begin with, and they've set up one of the most complex situations. The way they're using this, the dock is providing power to the laptop, but the laptop is the data master for the USB ports on the dock, which is also providing power to the peripherals. This is something USB-C allows; a device can be a power slave and a USB master at the same time.
This is even more complex. The dock is a source to both sides for power management purposes, but a pass-through for data purposes. This is unusual. I've skimmed the USB-C spec but don't recall that being mentioned. They probably have to MITM the power handshake to get this to work. The laptop is running Windows 10, so they don't control the USB drivers and their power handshake. It's entirely possible that Windows doesn't support that configuration fully.
* Similar problems reported for Anker.[2]
* And CalDigit.[3]
This may be a generic problem with USB-C middle boxes which power in both directions. Some configurations don't work, and this is tough to troubleshoot. The standards compliance test procedure for USB-C hubs [4] doesn't seem to contain this case. The test designers were still thinking "tree with computer at root" in 2015.
[1] http://plugable.com/products/ud-ca1/ [2] http://www.macworld.com/article/3057186/macbook-accessories/... [3] http://caldigit.com/usb-3-1-usb-c-dock/faq.asp [4] http://www.usb.org/developers/compliance/usbcpd_testing/3.1_...
I'm probably harder on input devices than most people, but I have working Logitech and Microsoft mice that are older than Razer itself.
The Zowie FK1+ mouse is great if you like the Intellimouse Explorer. It's ambidextrous and symmetrical. No software to install, you just click the button on the bottom to switch the DPI setting, or some chords when you plug it in to set things like handedness. Works great, can't recommend enough. The only not-amazing part is the scroll wheel for desktop use; the detents are spaced pretty far to ensure accuracy when switching weapons or whatever in a game and work less well when trying to e.g. Rip through source code, but MW acceleration mostly fixes that for me. I'd totally try a Zowie keyboard after being so impressed with their mouse. Zowie is made by Benq, so they've been around for a while and have made professional products for a while too (I love my BL3201PH 32" IPS 4K screen).
To be honest, even if they only ever lasted a couple of years, I'd still buy Razer mice. All non-gaming mice nowadays seem to be awful, cheap crap, and most gaming mice are over-decorated contraptions. Razer mice seem to be the only one they combine good, simple ergonomics with high precision and a quality feel.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/why-the-hell-does-th...
Im literally trying to purchase their product, but they discourage me with this absurd logic and unhelpful support.
The answer that support gives ia that if you want a different keyboard layout, you need to purchase it in a different country. That's not going to happen
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[1] Apple Macbook Pro is the closest device that has a ISO layout option. ASUS/Acer/HP/Dell/MSI/Gigabyte etc only offer ISO layouts for their "mainstream" devices which are nowhere near the level of performance that a Razer Blade has. All "gaming models" are US keyboard only.
I am so happy about that. These continental European keyboards have symbols in wrong places, useless (unused) symbols (like ± in place of a colon in case of the Dutch one) and a short left shift (German QWERTZ, Belgian/French AZERTY and Dutch QWERTY all have that).
I remember doing a PHP web development internship once (like 4-5 years ago) where they had keyboards with a short left shift key. Two weeks into it I gave up trying to get used to it and remapped the < key (that's the one left of Z on those keyboards) to shift with autohotkey.
I also remember buying a mechanical keyboard that had a long left shift on the cover but after unpacking turned out to have a short one. Felt silly to return it over that (by now I would) so I gifted it to my brother instead.
God I hate those non-US keyboards. French/Belgians are the worst, having to hold down shift to type a freaking number and that while having a short left shift key.
I've never heard of a major vendor not shipping ISO layouts before
My experience living in Germany has been that its been pretty hard to get American keyboards. Apple for instance only lets businesses oder laptops with US keyboards in Germany.
Here in Japan, their keyboard options are: Japanese, Korean, US, UK, Arabian, French, Spanish and Danish(!).
Why Danish?! Not German?! And if they have Danish, why not, e.g. Italian, Swedish, all more populous countries? I'm almost tempted to believe the Danish option is due to a dk/de mixup.
In Sweden, at least 3 years ago, Apple was the only company that would sell a laptop with a US keyboard to consumers, and that was one of the main reasons my last laptop was an Apple.
Dustin often has some for sale.
I wouldn't be so quick to call GP a liar. If you haven't encountered it, trying to do things online in another country is an eye opening experience. For example, indeed.com wouldn't even let me go to US job listings when I was in Hong Kong. Products, pricing, everything is different. How can round trips on airfare be so different just by switching departure points? Take a one way to Thailand before you buy airfare to the US from Hong Kong. You'll save a small fortune. Do I believe Apple has silly rules based on geography, just like every other company? Yes, I do.
Right now I'm configuring a MB Pro in Apple.de with US keyboard
http://www.apple.com/kr/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH...
See, it's not hard to find examples. Now we can conclude by robertdpi's assessment that Apple is an unreliable company, because they assume all people living in South Korea want the same keyboard.
