Razer Blade Owner's Lounge

It took me about a full day to get used to the side location, now its no big deal. Keyboard works great. If u turn off the switchblade, u can still use the buttons and trackpad.

 

so how exactly do you turn off the switchblade?

 

you can adjust the brightness of the keyboard and the switchblade in the ui settings, i created an off profile and a custom icon on thw switchblade for whwnever i wanted to go dark.

 

How long would the new blade last before becoming outdated or obsolete? How long do you guys plan on keeping the blade?

 

It's outdated the moment you buy it. Rapidly falling SSD prices saw to that.

I will keep mine until the next GPU bump or a big battery boost.

 

I have my awesome computer for any intense gaming, so I expect my blade to last for a good 2 years, But yeah, If you want to buy a machine that wont be outdated in a few months, the blade is not that sadly since there are already plenty of machines with more power than it

 

lol, if they keep offering a $500 discount ill update each time, sell me old blade to pay for it.

 

lol saw razer blade on dexter tonight. cool.

 

Ahh the always fun worrying phase, same company that lost my alienware back when the M17x came out, now my laptop has been sitting in kentucky for about 40 hours now... Still says its on time to be here for tuesday...but can't help but worry

 

Yep. Good ol' UPS. In my area they like to play the "we tried to deliver but no one was home" game. Only thing is they don't leave anything on the door, just wait till end of day, then update the tracking status to "attempted delivery" despite the fact I was literally home the entire day waiting for them.

To answer the other question, I plan on keeping this guy atleast 4 years. I don't really need a super powerful laptop as my desktop is usually sufficient and my current lappy technically runs the games I play just fine however it's starting to show its age physically and is acting up a bit so I thought it was a good time to upgrade.

 

Woot! My Razer just arrived about 10 minutes ago! Yay UPS!

It's wider than I expected, but that power supply is awesome small.

Tip: Put on the screen protection for the switchblade BEFORE playing around with it (like I did).

So far, that was the hardest thing I've had to do - getting that screen protector on without bubbles...

 

yep, i messed up my first screen protector, was super careful with the second one. the screen protector lasts for a long, long time too

 

With this new ssd caching, think there is a problem with making multiple partitions?

I usually separate my games, data, os by partitions.

Thanks.

 

dunno, haven't gotten my new blade yet.

 

Okay, I have successfully partitioned the drive into four partitions and everything is working so far. I had to defrag/move files to the beginning in order to shrink the maximum space.

Here is a question I have though regarding the switchblade - it only seems to be available when I am logged into the synapse account! As soon as I lose internet or log out of the account, the switchblade returns to just a normal trackpad.

Am I missing something or is this intended to be just an Internet available gizmo?

Thanks

 

that should be fixed, think once your account has synced you can stay logged in even offline. will look into it myself.

 

I should have upgraded the shipping on mine! :'( Wont be here until Thursday. How have you been liking it so far?

 

you will also find that the touchpad works much better with the screen protector on, rather than without it. scrolling is much smoother, more responsive. i was hoping kotaku's claim they switched to a gorilla glass screen was accurate but this seems to be false.

 

I actually live about 30 minutes from Razer so I knew mine would get here fast.

Looks-wise and speed so far is pretty good and what I imagined it should/would be for version 2. I installed Guild Wars 2 and peeked in there real quick and it seemed to run pretty smooth with everything on high except anti-aliasing.

Fingerprints are indeed a problem and I find myself constantly cleaning it with the included cloth (although I'm sure that's not what it's meant for).

As mentioned previously by John, be careful putting on the screen protector. I got a few air bubbles stuck in there on the right side, but I'm not going to mess with it for now since it took me so long to get it on with just those few bubbles. (Must be my age as I've never had such trouble getting a screen protector on without bubbles. At least they give you two of them.

Mainly installing software/etc. now to get it ready. It came with Nvidia drivers v296.68 so I'm going to update that driver.

 

I found it was fine as long as I didn't compulsively clean it. Completely clean, fingers sticks to the glass. After a bit of usage there's enough oil from your fingers on it that it's easy to glide across.

