2019 Razer Advanced model - a Review

[SteveJUAE]

Indeed I did. As I don't live in USA, or country that has amazon at all, I often order from Amazon. I find their CS to be great, so I don't mind even paying extra for it. But often it's cheaper for me to buy from amazon.com, import and pay customs, then to purchase in my own country. Really stupid, but it is the way it is

I too live in a poorly supported Amazon zone and have never been successful in finding products (Laptops etc, marine Tech) that can be delivered.

Often they are not allowed due to OEM's polices, extortionate delivery costs, often delivery is more than the product or limited options

Many US online companies do not have the facilities to ship internationally that's why there is a whole host of fake PO box redirection companies that act as forwarders

B&H, Andorama and HiDevolution plus a few others are notable exceptions but extended warranty or return to base type support can be problematic

 

[TSE]

I love what Razer has done for the industrial design of PC Gaming and they make some great products.

That being said, my experiences with their QC and reliability of Razer accessories, even the ones priced higher than competitors, has been absolutely terrible. Unless I found a great deal I probably wouldn't want to depend on their laptop for an item that I use to make a living.

 

[maflynn]

Here's my 3 month retrospective

Being in locked down mode since March, gave me a unique opportunity to use this laptop extensively, its been on more then its been off though battery usage has been nearly non-existent as its been plugged in 99% of the time.

Bios - Razer seems to be updating their bios a lot less then Lenovo did. I'm one who rarely updates the firmware simply because if it works, why mess with it. This is where Lenovo seems to fall down with regard to the Thinkpad. Far too often we see issues with a bios update.

Power plug, and ports, its far too easy to seemingly scratch the finish around the ports. I've been rather paranoid about this and so far my obsession has worked in my favor. The power plug has sharp edges and can scratch the finish.

Heat, I'm seeing about low 50s with minor work, 70 to 80s on some games, the fans are generally quiet, even when temps are creeping up. They do get noisy when the temps get higher, so much so I've been running on my egpu just to keep the fan noise down. I'm happy with the 9th gen cpu, simply because I can underclock it.

The screen is beautiful, though I've not had too much opportunity to enjoy the 240hz refresh rate - the laptop has been hooked up to an old external monitor, so everything is set to 60hz.

Boot up, maybe not a Razer thing per say, but I've been pleased at how quickly the machine starts up, and gets me to the desktop. I have nearly the same amount of startup items in the Razer as I do in the Thinkpad and the Razer is noticeably faster.

At this point, I have zero buyers remorse, it was a the right decision and in hindsight at the perfect time (being in locked down and all)

 

[maflynn]

Just a minor update, nothing earth-shattering.

So, to provide a bit of background info, I had joined the inside program and opted for the preview builds. My thinking is that should be stable enough (famous last words). Well, I guess MS pushed through a build that was giving me all sorts of issues, mostly on video.

Long story short, I opted to "downgrade" and leave the insider program. I decided to try Razer's recovery partition as the best method to go down to a stable version. I hit F9 on boot-up, initiated the recovery. The process was quite fast and I was impressed to have a fully functional system. Of course, that meant re-loading my apps, but my data was either on a different partition or OneDrive so that came over. The recovery partition is build 1903, so I opted for 1909, as that was the most stable for my needs.

One of the odd issues that I had ran into on the inside build was the inability to drive my external monitor off the laptop, I was on the external GPU, but unplugging that, revealed the issue. I updated the nvidia drivers, and voila the external monitor works, but then suddenly the laptop display is not showing anything I was running into how minor GPU/driver issues even with the external gpu

As for other issues, the system has remained fast, stable, and problem-free. I'm on it 7 days a week, sometimes for 18 hours.

 

[grmlin]

I feel you. I messed around with the fast insider ring two weeks ago (I think), as I wanted to try out the just released GPU support in WSL (by NVIDIA)... one fresh install of windows later I was back in the stable channel lol. My system was such a broken mess, that I couldn't deal with it anymore.
I did install a fresh copy of windows though.

 

[maflynn]

one fresh install of windows later I was back in the stable channel lol. My system was such a broken mess, that I couldn't deal with it anymore.

That's the thing, once I realized once I saw how messed up the graphic system was, I could continue to muck with the system in a vain attempt to fix it, or just bite the bullet and go the recover process.

 

[SocialKonstruct]

Just got the 2020 Razr Blade 15 4K version and hot damn, I am using it for content creation.
My MacBook Pro 16 is just being used for video watching and music streaming now.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Slight issue with my Late 2019 Studio Edition

4 of my keys are showing wrong colours, I normally have them all just set to blue but they appear purple, only green seems to work consistently

Tried contacting support but my serial number not found LOL so I used the support group "Razer Insider" where official support is provided, so in a chat now with them

Not a show stopper but annoying as overseas and can just pop it in

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Do these Hackintosh?