I ended up getting an MSI when I stopped over in Taipei on a trip, after hearing about the Razer reliability issues last year. Mind you, I am not considering MSI to be any better, given my experience so far.
But in this case, we're on HN, and the person is describing both firmware issues and customer service issues and they're being specific enough that their complaint has credibility. In the same way that people vote with their money on issues that are important to them, like sustainability or social matters, I entirely avoid companies with nonexistent customer service. Dell doesn't have a perfect track record, I've had some infuriating experiences with them, but at least they pay people to answer the phone and with some effort you can usually get an issue resolved.
If I find out ahead of time that a particular company doesn't provide any customer service whatsoever, or the only way to contact them is on Twitter or to write a scathing blog post and submit everywhere, I will try not to do any business with them.
I also have a 1/10 rule, which I tried to adhere to while running my own business: for every one customer complaint you hear about, there are at least 9 other dissatisfied customers that didn't make their complaints known.
Sometimes that's true, but I don't think that's a fair assessment of the issues being presented here. These aren't some one-off bad units, Razer sells a couple products with fundamental design flaws that effect 100% of units shipped.
It's like telling Ford Pinto owners "Ford wouldn't be in business if their cars exploded"
I bought a keyboard. It developed a defect and damaged the motherboard on two laptops. I won't be plugging it into a third. Their mouse software can't even be /configured/ on Windows without a login to their cloud goo.
No more Razer for me.
I was thinking of buying a desktop replacement, with good gaming capabilities and for me it boils down to Razer or Alienware. But I prefer Alienware because it comes with a 15" screen, which is perfect for me (14" is too small, 17" is too big).
The P50 is a bit heftier than the Razer, but it's built like a tank, and it has an awesome copper heatsink + dual cooling fan system that keeps my temperatures on the very low end relatively speaking.
Lenovo laptops are impossible to break as well, and the keyboards are immaculate, great key travel and response -- it feels like you are using a desktop machine instead of a laptop.
Those DELLs have terrible keyboards (as a programmer, I spend most of my time typing in vim using i3 WM), and they aren't built to last.
If you have qualms about the pricing of Lenovos, its pretty easy to dig up corporate discount codes on /r/thinkpad or you can use a .edu email address if you still have one to get a student discount long after graduating. Usually that gets you anywhere from 25-40% off depending on the promotions.
I really really want that 1060.
It's a real shame, it fits the bill perfectly but Dell will almost certainly get my money for an XPS 13 instead.
Multiple hardware failures and eventually had to return it. They should probably learn basic quality control techniques before spending any energy on better linux support.
At least in Australia, they're way cheaper than Apple.
Was looking recently and prices went:
Razer Blade Stealth < XPS 13 < Apple
How do you figure they are under-powered and overpriced? Compared to what?
They have some of the fasted SSDs on the market [1], their battery has been reported to go for 18 hours after they fixed the software issues [2], and how many laptops do you know that have high-DPI wide color gamut screens? The Touch Bar is also actually a very nice new class of input device with lots of potential, especially once you've tweaked it a little. [3]
Even without counting the value of macOS, how many competitors offer the same or better overall features, AND good build quality and customer support? (which Razer clearly doesn't as you can see from the comments on this very page.)
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-ssd/
[2] https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/13/macbook-pro-battery-issu...
[3] https://alexw.me/2017/01/what-if-you-could-customize-your-ne...
It's a side effect of both Apples unibody aluminium cases which are way better at heat dissipation than any plastic based case and Apples extreme level of control - they can optimize every tiny chip as well as the OS to be as power efficient as humanly possible, which avoids creating heat to dissipate.
It's fair game to compare Windows laptops for their noise level but seriously, comparing anything with Apple for noise is unfair.
That's the thing that people don't understand if they've never owned a MacBook. Build quality and noise are not in the specs, so they only compare it on price / power. Also some people just don't care that their fans are running constantly...
A modern MBP still can't have more than 16GB RAM, it has 0 legacy ports, and cannot be upgraded at all.
Yes it might be a perfect laptop for hipsters who just want to show off their MBP and do the occasional Photoshop, but without developers who create programs for OS X or professional users who make their entire company buy MBPs there will be no ecosystem to lure in said hipsters... more sooner than later.
I do mostly web-stack stuff with node, and chrome is probably my biggest offender... But I've also got multiple tabs in firefox open, not to mention VS Code and other desktop-ified apps (spotify, slack, etc). I do okay with 16GB... but I know when I fire up a windows VM with Visual Studio, man does it get tight.
Basically, you can easily use 32+ GB of RAM as soon as anything Java is involved. For what it's worth I usually don't do Java stuff but my Chrome RAM usage alone easily exceeds 8 GB. I could really use more than 16 GB.
But the touchpad is far and above anything else.
Between UK English and US English?
The typical issues are usually related to firmware, which myself and other users would be willing to wait for to be fixed, but Razer's default, almost auto-response, solution is to just send you another unit, with the same issues.
In general though, the razer blade stealth is not even in the same league as an x1, mbp, or xps, and it's not supposed to be. It's just priced the same.
Razer. Apple prices, gateway support.