Razer Blade V5 vs V6?

I'm looking for a new laptop for work (I review videogames), which includes a lot of traveling. So I want something that is small, solid, and powerful.

My previous two laptops were the AW13 and MSI GE40. Both were great, but the MSI lasted me much longer and has just now become outdated after 4 years.

Currently, I'm looking at the new AW13 and a couple of MSI and Sager models. However, I've noticed that the Razer Blade has dropped in price quite a bit since I first looked at it and I've heard great things about the build quality.

I do have a limited budget and there are a few refurbished V5's for $200-400 less than the new V6 model and the only major difference appears to be the skylake vs kabylake.

Do you guys think the Razer Blade would be a good fit for my needs and thoughts on the V5 vs V6?

Thanks in advance.

 

Problem is reliability. The chassis is nice, but they have so many problems if you want a notebook to last 4 years without issues.

 

The build quality seems okay at first but actual durability is not good. We've had reports of Wi-Fi connections tearing because of the tight space in the hinge area, melted LCD cables, bloated batteries due to the extreme heat, constant thermal throttling due to the lackluster cooling, high noise levels that require headphones to be usable, poor QC/QA and bloody terrible customer support.

EDIT: Also be careful with the older 970M ones - they had the BIOS chip under the heatsink and poor PCB design causing 2 of the VRMs (I believe they were PQ1 and PQ2 - may be wrong on the exact part numbers) that would just overload randomly and fail because of the low power overhead and them constantly running at maximum spec.

 

I have the Skylake version and I have no issues so far after 7 months, runs hot and loud when gaming but that is expected....undervolting did help with temps. However, keep in mind that Razer systems are notoriously failure prone with a very lacking quality control and customer support....that is they look nice on the outside but if something does go wrong with the machine the RMA process can be extremely frustrating. That being said, since I have no issues, so far so good and I really like my machine, but hard to recommend because it is kind of a gamble.

 

Okay, thanks for your feedback everyone. Guess I'll be taking a closer look at the other brands before I make a decision.

 

The general consensus, even among Razer Blade fans, is if you do opt for the RB at least buy it through MS Store with the extended warranty, that way, if something does go wrong you won't have to deal with Razer's customer support.

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Or HIDevolution - they're more expensive but they offer custom pastejobs as well as factory tuning such as undervolting and screen calibration.

 

True or HIDevolution, their warranty is more expensive but they do have a global option. However, if something does go wrong HID will still send it to Razer to get it fixed while MS Store usually just replaces it, but it depends on each case though. The option for a repaste from HID is great since the factory one is very crappy or bad at best.

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HIDEvolution doesn't repaste Blades.

 

Within the first 12 months MS will send to Razer (but at least be involved in the process on your behalf). After 12 months (up to 24) they will replace it in store for equal or lesser value - ask me how I know

 

The only site you should buy this laptop from is MS store. I went through 3 of these laptops in one month. I ended up with a refund and very little hassle.

 

I know it has been a few months but curious if you went with refurbished Blade. I am considering it but there is not much information on the web about quality.

 

The only place where you should ever even think of buying one is from the MS Store or HIDevolution. Otherwise, you're buying an unreliable product with basically no warranty.

 

MS store stopped offering extended warranty on Razer I think.

 

I wonder why....

 

Totally a mystery, nobody can solve it.

 

Actually, the online MS store stopped offering the extended warranty on all third party laptops, they offer it now only for surface products . You can still get the extended warranty chatting with sales online or at a MS store.