You might want to try gaming while on battery before updating anything. The current betas on Razer's site for the GT 555M somewhat restore the ability to play at full speed while on battery. I say somewhat because the GPU still likes to throttle down to low power 3D mode from time to time.

 

aghhh can't wait till thursday.. Why must we wait so long?!

 

Holy Hotness!

Played GW2 for four hours tonight with everything on high minus anti-alias. Game played pretty smooth without hiccups or stuttering the whole time.

However..... I noticed the palm rest under the switchblade ui was getting really hot, and I mean really hot.

So I started feeling around. Right above the power button, it was so hot that I would have burned my hand if I would have kept it there.

So I did an informal temp measure just to see for myself if I was imagining it.

I emphasize informal since all I had was a standard home thermometer. I placed the tip on the palm rest and it quickly rose over 100F and then settled at 105.4F.

When I placed the tip above the power button, it rose to 110F and then just went to 'H' because my poor thermometer wouldn't read any higher (humans would probably be dead at that level!).

Anyway, any thoughts from current owners? This seems a little hot to me.

Thanks.

 

original blade got plenty hot too, near the power button (above the keyboard), but never got too not around palmrest area. I don't mind the top of the notebook getting hot, as long as I can work/play comfortably. curious to see how warn the touchpad gets, was never an issue with the gen 1. Also, how hot is the bottom for you? I could usually play on my lap with jeans, felt a little warm but never burning or anything.

 

@ Zmokin
Thank you for your reports and updates. I think we all expected the new Blade to get really hot again but that is the way it is As long as it does not throttle all is still fine. Could you eventually check battery life while playing a 1080p movie with middle display brightness? That would be a nice indication for me how battery life would be in real-life use. Thank you very much.....I know that is time consuming...sorry!

 

Hi everyone. Received my new Blade yesterday. Really loving it. It is, by far, the sleekest laptop I have ever used/seen.
However, I'm having some Wifi connection issues. I have 2 other laptops (MBP, Asus G53). When Im standing right beside my wifi router, Im getting normal speed for my connection (about 8 Mbit/s) on all 3 devices. However, if I go in the next room from the router (about 15 feet away, only one intervening wall), my Blade drops to about 2 Mbit/s, while the G53 and MBP keep getting top speed. Sometime the Blade wont even connect to the network. Whats even stranger is when I go see available connection on the blade, it does detect my network, with all 5 bars, and says the signal is excellent. Are any of you guys with the new Blade experiencing anything like this ? Im really hoping this is a simple software issue, but Im afraid I might have gotten a defective antenna/network card
Any ideas/solutions ? Sorry if I posted this in the wrong place, but I really wanted to know if anybody is having the same issues before contacting Razer support...

ThunderDan

 

mine arrives today, will let you know.

 

The antenna is supposedly in the plastic section of the hinge. Is the metal lid of the Blade facing the router, or is it facing away from the router?

I've had WiFi issues with the original Blade. Sometimes repositioning fixes it, but usually a reboot works better.

 

Yes, when it's open the metal lid is facing directly toward the router in the next room. I tried rebooting both the blade and the router and it didn't help.

 

hate to burst your bubble but it might just be router incompatibility. some routers don't play nice with certain wireless cards. take your blade to a coffee shop and get plenty of oohs and ahhs while you're at it, and test the wifi there. or somewhere else.

 

What router do you have, I've ram across similar issues with certain router/wireless cards before. It could be as simple as updating router firmware or perhaps a new router. Best thing to try is like John said. Take it to a few places that offer free wifi first.

 

I'm using an Airport Extreme base station, with the latest firmware. I'm at work right now, but tonight I'll go test it at other access points as you suggested.
Thanks for the advice.

 

What screw driver do u need to open the case?

 

got my blade but havent opened it yet. at dinner with family, wife doesnt know about my purchase.... yet. need to feed her chocolate first before i confess.

