Razer Blade (2014) Owner's Lounge

Need to ask someone who received their Razer Blade since my 512gb version keeps getting delayed... Was it worth the wait?

 

No my mistake - I thought the retail price of the 128gb in Sing was S$3,000 (rather than that being the price with a 10% discount). I bought my Razer 2013 in Sing last year and by the time I had got back the sales tax it was pretty much the US price. So there seems to be some sort of premium this year.

As an aside - pretty cheeky Razer delaying the 512GBs. People are really only doing Razer a favor by buying them in the first place as it is cheaper to buy the 128GB and install a third party 512GB.

 

Can anyone help me get this 10% discount?

 

I would agree if I had a clue what I'm looking at when looking in a laptop. =]

I think the majority of users do not know how to touch things inside a laptop; especially when everything seems to be tightly constructed.

I'm personally not bold enough to touch the innards of the Razer Blade 14 =]

 

How are you getting this 10% discount? I called Razer just now and they said they no longer run the education discount... I would be tempted to get a Razer Blade over an MSI GS60 Ghost Pro if I had a 10% discount...

 

The student discount is currently being replaced by the 20% off 2013 model with any .edu email. The fine print for the 2013 model coupon says: "Redemption of the discount code is only valid until April 30, 2014, midnight PST or while stocks last." It will probably return to the 10% off any system after this date. There is a very limited selection of schools for this discount though, I am lucky enough to have a girlfriend in the Art Institute and got 10% off my Blade.

 

Any idea which schools are eligible? Georgetown University?

 

Could this be due to GPU throttling from heat? I know Metro makes the GTX870m in the ghost pro hit the highest temps I've seen when gaming, maybe the Blade is doing it too, and throttling?

 

It could be, though you'd expect performance to drop across the board, not ping-pong. That said, metro is known to be rather masochistic in performance. Good for benchmarking though. I'd imagine things will improve with some Nvidia driver updates as well. It seems like every other desktop GPU update improved Metro performance in some way.

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In the GS60 thread, they monitored the GPU oscillating between the top speed and less than half the speed, maybe the razer does that to an extreme? It sort of makes sense, to run great FPS until it hits that threshold, throttles itself way down to cool, then boosts back up again. The other games mentioned didn't seem like ones to stress the GPU as much at Metro.

 

Anyone using a laptop cooler and if so do you see a difference?

 

Sounds like the worst gaming experience known to man. I'd hope they'd throttle gradually instead of over/under compensating. If it is throttling, hopefully they release an update to smooth it out. Makes no sense to bounce around. Can't imagine any game that's playable going from 50FPS to 9 and back. Would make more sense to throttle it down to 25FPS and keep it there.

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Academy of Art University
Arizona State University
Art Center College of Design
Art Institute
Austin Community College Game Development Institute
Boston University
Carnegie Mellon University
Digipen
Drexel University
Full Sail
Georgia Institute of Technology
Luther College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nanyang Polytechnic
New Jersey Institute of Technology
New York University
Purdue University
Republic Polytechnic
Rochester Institute of Technology
Saddleback College
Singapore Management University
SUNY Oneonta
University of Florida
University of Illinois
University of Michigan
University of Louisiana
University of Washington

 

I ordered a 256gb blade 14 through Amazon and have a ship date of sometime in June . I decided to post because I sure would like to see a unboxing of the new blade 14. (Not the kid with the vocal transitions LMAO). I know someone had to already receive a blade can you please YouTube a review so I can see one in action? Thanks in advance!

 

I get mine tomorrow. Will video tape unboxing and everything. Might not be able to go in depth until this weekend though.


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Awesome, something is better than nothing. Thank you!

 

Lol, I thought I was the only one who wasted 10 minutes of my life watching that video! Not only was it one of the oddest unboxing videos I've ever seen, it was on LAST year's model. I assumed filtering my YouTube search for the last seven days would weed out the 2013 model reviews...wrong!

Edit: oh yeah, Zeelobby, don't worry about showing us a minecraft demo. That video has it covered.

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If you look at tests of laptop coolers they do make a difference when the laptop is under load. However around 80% of the difference usually comes from the laptop cooler raising the height of the laptop so that cool air can more easily enter the the laptop fans. You can buy laptop coolers with removable fans so then you can decide whether to keep them or not.

 

Haha. Don't worry, while I have nothing against minecraft, its not really my cup of tea. I definitely want to do some benchmarking and stuff, but probably not until this weekend. I will at least unbox, show some simple spec stuff, and give a first impression. Maybe play a little of something simple, BioShock Infinite, Titanfall, etc.

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Ha ha Nope I watched it. About half way through I knew it was the 2013 version but had to keep watching for my own amusement!

 

I just want to know whats in the box for the new blade.

 

The Blade, power supply, and some docs.

 

I think a cleaning cloth with Razer branding on it, along with the usual stickers as well.

 

Yup.

This post is pointless.

 

Hahaha. Oh well, at least we're discussing actual owner stuff than arguing over what's NOT in the Blade...

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Also, they give you free Ghost Pro with it.

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Oh snap...

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Too soon. Too Soon.

 

I heard they give you one if your Razer Blade has been delayed for an agonizing period of time (me)

 

Has anyone done a battery life check yet? To be honest it is the only info I require in order to decide whether I should cancel my order or not.

 

Now THAT I can do tonight. What's a good battery monitoring tool? I'll just do a video playback loop when I go to bed.

