Razer Blade 14 (2014) vs. Gigabyte P34Gv2

I currently have 2011 HP DM1z that I bought since I travel frequently and needed something decent and portable (not for gaming). The 11.6" screen was fine 3 years ago but I am ready for something a tad larger but not too large like a 15.6". The 14" size seemed to fit that requirement well. I had played with the 2013 Blade in a store and was really impressed with the build quality, but not the screen.

Well, I had my heart set on the new Razer Blade 14 (2014) and was going to buy when I go on leave the end of June. I have been anxiously awaiting for them to hit consumers hands to see about an additional M.2 slot. Everything was looking up with the upgraded screen and 870M but when it was finally opened to find there was not another slot, I began second guessing my decision.

I then heard about the MSI Ghost s60 pro. I liked that it has an mSata slot and can fit a 2.5" drive as well (I have a Samsung EVO 500GB in my HP now and can put in my new laptop). I still didn't want a 15.6" laptop though.

Today I can across the Gigabyte P34Gv2. It has a 14" screen, 860M, i7-4700HQ, mSata and 2.5" drive slot, Ethernet jack, just a tad thicker than Razer Blade (21mm vs. 18mm) and is lighter than the Razer Blade (1.7kg vs 2.0kg).

The main negatives are that it has the 860M instead of the 870M, the screen resolution is only 1920x1080 (not really sure more is needed though with a 14" screen), and not as great build quality (although reports so far say the chassis is rigid and the build quality is rather good).

The positives are the Ethernet jack, faster CPU, lighter, able to upgrade memory to 16 GB, and price.

What really has me thinking is the price. The Gigabyte P34Gv2 I configured on Xoticpc.com came to $1488 vs the $2200 for the Blade. I am not a cheap person. I do enjoy high end things, but the matter of fact is that I only have time to occasionally game and when I return to the States in a couple years, I will have a new Desktop for gaming and this laptop will most likely collect dust.

I have also been eyeing the Clevo W230SS. It has similar specs at the P34Gv2 but has a better CPU but smaller screen, heavier, and a thicker.

So, I would love to hear anyone's input on this. Is the Blade worth $700 more without the option add more memory or space?

 

Having the first Blade 14 I can say that the build quality is prob the best you can find among laptops. My girlfriend has the MacBook Air and I can say it is on par if not better that the MacBook.

I dunno if the $700 difference is really worth it, as I cannot speak of the quality of the Gigabyte. I use cloud storage heavily and the ram seems to be enough for me.
I would probably choose the Blade just because....well...it's Razer, it looks perfect and the quality is amazing.

 

If you game occasionally I would get the gigabyte, the 860M is can play most games in 1080P on high settings ans save you a bundle of money.

 

Razer will always lose on a "bang for the buck" analysis. There's no simple numeric way to represent build quality or styling.

Having owned many laptops over the years, I won't be switching away from Razer unless financially pressed to do so.

 

It really just depends on what you want. After using my Macbook Pro for work, I know that I love the design/quality for work. Razer gets me pretty close to that. I also wish my MBP had the power and OS for gaming, which the RB14 does. Then I look at the prices and the MBP doesn't cost that much less then what I paid for the RB14, but the RB14 gives me everything that I want.

In your case if your just looking to spend less, the gigabyte will be a significant upgrade over what you have now. It will be cheaper, will flex, will creak, etc. But that's just the materials and engineering used to build a cheaper device. If those things don't bother you, I'd say go for it. To me, it makes more sense to pay less for that than equal or more for the MSI, as the form factor, size and build quality are what draws people to this niche market, not the number of options the device gives you, for which there are better alternatives.

I like to think its comparable to people who build massive full-tower gaming PCs with 6 SSDs Raided, dual GPUs, etc. Vs people who build microATXs or buy Tikis/Bolts.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the input people. I am going to have to think about this some. I was playing around on the XOTIC site and upgrading the memory to 16GB of Corsair puts it at $1655, plus if I buy a new 256 EVO mSata, that adds another $170 which puts it up to $1855. The price is climbing... I wish I could hold the Gigabyte to see what it actually feels like and what the quality is. I know the Razer looks and feels amazing.

 

I wouldn't consider the 860m a negative about the p34g, since it runs much cooler and uses less power than the 870m. And you could probably overclock the 860m to near 870m levels while the 870m would be pretty limited OC-wise due the the lack of thermal headroom.

 

Maybe look at GS60 Ghost Pro?
Seems to me it's the best of both worlds.