 

Haha... That's a tough one... as it's not exactly a tiny purchase of say a few hundred dollars. Wait, weren't you the pastor too? For some reason that makes me chuckle a bit. Good luck bro

 

Glad to hear people are liking their machines so far. I've actually been waiting for 2.0 to roll out before pulling the trigger. I am concerned about both reviews mentioning the screen though. One thing I like about my Sager 9150 is the 95% gamut screen... I don't expect that but would like something that isn't dull either... 2.0 owners, are you liking the screen so far? How is it compared to version 1?

Also, does anyone know if the msata slot is a sata ii or iii? That might effect my decision as a 6GB/s in an msata SSD would be awesome for OS --more so for intel rapid start.. (I'm finding 15 seconds to resume using Intel Rapid Start on a crucial M4 msata in a sata ii slot not exactly 'rapid')

Update: I see they do mention Sata III msata... Which is good... Would prefer to get a 256gb ssd in there for OS instead of cache though. Not familiar with NVELO caching software but should be easy to bypass if it's anything like Intel's --especially with a clean W7 install... which might be a problem with only usb 3.0 ports.. hmm

Still keeping an eye on it, love the looks and the performance is good enough... Just don't know if I want to sell my Sager to get it..

 

yes, i am a pastor, shouldt have bought this, but the $500 discount was irresistable. you also learn in marriage its easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.

 

I wouldn't be able to resist if I had a $500 discount either. I'm having trouble resisting at the new lower price as it is... Love my Sager but definitely can't justify keeping it and getting this as well. I'll be keeping an eye on this space to see the personal reviews roll in... I know if I do get one though, I'll be throwing a 256gb msata ssd and 500gb ssd in there.. and voiding the warranty along with it... Not something I'm too crazy about..

 

as a married man I've learned it often easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission... but chocolate helps.

 

if you have your old one, you can probably get 1500+ dollars for it on ebay. That, plus the 500$ coupon would really take the sting out of the 2500$ price tag.

 

I never had the first version, and didn't get to try mine out too much today since I was also having the wireless issues on mine, (granted after a call to my isp, they did find there was a problem and will send someone here to fix it on thursday) Both harddrives seem to be sata 3, as I find my blade to be super fast, even compareable to my desktop which is pretty pimped out aside from its old dual 465's I need to replace.

The screen on my blade...I love it personally, and while some reviews say the track pad isn't that good, I find the multi touch and accuracy of it pretty damn amazing, for zooming in and out, or clicking on things while using it as a screen, have yet to have any issues. I need to try out a game on it first before I can fully judge the screen, but I would def not say it's dull in any way, and the speakers, despite what reviews have said, can go pretty loud, for a laptop atleast. Hinges are also incredibly improved, one hand opening works fine, and very, very sturdy, I just love the build quality this baby has.

 

No hands on reviews? come on guys There's one unboxing video on youtube, but there's no speaking, just a chick and loud music. I wish I could get my hands on one of these bad boys just to check it out.. I'm toying with getting one of these or a RMBP. decisions, decisions, decisions... I was at best buy looking at the samsung laptops about a month back, didn't notice a blade there. Wish I was back in Austin where I have access to several BB's and a Fry's.

 

The boxing is the same as the first version, I was gonna do a video, but my friend decided to show up 5 hours late, and I wasn't gonna wait to set up this sexy blade. If you have any questions about it, I can answer your questions.

 

There's actually about two or three unboxings of the new blade as of today. I searched for razer blade r2 unboxing. And I'm not 100% if its the same one I saw or not but the Asian girl unboxing with the music was a v1

 

aghh ya I can't find any unboxing videos either other than one or two. Mine comes thursday but I'd love to see some video or at last get some feedback on how this bad boy's running games like bf3 and my current obsession (borderlands 2)

 

Well, I don't have borderlands 2 yet since I spent all my money on this, but I'll go load up battlefield 3 on it right now and try it out for you!

 

Alright well...Have to download battlefield, wont let me simply transfer it, so that will be a while. Also, synapse is being stupid when I have my naga hex plugged in, crashing and not loading back up while its in, so thats annoying software stuff, not laptops fault. Went to try out some Wow, complete maxed out setting except for 2x texture filtering (didn't try higher) Was averaging 45 fps in Pandaria, as for diablo, played it 100% perfectly with maxed settings, no issues at all. The boot times are incredibly fast, and the sexy new ivy bridge can handle running ALOT at once with no slowing down.