 

[Queen6]

Slight issue with my Late 2019 Studio Edition

4 of my keys are showing wrong colours, I normally have them all just set to blue but they appear purple, only green seems to work consistently

Tried contacting support but my serial number not found LOL so I used the support group "Razer Insider" where official support is provided, so in a chat now with them

Not a show stopper but annoying as overseas and can just pop it in

Had an MSI notebook do the same with one key. RGB and all, likely LED has malfunctioned if hardware, always worth reinstalling the SW for the KB/RGB. Might be SW in your case as green is working in isolation, given RGB with no green equals purple.

This Asus I either leave on white in the day or R-255, G-25, B-0 which really works well at night, never bother with the light shows ?

Q-6

 

[SteveJUAE]

Had an MSI notebook do the same with one key. RGB and all, likely LED has malfunctioned if hardware, always worth reinstalling the SW for the KB/RGB. Might be SW in your case as green is working in isolation, given RGB with no green equals purple.

This Asus I either leave on white in the day or R-255, G-25, B-0 which really works well at night, never bother with the light shows ?

Q-6

Yep ditto no light shows

Will have a play but Razer drives downloads for drivers is not complete you sort of have to guess which ones are common for each model starting up from base model

 

[maflynn]

Do these Hackintosh?

Not with a NVIDA GPU

Will have a play but Razer drives downloads for drivers is not complete you sort of have to guess which ones are common for each model starting up from base model

I suspect, tech support will advise you to reinstall the drivers and/or windows. Good luck

 

[GoldfishRT]

With another beer in me I might finally hit the order on this 4k OLED 2020 'Base'. Would perform similarly to my desktop, and would replace the MacBook. Would have to go through the headache of selling both of them but having a single solution is super attractive. Also would love to toy with some raytracing. Mild concerns about PWM however. But the MacBook has started to show some display problems and the keyboard is an everpresent annoyance. I'm hoping to enter law school in the Fall, so I will be typing frequently. I also absolutely trashed my iPhone (fell out of my pocket on a spirited motorcycle journey), and I'm Android-curious again.

 

[SteveJUAE]

I suspect, tech support will advise you to reinstall the drivers and/or windows. Good luck

Support has been surprisingly good with several ping pong emails, now down to raising a warranty slip after jumping through the driver re-installs hoops

I noted I was in KL but he's going to see if he can still help from USA

Not sure its worth the effort but will see

 

[SteveJUAE]

Razer support came good got a free Fed-Ex sticker to send it to Razer in Singapore, thought it may have to go back to US, so not worth the effort and time

As Singapore as it's only down the road from Malaysia (1 hour flight) it's probably closer than many States in the US LOL

 

[RandomKamikaze]

Contemplating a Razer in my future as I've talked myself out of going back to a MacBook, can they drive a 5K display? Specifically the Lenovo LG 49" Ultrawide

TIA

 

[grmlin]

Lenovo sells a 5K display? I can't find one.

 

[RandomKamikaze]

Lenovo sells a 5K display? I can't find one.

Sorry, LG. It had been a long day

 

[grmlin]

I have this one: https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-34WK95U-W-ultrawide-monitor

I use it with a Lenovo P53 that uses the entry level Nvidia T1000. Works fine in Windows with Thunderbolt 3, but is a complete disaster in Linux.

 

[maflynn]

can they drive a 5K display? Specifically the Lenovo LG 49" Ultrawide

Just my opinion but I can't see why not, given that they rock with with the most powerful GPUs - at least the 15" Razers do.

 

[chilly willy]

Thanks for this thread. Still using a mid-2014 MBP, and seriously considering a switch to PC for next laptop. In addition to being a daily driver, want to game at least some as well, and Steam for a lot of that. I do like MacOS experience I've had, but I have built multiple gaming rigs and will no doubt in future, so idea of being in both Mac and PC ecosystems does not faze me, and I do not find Win10 to be the boogeyman many decry.
My reluctance has been the (knock on wood) beautiful lack of hardware problems since I went to using Macs years ago. My work laptops have been less than stellar, but as I've thought about it, they've been lower end machines, and seems PC laptop makers have really upped their game. And well, I confess Macs looked cooler too, but again, PC laptop makers have moved beyond the ugly bland designs of a decade ago...

 

[GoldfishRT]

Perhaps I would have been better off waiting with new nVidia tech coming towards the end of the year but, I have a OLED 2070 Max-Q Base model on the way! I'm happy I was able to see them in person at BestBuy yesterday. I found the 1080p display mediocre for the price, especially on the 17"! The OLED sold itself almost immediately.

Was torn between black and mercury white... Amazon only has the black though and I wanted that 5% cash back. The finish on the silver seemed slightly cheaper too for whatever reason. Still, could do without the glowing green logo.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Just to finish off on my Razer Studio Edition KB repair.

Got it back today from Singapore (8 day turnaround) with a new KB, CPU and GPU fan, don't know why but not arguing

Who said Razer support is poor, even though I bought it in the US they have helped me internationally and paid for the FEDEX so no complaints