New Razer Blade (2015)

Asus still hasn't posted information on their G501. I was hoping to see what kind of battery it has.

 

Because this device is more aimed at professionals/developers. The Blade is the one aimed at gamers.

 

i honestly don't know what's going on with my order at this point. if my order is still floating in limbo, i will just cancel it, and give up on Razer. i most likely will go for the Asus G501 instead.

here's a bit of new info: https://www.facebook.com/ASUSROG/posts/10153646048262388

 

Definitely hails from similar design philosophy. Like the PCI-E SSD option. Not crazy about seeing 960m in there. Hope that's a build option that can be changed to a 970m. 66% behind the GTX 970m and 100% behind a 980m. Depends on what you intend to do with the system, compared to the RBlade.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-960M-Review.137893.0.html

 

what about the 965m.. how behind is it compared to the 970m?

 

According to the name, 5 meters behind.

 

Lol @PoNeH. Only a bit better depending on the benchmark. 10-15% gain over the 960m. Scroll down in that link a bit, you'll see some comparisons I'm getting this from.

 

I think its about a 7-10% difference or so 965 vs 970.

 

Eh, I've never compared them personally, but most of their benchmarks look like this. Seems like a pretty big jump to me:

 

No way. The 970M smokes the 965M.

 

yea just saw the bottom verdict part. it is a pretty big difference:

Graphics card Overall performance (Ultra-preset)
GeForce GTX 980M +104 %
GeForce GTX 970M +64 %
GeForce GTX 965M +15 %
GeForce GTX 960M Base
GeForce GTX 860M Maxwell -8 %
GeForce GTX 860M Kepler -17 %

 

Monitor ID: LGD046D
Manufacturer: LG Display
Model: LP140WF3-SPD1

Checked using AIDA64. It's the same display panel.

 

cool, thank you

 

You're welcome. Mine arrived yesterday. Compared to Chi Mei CMN N133HSE-EA3 panel (in my Asus Zenbook UX303LN FHD), the Razer's FHD panel looks a bit yellowish/reddish, any idea how to make the white more bluish?

 

The 965m would've been a much better option than the 960m. Extremely disappointed in the pro, but glad I didn't wait for it, and just went with the blade regular. They should rename the 14" the Pro, since it always gets the better GPU...

 

Edit: Wrong thread.

 

Quick update: After contacting Razer re. the color temperature imbalance on the screen, they offered to exchange it for one with a hand-checked screen. Support was surprisingly good: I worked with the same rep through the entire process, and they were very accommodating.

The unit I received looks great. No color temperature imbalance, stuck pixels, or dark smudges. The lower left corner has a darker tint to it but it's not usually noticeable, since the taskbar covers it most of the time. I consider it acceptable.

So if you get a unit with a less-than-perfect screen, try contacting Razer directly. They'll help you out, and if enough people do it perhaps they'll start pushing back on their screen supplier.

For those of you who are interested, you can dual boot Linux on the RB2015. If you use the Linux 4.0-rc3 kernel, everything works out of the box, including multitouch touchpad, wifi, brightness, etc.

Someone asked if you can delete the recovery partition. If you bought directly from Razer, then no you can't. Razer set Windows to boot from the recovery partition, so deleting it will unrecoverably screw up your Windows install. However if you bought from the MS store, they use a different factory image, and it should be possible to delete the partition in that case.

Also note: if you bought direct from Razer and want to repartition your hard drive, you might find that it's not possible to do that using Windows Disk Manager., and that Disk Manager lists two c:\ drives. This is because Razer for some reason set the "hidden" flag on the c:\ drive. To fix that, boot an Ubuntu Live USB and use Gparted to remove the "hidden" flag. That's it--once you do that, you can boot back to Windows and repartition using Disk Manager.

 

Can you use two finger scrolling in Ubuntu?

 

Yes, but you have to install kernel 4.0-rc3. Ubuntu Vivid won't ship with that kernel; the kernel it ships with detects the touchpad as a mouse.
The tradeoff is that the drivers are new, and there are bugs--while you'll get two finger scrolling, the physical mouse buttons will drop about 30% of clicks. I imagine this'll get fixed in a later kernel version.

 

you cant delete partition even from the one bought from MS Store. I have tried all the possible ways and failed. Only way is to install another copy of windows if you have a key. Dont know, if Razer will provide with key when contacted to install same copy

 

does anyone know how to set 2 finger back/forward navigation on Chrome just like it is on MacBooks, where if you flick to the right, it will go Back, flick left to go Forward (inverted)? i saw a Registry edit to make 2 finger tap to right click ( http://www.thewindowsclub.com/two-finger-right-click-not-working-windows), so i'm hoping there's also one for this, since i can't get used to the 3 finger flick (non-inverted)

 

I was wondering, is there anything similar to this for the 14" razer blades? Or any other tight fit case you can put around the lid of the blade to save it from scratches etc

Doesnt have to be hardshell, actually I would prefer somethign out of rubber. just wondering what 3rd party cases/sleeves exist

 

How hot does the 14 inch get with light use, such as Firefox and Photoshop?

 

I use Chrome and it stays cool and inaudible. Can't comment on Photoshop.

 

Ask them for a recovery drive and they will ship one to you.

