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Comment by mathnode | Hacker News Reader

I am one of many disgruntled Razer Blade Stealth and razer core owners, currently awaiting a refund. Some customers are on as many as their 4th or 5th replacement unit. They have no English support in the UK, just a couple of german phone numbers which nobody seems to answer. The forum is terrible and they can't translate emails correctly. It's insulting.

The typical issues are usually related to firmware, which myself and other users would be willing to wait for to be fixed, but Razer's default, almost auto-response, solution is to just send you another unit, with the same issues.

In general though, the razer blade stealth is not even in the same league as an x1, mbp, or xps, and it's not supposed to be. It's just priced the same.

Razer. Apple prices, gateway support.

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I also got bit by this. Razer's simpler wired keyboards and mice might be OK, but their systems are fundamentally broken.

The Razer Blade Stealth (7500u) has broken Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C support. Most popular devices simply won't work at all, even though they work with other Kaby Lake computers, and even though they work with Razer's own previous Stealth laptop (6500u model).

The Razer Core has broken display software (double vsync lag) which makes it not work properly if you use an external GPU and monitor (which is ostensibly the purpose of the device)

Additionally, the Razer Core's USB ports just flat out don't work. There's a power short of some sort in the internal USB hub, so that if you plug in a device that draws any more than the lowest amount of power, it cycles through a connecting/disconnecting state, looping forever.

All of these are fundamental flaws with the product itself, so you can (and will be asked to) RMA units over and over for eternity, but you'll never get the problem fixed.

---

Razer Support has known about all of these issues for months now. There is zero communication coming from Razer -- they won't discuss their design flaws, they won't support their devices, they won't even acknowledge these issues as happening.

When asked directly, the CEO claimed he "wasn't looking at product reliability because we're actually one of the top few in terms of product quality". - https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/5v8zkh/improving_raz... Since Razer's leadership doesn't care about quality at all, I can't imagine the company will ever care either.

At this point, I'm not spending another dime with Razer ever again, and certainly couldn't recommend any one else do so.

Seems they have rushed a design to production. When this happen, except if the design flaws are utterly catastrophic (read on the level of batteries exploding here and there; or perhaps slightly marginally less grave problems), production will happily happen and only actual production flaws will result in the possibility of an effective RMA. This is the case for any hardware mass-producing company. This is actually also the case for production of dedicated hardware at intermediate volume. "Of course" in that situation pretty much no company will publicly acknowledge about the design flaws, even when obvious -- I put "of course" between quotes because this is hugely ridiculous, and I predict that state of doing that part of the business will change to far more transparency in a few years.

Even Razer's mice are pretty shit quality. I've had them going back to the original Boomslang, and I don't think I've ever had one last more than two years. I just like their ergonomics and features -- and the fact that Razer is good about replacing them when they break quickly, which they often do -- enough to put up with it.

I'm probably harder on input devices than most people, but I have working Logitech and Microsoft mice that are older than Razer itself.

Well that's about how long the Naga lasts for me. I just budget ~$50/year or so for a new one and don't really worry about it. If I could find a quality replacement that has the like 14 or so buttons it has then I'd go for it. But at the moment I use every single button and wouldn't give it up for anything less.

I'm on my third Naga. Once you get used to the extra buttons of "MMO mice" it's hard to use anything else. I tried to switch to the Logitech G600, but the shape is all wrong.

I've had a WASD Code keyboard for a few years and it's been great. I picked up the Razer BlackWidow Chroma TE TKL a few months ago in order to reverse-engineer the USB protocol for Chroma so I could get a Teensy 3.6 to emulate a Chroma device in order to get an off-screen notification LED in Overwatch when my abilities were off cooldown (the keyboard does this with a pulsating key). Couldn't get the Wireshark USBPcap stuff to work but it's been an OK keyboard. I like the clack of their Cherry KX Blue alternative switches. It does feel a little cheap though...the Code feels like a professional piece of hardware (nicer plastics, feels solid) while the BlackWidow feels much more like an EXTREME GAMING ACCESSORY. In practice it hasn't broken or anything close, but it just doesn't feel solid like my WASD, and given that they're comparable price-wise ($100-$150 range) I'd expect a little better.