Also, to those who were asking about the screen quality, while I have seen better and its not like blow you away good good, it is still very good and you shouldn't have any issues with its quality

 

i actually think the colors on the display were better with the original blade, but this one is brighter, means better battery as i can dim it down more.

 

You can calibrate the colors of the screen pretty nicely with the software they give you so its pretty nice, I never used the original blade so I can't compare

 

Well, I've had mine for three days now so let me tell you my impressions.

General: For something this expensive you tend to second guess yourself, especially with all the nay-sayers out there. Although there are a few nagging issues (see below), so far I'm happy with my purchase.

Keep in mind I'm upgrading from a four year old laptop so my experience will probably be different from yours.

Despite some other reviews, The sound is loud enough (for me) to play music in a small room or for gaming and sounds reasonably good for a laptop. I'm not an audio expert so others may disagree.

The screen looks great to me. It's not washed out, doesn't fade much from the side or when I change the angle of the screen. No complaints.

- It is taking me a bit to get used to the touchpad location, but it's not such an annoyance as to make a big deal about it.

- Storage space. Plenty for me. I have all my music (20 gigs), lots of photos, four games, ms office, adobe suite, slew of other programs for work and all my data and I still have plenty of space left over (almost half). I'm not sure what else I would put on there except more games, but it definitely is better than the 256gb alone. I have no idea what all folks put on that they need terabytes of storage on a laptop, but more power to them - I'm satisfied.

Pros:

- Awesome looks! Took it to work and everyone wanted to check it out just from the initial looks - hadn't even turned it on yet! Once the switchblade came on with all the pics and stuff - it was all over, everyone was just drooling.

- boot up speed is fast (for me anyway), around 20 secs or so. There is a lot of stuff being loaded in the msconfig startup list, some of that might be eliminated. Maybe someone more knowledgable could tell us what isn't really needed to help make it boot even faster.

- Overall weight and size of course. My backpack thanks me for replacing my old 17" Gateway! And so does my back itself. The power brick (can't really call it that anymore) is so small for so much power.


Cons:

- Fingerprints! Everywhere! On the cover, on the palm rest, on the keys - it's disgusting. It looks like I just ate some fried chicken and didn't bother to wash my hands before picking up and playing with the laptop. And yes, I did wash my hands before handling it! I find myself cleaning it continuously, especially before taking it out in public since it distracts from the beauty of the beast. The worst part is that they don't come off easily. You really have to clean it as opposed to just simply wiping them off like other laptops I've had.

- Heat after long/heavy game playing. See my previous post (page 82, I think). Could fry an egg on the surface.

- Switchblade is good/bad. Good because it looks really neat and can be functional and versatile. I can see the potential. However, it only works if you are connected to the Internet! WTH! As soon as I lose connection or if I'm in an area with no wifi, everything disappears and it is just a trackpad - even the buttons above the touchpad are all blank. I can't even turn it into a numpad which I think would be the least it could do. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but so far I haven't figured out how to download the profiles so that I can use the switchblade without being connected to the Internet. Dumb in my opinion. Also, I tried to configure my own buttons across the top to add the simple functions of home, end, del, etc. to work along with the trackpad. Couldn't do it. In order to reassign the keys, you have to press the key you want to reassign it to. Since there is no home key to press, I couldn't assign it to the blank key. I found a way around by switching to their built in numpad, pressing the home key, but there is no way to assign the icon for it. They should offer a list of keys (especially those missing from the keyboard) to choose from and their corresponding icons to make this easier.

That's it so far. I'll update as needed, but hopefully this helps some folks.

 

Allright. So I tried everything I could think of, updated everything, rebooted everything, tested on 2 ISPs and 3 different routers, and I'm still getting no wifi connection unless I'm standing right next to the router.
Is anybody else with the new blade getting wifi connection problems ?