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I am one of many disgruntled Razer Blade Stealth and razer core owners, currently awaiting a refund. Some customers are on as many as their 4th or 5th replaceme
by mathnode 10y ago
I am one of many disgruntled Razer Blade Stealth and razer core owners, currently awaiting a refund.
Some customers are on as many as their 4th or 5th replacement unit. They have no English support in the UK, just a couple of german phone numbers which nobody seems to answer. The forum is terrible and they can't translate emails correctly. It's insulting.
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.
- byefruit 10y agoJust wanted to say that I'm looking to an existing ultraportable and hearing stories about how poor Razer's quality control and customer service is (from /r/razer and from friends) means I won't be buying a Razer Blade Stealth. It's a real shame, it fits the bill perfectly but Dell will almost certainly get my money for an XPS 13 instead.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- technoir 10y agoYes, I had an awful experience with the stealth also, though it had nothing to do with linux support (managed to get everything working). 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.
- Etheryte 10y agoI've had very similar experiences with their support on other devices, very displeased. For a mouse of theirs, I ended up writing a kernel extension to fix the issues myself.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- SolarNet 10y ago> they can't translate emails correctly Between UK English and US English?
- Dobbs 10y agoNot the OP but it sounds like Razer's Europe support is all in Germany and the issue is translating from German to (British) English.
- robertdpi 10y agoAnother signal about the reliability of the company is how they handle logistics. So if you are an US citizen living in Germany, you cannot buy a laptop with US keyboard layout. The assumption that razer makes is that if you access the website from a Germany, you are a german citizen, speaker and someone who uses a QWERTZ keyboard.. 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
- tallowen 10y agoHave you had a different experience with other companies? 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.
- lazyloop 10y agoThis is false. On apple.de you can currently order 9 different keyboard layouts, including US.
- danjoc 10y agoTwo differences are 1) you accessed that site in the US(?) and 2) GP said businesses, which indicates a business portal rather than the consumer store. 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.
- Oletros 10y ago
- maxsilver 10y agoI also got bit by this. Razer's simpler wired keyboards and mice might be OK, but their systems are fundamentally broken. 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. --- 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_razer_customer_service/de088x3/ 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.
- xorblurb 10y agoSeems they have rushed a design to production. When this happen, except if the design flaws are utterly catastrophic (read on the level of batteries exploding here and there; or perhaps slightly marginally less grave problems), production will happily happen and only actual production flaws will result in the possibility of an effective RMA. This is the case for any hardware mass-producing company. This is actually also the case for production of dedicated hardware at intermediate volume. "Of course" in that situation pretty much no company will publicly acknowledge about the design flaws, even when obvious -- I put "of course" between quotes because this is hugely ridiculous, and I predict that state of doing that part of the business will change to far more transparency in a few years.
- lazyloop 10y agoCouldn't agree more, Razer support is awful. They make pretty products, but if something doesn't work you're going to have a very bad time.
- johnatwork 10y agoI'm glad I read this. I was thinking of perhaps switching out of Apple for Razor, since the last MacBook Pro update.
- chrisbennet 10y agoExactly the same situation here. I guess the alternative is the Dell XPS 15?
- TheOsiris 10y agosame here. the macs are under powered and overpriced but razer's quality is not high enough imo. I had to return my razer blade because of the constant fan noise even on idle. I just can't even take it to meetings or work in quiet rooms
- mschuster91 10y agoThen again, I have yet to witness any laptop that is as quiet as a MBP. Every Windows laptop I've encountered, no matter if at university, at work or at home, had its fans spinning even at idle - while it takes a 2015 MBP to do a full recompile of all Macports packages to noticeably heat up, much less engage the fans. 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.
- heipei 10y agoYes, noise and battery runtime are the only two things keeping me with a MacBook. I'd be willing to compromise on other things (resolution, CPU, aesthetics), but there is still no alternative. But currently still happy with my 2015 MBP Retina. 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...
- Keyframe 10y agoThat's a damn shame. I was looking forward to new laptop in 14" form with nvidia 1060 and strong battery. Damn. XPS then?
- kobeya 10y agoSeems to be a mixed situation. I've got a Razer Blade and have bee quite happy with it so far, other than a few small driver issues under Linux that would be fixable if I spent a little bit more time on it.
- vvanders 10y agoIf you can step down to GTX 965M the Surface Book is a very nice piece of hardware.
- enjo 10y agoI ended up on a much more expensive Surface Book. I gave Razer a shot, but the screen was jacked up right out of the gate. Real shame.. the machine is beautiful. I really really want that 1060.
- zamalek 10y agoGigabyte Aero has similar specs, not as expensive but also not as fancy looking. Can't vouch for it first-hand, but I do intend to go with one.
- thaumaturgy 10y agoThat's unfortunate. Razer was my leading choice to replace my aging Dell laptop. Thank you for taking the time to let other people know about these issues.
- bitcharmer 10y agoSame story here. Had to replace my 4yo Dell. I suggest you look at XPS 15 or Precision 5520. Extremely good value for money (and you can get them with quite beefed up specs)
- apocalyptic0n3 10y agoA friend bought the 5520 and his raving about it has me wanting to buy one myself now. He loves it.
- brightball 10y agoBought a 7710 for the same reason and love it.
- danjoc 10y agoPeople with bad experiences are usually the loudest. I don't think Razer would continue to be in business if problems were commonplace. I suggest going to your local Microsoft Store or Fry's Electronics if you have one near you. Both carry Razer laptops. You can see one, buy one, and if necessary, return one, all in one place. Brick and mortar. Good stuff. At least that way you get to see one before you make the big decision.
- thaumaturgy 10y agoSure. I try to make a judgement call on the nature of the complaint and the person complaining too. Some people have unreasonable expectations from a company or product. 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.
- umanwizard 10y agoI'm probably making it obvious that I'm American, here... but can you sue them?
- bruce_one 10y agoApple prices? At least in Australia, they're way cheaper than Apple. Was looking recently and prices went: Razer Blade Stealth < XPS 13 < Apple
- snoman 10y agoAre you sure that shitty support isn't coloring your view of the machine? I've got a RBS+Core and a MBA. Aside from the MBP having a better keyboard (and obviously TouchPad, as it does vs any PC) it's a great machine.
- tracker1 10y agoIt's funny, but the touchpad is what kept me on a MBP for my late 2014 purchase... love the touchpad... not sure if I can stomach it again when I get another laptop, as everything else I like about mac has either gotten stale, soldered on, or simply not providing enough value to justify the cost. But the touchpad is far and above anything else.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Hydraulix989 10y agoI switched to a Lenovo P50 for this very reason (the one I have comes with a 4K display, an eight-thread Xeon processor, 64 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA Quadro M2000M with plenty of horsepower). The cooling systems on the Razer laptops are woefully inadequate for what they are supposed to handle. 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.
- sqldba 10y agoI'd love a laptop like that but all of Lenovo's spyware scandals and backdoors have made me wary. Also their trackpad doesn't look anywhere near as fancy as a Dell 9560, which I just spec'd to half the price with double the SSD (though which maxes out at 32GB).
- Hydraulix989 10y agoThere aren't any backdoors. Also, you don't use the trackpad on a Lenovo, you use the trackpoint. 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.
- sqldba 10y agoWhat's gateway?
- mathnode 10y agoYou should be asking who was gateway.
- yjftsjthsd-h 10y agoComputer vendor... known for capturing the low end of the market, let's say.
- zganus 10y agoWhich specific firmware issues have you faced ? The stealth runs almost perfectly on arch, if you add a kernel parameter workaround (namely i915.enable_rc6=0 button.lid_init_state=open)