The Zowie FK1+ mouse is great if you like the Intellimouse Explorer. It's ambidextrous and symmetrical. No software to install, you just click the button on the bottom to switch the DPI setting, or some chords when you plug it in to set things like handedness. Works great, can't recommend enough. The only not-amazing part is the scroll wheel for desktop use; the detents are spaced pretty far to ensure accuracy when switching weapons or whatever in a game and work less well when trying to e.g. Rip through source code, but MW acceleration mostly fixes that for me. I'd totally try a Zowie keyboard after being so impressed with their mouse. Zowie is made by Benq, so they've been around for a while and have made professional products for a while too (I love my BL3201PH 32" IPS 4K screen).

I use a Razer mouse at work, and it's still going strong after five years of heavy usage. So, like anything, YMMV.

To be honest, even if they only ever lasted a couple of years, I'd still buy Razer mice. All non-gaming mice nowadays seem to be awful, cheap crap, and most gaming mice are over-decorated contraptions. Razer mice seem to be the only one they combine good, simple ergonomics with high precision and a quality feel.

Try Roccat. They're amazing.

Mine barely lasted a few weeks. Threw it away and made a note never to touch anything by Razer ever again.

I also have had countless problems with Razer products. I own a couple blackwidow keyboards and have had a few of their mice. The Naga Epic is littered with complains about the scroll wheel not working and their draconian approach to installing mouse drivers that remind me of how HP's printer drivers pop adds in the system tray. Apparently I was not alone in noticing these issues; ArsTechnica did a scathing story about this:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/why-the-hell-does-th...

This probably isn't a short; it's more likely a software problem. I can see how they could get into that mess. Remember, with USB, you're only allowed to draw 100mA until you've negotiated with your power source for more, and the power source can say no. USB interface chips enforce this[1], and cut power and send a fault signal if a device pulls too much power.

The Razer Core is basically a docking station. USB-C power is complicated to begin with, and they've set up one of the most complex situations. The way they're using this, the dock is providing power to the laptop, but the laptop is the data master for the USB ports on the dock, which is also providing power to the peripherals. This is something USB-C allows; a device can be a power slave and a USB master at the same time.

This is even more complex. The dock is a source to both sides for power management purposes, but a pass-through for data purposes. This is unusual. I've skimmed the USB-C spec but don't recall that being mentioned. They probably have to MITM the power handshake to get this to work. The laptop is running Windows 10, so they don't control the USB drivers and their power handshake. It's entirely possible that Windows doesn't support that configuration fully.

[1] https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/NCP380-D.PDF

* Plugable report similar problems with their dock.[1] They also power both sides while trying to pass through data.

* Similar problems reported for Anker.[2]

* And CalDigit.[3]

This may be a generic problem with USB-C middle boxes which power in both directions. Some configurations don't work, and this is tough to troubleshoot. The standards compliance test procedure for USB-C hubs [4] doesn't seem to contain this case. The test designers were still thinking "tree with computer at root" in 2015.

[1] http://plugable.com/products/ud-ca1/ [2] http://www.macworld.com/article/3057186/macbook-accessories/... [3] http://caldigit.com/usb-3-1-usb-c-dock/faq.asp [4] http://www.usb.org/developers/compliance/usbcpd_testing/3.1_...

Another signal about the reliability of the company is how they handle logistics. So if you are an US citizen living in Germany, you cannot buy a laptop with US keyboard layout. The assumption that razer makes is that if you access the website from a Germany, you are a german citizen, speaker and someone who uses a QWERTZ keyboard..

Im literally trying to purchase their product, but they discourage me with this absurd logic and unhelpful support.

The answer that support gives ia that if you want a different keyboard layout, you need to purchase it in a different country. That's not going to happen

Have you had a different experience with other companies?

My experience living in Germany has been that its been pretty hard to get American keyboards. Apple for instance only lets businesses oder laptops with US keyboards in Germany.

This is false. On apple.de you can currently order 9 different keyboard layouts, including US.

Two differences are 1) you accessed that site in the US(?) and 2) GP said businesses, which indicates a business portal rather than the consumer store.