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That actually sounds like power throttling. If the PSU is exceeding its limit it can ping pong like that, but 150W should be more than sufficient for the configuration I would think.

BatteryBar has some good features. I can provide a batch file I've written which will record the time every 60 seconds to a log file so that you know start time and stop time when the computer shuts itself down or goes into hibernation.

edit: Here's a batch file I made. You can put in a delay so it's not writing every 60 seconds the whole time, just if you have an idea how long it will last, have it start up shortly before that. Simple but effective. I've had a hard time trying to find a reliable time when the PC shuts down, so I made this. Just copy and paste into notepad, and save it as a .bat file. Then run it as soon as you unplug your laptop for testing, whether movie loop or browsing loop or whatever. It will just replace the file every 60 seconds showing start time and the last time it wrote (end time). Just change values below where it says ***USER INPUT NEEDED***

Code:

REM Set start time variable
set timestart=%date% %time%

REM Set path where log will be stored including file name
@REM ***USER INPUT NEEDED, change c:\temp\timestamp.log TO WHERE YOU WANT IT***
set logpath=c:\temp\timestamp.log

REM Set initial delay (IN MINUTES), so it's not writing for several hours, use 0 for no delay, default 3 hours
@REM **USER INPUT NEEDED IF DESIRED DIFFERENT TIME***
set delay=240

REM Calculate delay in seconds based on minutes above
set /a delay=%delay%*60

REM Set interval for log writes IN SECONDS after initial delay, default 60 seconds
@REM ***USER INPUT NEEDED IF DESIRED DIFFERENT INTERVAL***
set interval=60

REM Create Log file with start time
ECHO start %timestart% > %logpath%

REM Clock down delay amount before writing to log file
TIMEOUT %delay%

:Loopit

REM **Create contents of new log file
ECHO start %timestart% > %logpath%
ECHO shutdown %date% %time% >> %logpath%

REM **Timeout for next log date and time write to log file
TIMEOUT %interval%

GOTO Loopit

 

i would think they give you razer blades for your depressed state.

but no. i think for something this expensive, they should ship it with some kind of carrying case.

 

some other things that could be useful:

charging time
(from zero in standby)
(from zero with screen on)
(from zero while powered off)

 

Some have reported that an older PhysX driver is installed upon installation of Metro LL. Check to make sure you have the latest version. You may need to install the whole Nvidia driver suite to get it to update properly.

More details in this thread: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/688133/pc-games/metro-last-light-advance-physx-issue-lag-low-fps-/

 

What are your thoughts on the screen? Dajohu mentioned it was good but not great, like a good quality TN.

Can you compare the quality and viewing angles to an IPS display? Just curious what you think, because the upgraded screen was a huge plus but if it still has issues and doesn't have that wow factor color depth and all, that would be good to know.

 

The screen is pretty good, but isn't as resistant to off-angle color shift as I'd expect, as there's a slight change in black levels as you shift off-angle. (There's no such thing as a good quality TN.) The super high resolution is certainly noticeable when looking at any text, it's just so smooth. I'm not a photog, so I haven't done anything to test the color accuracy and such.

I'm picky about screens and the one in the Blade is certainly up to the task. I briefly loaded Dota2 and Diablo 3 in native mode, and both looked fine.

 

Thanks I'll have to check this out!

 

So Bioshock Infinite just ran a smooth 35-50 @Native Res on Ultra. O_O. Visuals where breathtaking. The 10 minutes I spent following a hummingbird around a garden was worth $60 by it self. This game @native on Ultra is Pretty and runs beautifully. Holy Balls. Amazing.

 

you are now one with your blade.

 

Any ghosting issues you're able to notice during gameplay?

 

Nada. Ran perfect.

 

Just got home. Gonna take some pics and video, gonna upload them tomorrow at work. Imagine I'll spend most of tonight killing bloat and updating things

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Has anybody tried reinstalling a fresh copy of Windows 8 yet? Curious if the product key picks right up or if it's a hassle like some systems.

 

I had to type in the product key when I first turned on the system. Which isn't fun, since it's on a sticker on the bottom. Doesn't seem like the key is in the BIOS.

 

Notice any screen ghosting in yours Magatama? Good to see more and more people starting to get them in there hands.

 

Disabling Advanced PhysX in Metro LL worked wonders. Native on Normal = 45+. Native on High-Very High=25+. Also in Nvidia control panel you can make the intel integrated chip run PhysX while discreet runs the game.

 

Never knew you can do that, those are great FPS numbers for Metro LL.

 

No, but I wasn't really looking for it, though if it was bad, I would've noticed. I spent the weekend installing productivity stuff on it. The screen is pretty darn nice for Word and Outlook... which alas, I'll be running a LOT more than any game.

I was worried about fan noise before I received it, but I started a dota2 playback, went to dinner, and came back and it was still running pretty darn quiet. I was impressed. It'll make a nice update from my 2011 Samsung 9 Series.

 

I haven't played a recent FPS in ages (last was CoD: BO2), on a miserable GT 525M, overclocked to GT 540M levels. It was ok, about 25 FPS average, but seriously, seeing those numbers above makes me drool.

I don't FPS much, but I do flight simulation very regularly. I want to load up Ramzzess' Boeing 777 at native resolution, HDR rendering with UrbanMaxx and SkyMaxx and I want to see almost what I should see outta a real jet plane cockpit window. Woo. Can't wait.

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