 

Cool! Would that temperature be in the 60s or 70s?

 

Around 45 with a youtube video playing, this tab as well as IGN and Amazon opened.

 

Just ordered mine from newegg with the specs in my signature. Originally had the alienware 17 but returned for many issues. Plus I need portability. The beast that is my desktop can serve its purpose while home

 

I can't find a 2015 model on newegg?

e; strange it didn't show up on search but i found it by listing all 970m laptops. oh well.

 

that's how i found it, by accident. Strange.

 

Lol that's a big change. As long as you're realistic about your expectations, you'll be satisfied.

 

After a not so good experience with the QHD+ Blade, and then issues with Razer's customer service, I'm happy to report that the 1080p version has been fantastic so far. The display looks good (still getting used to going back down to 1080p after having owned a Retina MacBook Pro for years), and I was super happy to see it has no funky issues like light bleed or color shifts. This LG panel they use seems pretty consistent in quality, considering other 1080p owners also report being impressed by it.

After the initial Windows indexing, the fans seems to have settled, and while I've only been playing Skyrim on ultra settings with about 15 mods and Mass Effect 3 on ultra.. the fans barely make a loud noise. I don't have a new released game yet to really test this, but I'm sure Witcher 3 will be the first. It does get pretty hot, but my initial concerns are no longer, as it's not as bad as how I was imagining it before owning. Tho, I am worried how uncomfortable it might get during the summer.

One thing I noticed compared to the QHD+ version.. the aluminum finish texture seems a bit different.. maybe smoother on the 1080p one.. Reason I say this is cause the 1080p one has been less of a finger print magnet. Been using it all through the weekend, and I only see a faint mark on the side where i usually hold it while picking it up and walking around my apt. The previous QHD+ one I had before seemed like it had a rougher aluminum texture and it picked up a lot of my finger prints as soon as I took it out of the box. Not sure what it is, but I'm happy with it.

 

I really wish the 1080p version came with 16gb of ram. This has prevented me on pulling the trigger.

 

Why? I use maybe 4GB day to day even with all the background apps running, and when I game (Starcraft 2) I get to about 70-80%. and that is with skype/yahoo messenger open and a few Chrome tabs and a video streaming. I could cut down on the background processes if I really wanted and few up a few hundred megs and also kill skype/yahoo/chrome and only be using maybe 60%.

8GB is more than enough unless you are doing video editing or manipulating large/multiple images.

 

I use VMware in my work and easily eat 16+ GB of ram daily.

 

Good reason then.

 

It's not that big of a change , the Alienware 17 has the 970/980m and mine had the 4710hq. So the razer is actually a step up in the cpu department with a 4720hq and the same on the gpu side (if you had the 970m). Screen res and build of the blade is much better also. Now if your talking physical size ? Yeah ...big change there

 

That's true but the maxwell GPUs are massive overclockers. Something you may not benefit from with the RB14. Also the screen/weight/footprint is a massive difference. I also assume the AW17 is a cooler machine. Everything else is just about the same, you're right. What I really meant is that the people that buy massive 17 inches are usually opposed to the thin and light machines for various reasons.

 

I would love to see this system with a 1080p touch display. Too many games have issues with 4k displays.

 

It's 3K and the "issues" have a 10 seconds fix. Scaling with specific programs is another issue although I don't personally use any program that doesn't scale. I do agree that it could be better though.

 

Are there any common programs that don't scale? Does Firefox, Photoshop, etc. scale right?

 

I am praying Windows 10 does a better job with this. It almost has to after all the attention brought to the issue.

 

It's not really Microsoft's fault too. It's the developers. Anything remotely related to Microsoft scales perfectly but a lot of programs do not because their developers don't do anything about it. They seem to care much more about scaling on the macs.

 

Chrome scales well, I'd assume Firefox does too. I also heard that Photoshop scales to 200% which should be good for the blade but I'm not 100% sure about that.

 

It's not Microsoft, it's devs not implementing the DPI aware APIs.

 

Actually the sad part about the new Alienware 15 and 17 is the gpu and cpu are soldered and not mxm. So there is no vbios flash possible according to svl7 and prema. So i could not overclock, and I went through 2 system rma's because of throttling issues due to the tdp and cpu temps (>95c)....defeats the purpose of that huge size .

 

That's strange. I remember HTWingnut overlocking his soldered 970M to 980M stock with Prema's vBIOS. Oh well and those temps are really high, I wouldn't expect the AW17 to be hotter than my RB14 lol.

 

Have a few questions for folks who have 2015 blade -

1) how are the temperatures holding up during gaming for new games like far cry 4, crysis 3 etc

2) is 3k screen of value for gaming for these fps shooter kind of games?

3) how is the fan noise during productivity work and gaming or 3D intensive tasks?
Thanks,

 

1) GPU in the 70s, CPU in the 80s when playing Crysis 3.
2) No you cannot play AAA shooters at 3K without significantly lowering details.
3) Fans can get very loud when gaming or doing similarly intensive tasks otherwise it's inaudible.

 

Thanks for the reply @ChrisAtsin. How are the fps on crysis 3 with max details? Also, when one plays at a lower resolution than 3k, is there any issue in game like screen tearing / objects appearing hazy at lower than native resolution etc.?