I wouldn't be so quick to call GP a liar. If you haven't encountered it, trying to do things online in another country is an eye opening experience. For example, indeed.com wouldn't even let me go to US job listings when I was in Hong Kong. Products, pricing, everything is different. How can round trips on airfare be so different just by switching departure points? Take a one way to Thailand before you buy airfare to the US from Hong Kong. You'll save a small fortune. Do I believe Apple has silly rules based on geography, just like every other company? Yes, I do.

In Spain, you don't have problems configuring an Apple computer with US keyboard since since a lot of years ago

Right now I'm configuring a MB Pro in Apple.de with US keyboard

Cool, now try it from South Korea. No keyboard options.

http://www.apple.com/kr/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH...

See, it's not hard to find examples. Now we can conclude by robertdpi's assessment that Apple is an unreliable company, because they assume all people living in South Korea want the same keyboard.

I bought a US layout Das Keyboard from getdigital.de, only because it was out of stock on Amazon.de. And from my regular window shopping it's pretty easy to find US layout laptops as well.

It's a mixed bag. I live in Germany as an expat and found giants like Dell (incl. Alienware) offered QWERTY options for their laptops, and so did the smaller Clevo resellers who pride themselves on custom builds. But in between, with the mid-size players like MSI and ASUS, there's no such luck.

I ended up getting an MSI when I stopped over in Taipei on a trip, after hearing about the Razer reliability issues last year. Mind you, I am not considering MSI to be any better, given my experience so far.

Is it that different between Germany and Austria? I've ordered Apple laptops with en_GB keyboards with no problem. Well, they arrived with UK power plug too ;).

It might be. For example, I'm in the US and my friends that /work for Apple/ can't figure out how to get me a Korean keyboard like http://www.apple.com/kr/shop/product/MB110KH/.

Lenovo let's you chose a US Keyboard for ThinkPads. This is what I'm doing despite living in Europe. This, the Trackpoint and the Linux support are the main features that make me still by ThinkPads.

Dell let me buy a US keyboard in Germany.

Apple for instance only lets businesses oder laptops with US keyboards in Germany

In Sweden, at least 3 years ago, Apple was the only company that would sell a laptop with a US keyboard to consumers, and that was one of the main reasons my last laptop was an Apple.

I live in Sweden and gave had no trouble finding other language layout keyboards and laptops the last 15 years. Never had to look at apple devices for that :)

Dustin often has some for sale.

I looked, a lot. Checked both Dell and HP and they both said No. Dustin might occasionally have one or two, but then you're forced to take what's on offer. Apple was the only company that let you choose US keyboard layout directly on their order page for all their laptops as a normal config option.

Apple's keyboard options are seemingly random.

Here in Japan, their keyboard options are: Japanese, Korean, US, UK, Arabian, French, Spanish and Danish(!).

Why Danish?! Not German?! And if they have Danish, why not, e.g. Italian, Swedish, all more populous countries? I'm almost tempted to believe the Danish option is due to a dk/de mixup.

This is definitely not only a Razer problem. I've been trying to buy a Dell with an ANSI keyboard for a while, in the end I asked my company to buy it at one of their US studios and send it to me in Sweden. :(

At least Razer offers ISO keyboard layouts. I'm very grateful for that. All their competitors offer only US layout, no matter where you buy. [1]

[1] Apple Macbook Pro is the closest device that has a ISO layout option. ASUS/Acer/HP/Dell/MSI/Gigabyte etc only offer ISO layouts for their "mainstream" devices which are nowhere near the level of performance that a Razer Blade has. All "gaming models" are US keyboard only.

What models specifically are you talking about ? My company buys high end ASUS and Dells with AZERTY (fr) layouts...

I've never heard of a major vendor not shipping ISO layouts before

> All their competitors offer only US layout, no matter where you buy.

I am so happy about that. These continental European keyboards have symbols in wrong places, useless (unused) symbols (like ± in place of a colon in case of the Dutch one) and a short left shift (German QWERTZ, Belgian/French AZERTY and Dutch QWERTY all have that).

