Razer Blade in EU, yay or nay?

Hello everyone, as an aerospace engineer and as a pooooor specialistic degree student [and a (FML) games lover] I'm planning to get a really portable laptop to be able to use: MatLab, Fortran, various basical CFD tools and CAE ones everywhere and play games on my 23" monitor while at home.

I thought about going for 13 inch laps but naaaay, nothing goes over 2 cores and a GTX 960m so nopenopenope.

So yea, I thought about Razer Blade. I love it since day one it's been announced and I've always wanted to get my hands on one, but people comments on the laptop and fact that it's so hard to get one here in Italy made me change my mind all the times.

A friend's moved to US so he'd carry it over here for me next week declaring it's his one, which will make me avoid taxes and such, if I'll decide to pick one, so this is THE time if I wanna get one, but damn, this forum's about to make me change mind.

Questions: Is the 2015 so unstable? How often does it get broken? I've read about people having to return it 5 times in less than 2 years, since it'd cost me almost 150€ to return it every single time it's gonna be a plague for me so... Is it so common to have to return it?

My friend would fry it for me once he gets it, running prime95+3D bench+realtemp to stress it to hell to make sure everything's fine, but is this enough to feel safe?

I'm also planning on getting a 3 years assurance in here, to cover fixing costs, but since Razer doesn't ship or sell parts anywhere I'd still have to pay shipping costs overseas, that'd be okay if it's gonna have to be done once, but that's my top I'm afraid.

Regarding battery, is it breaking every year for real?

My only other option is MSI GS40 as of now, but the 3k touchscreen and the COOL chassis keep calling me, damn!

Would that be a suicide to get one?

Thank you very much for your time and help.

 

I got a 14 inch Blade back in 2013, I live in France (so same "problem"), and I had no issue during the first warranty year. Then I got a little problem with the power adapter last year but I repared it manually really easily (which I would have done anyway even in the US since I changed the SSD inside and wouldn't pay for Razer service anyway).

I guess you should have no problem. 99% of Blade owners don't. The Blade is a high quality product. Just don't make silly things with it (overheating, don't drop it) and you'll be fine.

Otherwize my 2013 Blade battery wear is ~25%. So 75% left is fine.

 

Thanks for your reply to begin with.

I see, this looks good, really good! I'll be running games at 1600*900 anyway, so overheating might not be a problem, while MatLab (what I use the most) shouldn't work more than half a hour / a hour, so I wouldn't call this a huge stress since even mid-low grade laptops can handle it.

I'll post my thoughts once I get my hands on one, since I might buy it tomorrow if anyone will offer black Friday deals for one.

It needs to last 4 years by the way, I didn't mention this and I hope this doesn't change people's opinions regarding the pc.

 

Truth is, in a 4 year period, there is a relatively high chance of an issue coming at some point - in which case, would you be happy with being without a laptop 2-3 months as it is shipped abroad to get repaired etc.

I really wanted this (being in the UK), but the risk was too high . The laptop itself is pretty expensive so I think having "good" support, readily available, is very important.

 

Well, I don't agree. "Issue" doesn't mean you have to send it back... I never sent a computer back, and I owned some during 10+ years. Your local computer repairer could fix most of the problems, which should be storage related or fan related anyway (and with the SSD the risk is way lower than with hard drives...). The only risk of sending it back being a damage of the motherboard or the battery. For the battery if you don't overheat it, it should be fine. Motherboard problems otherwize are rare. Moreover, maybe Razer will finally sell the Blade in Europe in 1 or 2 years, so you could send it back easily then.

In my opinion it is 100% worth trying. I found myself really unlucky to have this power adapter problem but even with such bad luck I repaired it myself and didn't send it back.

I bought mine for 5 years. 2 and a half years later, I really don't regret the purchase. Best PC I ever got.
Top quality, similar to Apple products.

 

it's a halfway decent machine

 

Want a Blade, live in the USA. Support needed if issues. Blade being thin and light and gaming, you'll be prone to issues.

 

Its a goo dmachine on paper but in reality, its not so great. I was in the same boat as you, living in Europe wanting a Razer Blade 2015. But the machine itself is flawed.

Batteries die out real quickly in these machines due to the heat while gaming, memory modules that are soldered onto the board are of poor quality, I have seen mainbaords failing, issues with the fans, issues with the cooling etc, issues with the powersupplies. I guess the chance that you need support is fairly high with these machines.

I wanted the Razer Blade to be excellent, I would spend 2500bucks for it. But it simply doesnt seem to be a reliable option, any 13/14inch higher powered gaming laptop for that matter.

 

Hello,
So I got a Blade in the end, which I've bought with a cooler master fan-pad, their most powerful one, 95 CFM.

I've bought the laptop off B&H since they offer a square trade international warranty extension up to 3 years.

I'm not planning to play without the pad so I hope I won't have TOO many troubles with overheating.

Fan and similar small problems will be hand fixed since the PC's got no warranty sticker.

Razer's also released a new "late 2015" model it seems, even Microsoft store sells the notebooks with two diff model numbers and Razer site specifies on the refurbished page which production wave it's from, so I hope something's been done with common issues, just like every brand does with their late production HW.

Thank you very very much for your suggestions though, and I'd appreciate if you could list what should be done while I get my hands into it; I'm planning to:

-update drivers
-fry it with prime95+3d bench+RealTemp
-test battery by 100-0-100%ing it
-save a recovery disk

Any suggestion?

 

SURPRISE !!!!

Razer Blade available in Europe, starting December the 10th ! (Told you it would be sold there soon haha)

What a great news !

http://www.razerzone.com/eu-en/gaming-systems/razer-blade

http://www.windowscentral.com/razer-sell-its-blade-windows-10-gaming-laptops-europe-starting-dec-10

I hope there will be retroactive support for "American" older Blades such as your one or mine. No prices yet though, I guess the US one will remain cheaper though (as usual with tech...)

 

God, not sure if I should ragekill someone -myself is an option- and return the one my friend would carry for me or just keep this now....

 

Double post, sent them a ticket asking how would the warranty and support in general work, if I decide to not return this unit.. Will update once I get a reply...

 

Do not count on that, they only offer support on machines bought trough official channels and not on the grey market. I enquired them about it a few months ago.

 

Well I bought it on the US Razer Store, no grey market. And I brought it back in France. So it should be ok I guess... Anyway warranty has ended but if I need to change to battery someday ...

 

I've bought it off B&H Photos in NY, which is their official retailer, so I don't see the problem.

Anyway Italian Razer support told me they have yet to be informed regarding RMA/Tech support policies even for EU laptops, while US support told me they need yet to gather infos and decide what to do, so I'll have my answer in Monay, although it's very likely I'd better return my Blade (and Square Trade warranty + the hard case too, lol) and buy it back in EU.

I don't really understand the reason why they should want to waste money (my Blade would have to be sold a refurbished item, with a net loss of 300$ on their side) annoying me.

Oh well..

 

Any updates on your issue, Makyura? I'd love to hear how will they handle this.

 

They told me it's gonna be up to the problem I'll be facing, if it'll be solvable in Europe they'll handle it here, else I'll have to send it overseas.