I remember doing a PHP web development internship once (like 4-5 years ago) where they had keyboards with a short left shift key. Two weeks into it I gave up trying to get used to it and remapped the < key (that's the one left of Z on those keyboards) to shift with autohotkey.

I also remember buying a mechanical keyboard that had a long left shift on the cover but after unpacking turned out to have a short one. Felt silly to return it over that (by now I would) so I gifted it to my brother instead.

God I hate those non-US keyboards. French/Belgians are the worst, having to hold down shift to type a freaking number and that while having a short left shift key.

I had a similar problem getting a new MacBook Pro with a UK keyboard. I live in Hungary. Ordering online in Hungary or buying in a store gets you a Hungarian keyboard. The U.K. store won't deliver to Hungary. In the end I got a flight back to the UK to pick one up.

That's unfortunate. Razer was my leading choice to replace my aging Dell laptop. Thank you for taking the time to let other people know about these issues.

Same story here. Had to replace my 4yo Dell. I suggest you look at XPS 15 or Precision 5520. Extremely good value for money (and you can get them with quite beefed up specs)

A friend bought the 5520 and his raving about it has me wanting to buy one myself now. He loves it.

Bought a 7710 for the same reason and love it.

People with bad experiences are usually the loudest. I don't think Razer would continue to be in business if problems were commonplace. I suggest going to your local Microsoft Store or Fry's Electronics if you have one near you. Both carry Razer laptops. You can see one, buy one, and if necessary, return one, all in one place. Brick and mortar. Good stuff. At least that way you get to see one before you make the big decision.

Sure. I try to make a judgement call on the nature of the complaint and the person complaining too. Some people have unreasonable expectations from a company or product.

But in this case, we're on HN, and the person is describing both firmware issues and customer service issues and they're being specific enough that their complaint has credibility. In the same way that people vote with their money on issues that are important to them, like sustainability or social matters, I entirely avoid companies with nonexistent customer service. Dell doesn't have a perfect track record, I've had some infuriating experiences with them, but at least they pay people to answer the phone and with some effort you can usually get an issue resolved.

If I find out ahead of time that a particular company doesn't provide any customer service whatsoever, or the only way to contact them is on Twitter or to write a scathing blog post and submit everywhere, I will try not to do any business with them.

I also have a 1/10 rule, which I tried to adhere to while running my own business: for every one customer complaint you hear about, there are at least 9 other dissatisfied customers that didn't make their complaints known.

I certainly don't want to put you off of buying a Dell. Props to them for shipping hardware with Linux pre-installed. I have no experience with them, but I would seriously consider what they have to offer when shopping as well.

I can back up this claim of Razer appalling customer support. They just flat out don't care.

> People with bad experiences are usually the loudest. I don't think Razer would continue to be in business if problems were commonplace

Sometimes that's true, but I don't think that's a fair assessment of the issues being presented here. These aren't some one-off bad units, Razer sells a couple products with fundamental design flaws that effect 100% of units shipped.

It's like telling Ford Pinto owners "Ford wouldn't be in business if their cars exploded"

As far as I can tell, nothing you've mentioned applies to people running Linux on a Razer Blade, Stealth, or Pro, which is the topic here. If that is the case, please make a specific point about it. The Razer Core was not mentioned for Linux support at all. My personal experience is that Razer hardware is glorious. Better than Apple. I have not needed to deal with support. It just works.

I agree with what you said, but would like to add that Razer in my experience has been bad two.

I bought a keyboard. It developed a defect and damaged the motherboard on two laptops. I won't be plugging it into a third. Their mouse software can't even be /configured/ on Windows without a login to their cloud goo.

No more Razer for me.

I think it's because gamers have lower expectations than people used to the quality of other laptops.

Wouldn't Alienware be also a good choice?

I was thinking of buying a desktop replacement, with good gaming capabilities and for me it boils down to Razer or Alienware. But I prefer Alienware because it comes with a 15" screen, which is perfect for me (14" is too small, 17" is too big).

Go with a Schenker. Fascinating value for money.

http://www.schenker-tech.de/index2.html

I switched to a Lenovo P50 for this very reason (the one I have comes with a 4K display, an eight-thread Xeon processor, 64 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA Quadro M2000M with plenty of horsepower). The cooling systems on the Razer laptops are woefully inadequate for what they are supposed to handle.

The P50 is a bit heftier than the Razer, but it's built like a tank, and it has an awesome copper heatsink + dual cooling fan system that keeps my temperatures on the very low end relatively speaking.

Lenovo laptops are impossible to break as well, and the keyboards are immaculate, great key travel and response -- it feels like you are using a desktop machine instead of a laptop.

I'd love a laptop like that but all of Lenovo's spyware scandals and backdoors have made me wary. Also their trackpad doesn't look anywhere near as fancy as a Dell 9560, which I just spec'd to half the price with double the SSD (though which maxes out at 32GB).

There aren't any backdoors. Also, you don't use the trackpad on a Lenovo, you use the trackpoint.

Those DELLs have terrible keyboards (as a programmer, I spend most of my time typing in vim using i3 WM), and they aren't built to last.

If you have qualms about the pricing of Lenovos, its pretty easy to dig up corporate discount codes on /r/thinkpad or you can use a .edu email address if you still have one to get a student discount long after graduating. Usually that gets you anywhere from 25-40% off depending on the promotions.

Couldn't agree more, Razer support is awful. They make pretty products, but if something doesn't work you're going to have a very bad time.

That's a damn shame. I was looking forward to new laptop in 14" form with nvidia 1060 and strong battery. Damn. XPS then?

Seems to be a mixed situation. I've got a Razer Blade and have bee quite happy with it so far, other than a few small driver issues under Linux that would be fixable if I spent a little bit more time on it.

If you can step down to GTX 965M the Surface Book is a very nice piece of hardware.

The new Porsche Design Book is basically a Surfacebook with a TB3 Port, so eGPU and TB3 Docks are possible!

It's really unfortunate you have to step down from a 1060 to a 965M but step up over $1k in price.

I ended up on a much more expensive Surface Book. I gave Razer a shot, but the screen was jacked up right out of the gate. Real shame.. the machine is beautiful.

I really really want that 1060.

Gigabyte Aero has similar specs, not as expensive but also not as fancy looking. Can't vouch for it first-hand, but I do intend to go with one.

Just wanted to say that I'm looking to an existing ultraportable and hearing stories about how poor Razer's quality control and customer service is (from /r/razer and from friends) means I won't be buying a Razer Blade Stealth.

It's a real shame, it fits the bill perfectly but Dell will almost certainly get my money for an XPS 13 instead.

Yes, I had an awful experience with the stealth also, though it had nothing to do with linux support (managed to get everything working).

Multiple hardware failures and eventually had to return it. They should probably learn basic quality control techniques before spending any energy on better linux support.

Apple prices?

At least in Australia, they're way cheaper than Apple.

Was looking recently and prices went:

Razer Blade Stealth < XPS 13 < Apple

I've had very similar experiences with their support on other devices, very displeased. For a mouse of theirs, I ended up writing a kernel extension to fix the issues myself.

I'm glad I read this. I was thinking of perhaps switching out of Apple for Razor, since the last MacBook Pro update.

Exactly the same situation here. I guess the alternative is the Dell XPS 15?

same here. the macs are under powered and overpriced but razer's quality is not high enough imo. I had to return my razer blade because of the constant fan noise even on idle. I just can't even take it to meetings or work in quiet rooms

Then again, I have yet to witness any laptop that is as quiet as a MBP. Every Windows laptop I've encountered, no matter if at university, at work or at home, had its fans spinning even at idle - while it takes a 2015 MBP to do a full recompile of all Macports packages to noticeably heat up, much less engage the fans.

It's a side effect of both Apples unibody aluminium cases which are way better at heat dissipation than any plastic based case and Apples extreme level of control - they can optimize every tiny chip as well as the OS to be as power efficient as humanly possible, which avoids creating heat to dissipate.

It's fair game to compare Windows laptops for their noise level but seriously, comparing anything with Apple for noise is unfair.

Yes, noise and battery runtime are the only two things keeping me with a MacBook. I'd be willing to compromise on other things (resolution, CPU, aesthetics), but there is still no alternative. But currently still happy with my 2015 MBP Retina.

That's the thing that people don't understand if they've never owned a MacBook. Build quality and noise are not in the specs, so they only compare it on price / power. Also some people just don't care that their fans are running constantly...

The biggest problem I have with Apple is that they've completely lost track when it comes to their core user group.

A modern MBP still can't have more than 16GB RAM, it has 0 legacy ports, and cannot be upgraded at all.

Yes it might be a perfect laptop for hipsters who just want to show off their MBP and do the occasional Photoshop, but without developers who create programs for OS X or professional users who make their entire company buy MBPs there will be no ecosystem to lure in said hipsters... more sooner than later.

How many developers actually need >16gb for normal work? They exist for sure, but I would posit that its only some vanishingly small portion in practice.

For example when you work with dockerized enterprise CMSes on a Mac - you'll need 8GB RAM at minimum for the Docker VM, 4+GB for your browser, 4GB for the IDE (although IntelliJ can eat even more RAM easily!) and suddenly there is no more RAM.

Basically, you can easily use 32+ GB of RAM as soon as anything Java is involved. For what it's worth I usually don't do Java stuff but my Chrome RAM usage alone easily exceeds 8 GB. I could really use more than 16 GB.

Anyone running a handful of VMs for DBs/apps/services while also developing Java or .Net "enterprise" (fat-stack) applications. It's pretty easy to hit very high usage.

I do mostly web-stack stuff with node, and chrome is probably my biggest offender... But I've also got multiple tabs in firefox open, not to mention VS Code and other desktop-ified apps (spotify, slack, etc). I do okay with 16GB... but I know when I fire up a windows VM with Visual Studio, man does it get tight.

I'd add the touchpad to that... second to none imho... my logitech keyboard for my htpc feels about as good, but the fixed (not able to be adjusted) right click region is irritating over two/three finger clicks.

> the macs are under powered and overpriced

How do you figure they are under-powered and overpriced? Compared to what?

They have some of the fasted SSDs on the market [1], their battery has been reported to go for 18 hours after they fixed the software issues [2], and how many laptops do you know that have high-DPI wide color gamut screens? The Touch Bar is also actually a very nice new class of input device with lots of potential, especially once you've tweaked it a little. [3]

Even without counting the value of macOS, how many competitors offer the same or better overall features, AND good build quality and customer support? (which Razer clearly doesn't as you can see from the comments on this very page.)

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-ssd/

[2] https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/13/macbook-pro-battery-issu...

[3] https://alexw.me/2017/01/what-if-you-could-customize-your-ne...

I was initially going to skip the 2016 MacBook Pro myself, mostly because of their price, but I got one recently and it's actually a very solid and I would even say amazing machine. The need for dongles/adapters can be overlooked as a transitionary pain.

Honestly, the only real use I have for dongles is USB hard drives and displays, but for that case I can just get usb-c to usb-micro-3 cable and a usb-c to DisplayPort cable and I'm back into the same situation as before.

Are you sure that shitty support isn't coloring your view of the machine? I've got a RBS+Core and a MBA. Aside from the MBP having a better keyboard (and obviously TouchPad, as it does vs any PC) it's a great machine.

It's funny, but the touchpad is what kept me on a MBP for my late 2014 purchase... love the touchpad... not sure if I can stomach it again when I get another laptop, as everything else I like about mac has either gotten stale, soldered on, or simply not providing enough value to justify the cost.

But the touchpad is far and above anything else.

Which specific firmware issues have you faced ? The stealth runs almost perfectly on arch, if you add a kernel parameter workaround (namely i915.enable_rc6=0 button.lid_init_state=open)

> they can't translate emails correctly

Between UK English and US English?

Not the OP but it sounds like Razer's Europe support is all in Germany and the issue is translating from German to (British) English.

Ah that makes more sense. I thought the OP was implying Razer is Chinese as I have seen others do.

Correct.

I'm probably making it obvious that I'm American, here... but can you sue them?

What's gateway?

You should be asking who was gateway.

Computer vendor... known for capturing the low end of the market, let's say.

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