 

Should've made Razer 14 2014 a Maxwell gtx 860m paired with a high quality 1080p IPS panel.

 

I probably wouldn't have bought it if they did :/

 

So you really think a gtx 870m will have more frames per sec performance at native 1800p vs a gtx 860m at 1080p? You will have more frames per sec at native 1080p res running a gtx 860m and that's a fact. Unless of course you will use the excuse of downscaling the 1800p to a lower resolution to get smooth playable frames per sec and then you have to deal with the 1800p horror scaling issues with most programs like Yoga 2 Pro and Ativ 9 plus users are currently dealing with atm.

The only good thing about the 1800p display on the Razer is it's an IGZO panel for energy savings.

 

Seems lots of games are playable at 1800p judging by a comment in some threads. I'll just bump down to other 16:9 resolutions if I feel it's too slow.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=9637644

 

See below

Exactly. Beyond that, I plan to do much more with my laptop then just game. Viewing high-res video content (future proofing) and just working in general, I know that the additional resolution will help (I've used high-res displays before, like Fujitsu Q584). There is also no doubt that the 870m is a more powerful GPU. Sure you could overclock the 860m and approach the 870m, but I'd rather not have to overclock period (plus some may take the risk of overclocking the 870m). That said, overclocking the 860m will result in similar heat issues as just running the 870m, at least I'm sure Razer built the Blade for 870m heat levels.

 

Go for the gigabyte. With the razer (at that resolution) everything will be super tiny. Scaling options kind of suck (I know first hand as I have a Surface Pro 2; 10.1' screen at 1080). In addition, you are paying ALOT more for a very similar product. Though the razer is 3mm thinner, it is heavier then the gigabyte! Games also look better when played 1080 natively rather then scaled dow. The P34G v2 (maxwell 860m) run battlefield 4 on ultra at 45-55 fps and on high at 60fps. Go with the gigabyte, save yourself the money, and enjoy .

 

I can personally vouch against the P34G v2 after having it for a few days. Completely unacceptable quality control issues. The keyboard flex is significant, the sides of the chassis don't seem to be completely attached as there are significant gaps and clicking noise when picked-up. When you lift the laptop under the touchpad with one hand - if you are right handed - the lower right corner of the keyboard lifts up about 3mm! There's also substantial backlight glow on the upper right portion of the screen. Sucks because I prefer 14" screens and this laptop fits the bill in size and specs and looks to also be used as a business laptop. It's a darn shame when something has all the bells and whistles but drops the ball on fit and finish. I thought this would be the one. I am reluctant to get a replacement because something tells me another one of these is going to have the same song and dance. It's like Dell monitors - If you are wiling to put up with multiple returns in order to get one of the best monitors out there, then good luck.

Best of all, it's been 5 days and no one from xotic-pc has reached out to me yet!

My only other options are the Razer Blade 2014 (but I'm not particularly keen on the glossy QHD display), HP ZBook 14 (overpriced), Fujitsu u904 (no Wireless AC or SSD), Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon WQHD (feels cheap and don't like the keyboard interface).

I would also consider the MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro 3K being that it is lightweight with a 15" screen, but am not sure of the general quality of MSI products.

Being that there were multiple fit / finish issues with the P34G v2, I don't think my chances in obtaining a defect free item will be fruitful. Any opinions?

 

I had the 2013 blade and now the 2014 blade, briefly tested the p34g and had the w230st, I don`t think they have made much of an improvement with the w230ss except batterylife, but the w230st wasn`t really enjoyable for me so I personally wouldn`t recommend it. Batterylife was 2-3 hours max (seems to be 5-6 like Razer now), fan bursts intermittently even with prema mod bios and is quite loud, keyboard was ok but keys were a bit unstable, bottom cover has quite a bit of flex, however it is very upgradeable so i guess its a trade off, lid is too stiff and extremely susceptible to torsion which was a bit unsettling, temps are pretty terrible even with uv and ic diamond applied, cpu still gets to 99 but doesn`t throttle too much, gpu ran cool however, fan is loud on max and is never quiet!, it is bad unless you want to use it in public. Throttles significantly on battery both cpu and gpu even intel gpu throttle making it quite choppy even in webpages, etc. Speakers are very poor and it had poor audio quality out of the headphone jack too which adds fuel to the fire. But it is a much cheaper device than the Razer and is much more upgradable so these issues may be overlooked however it is far from a best case scenario and despite what users will have you believe, these tweaks don`t make it a "perfect" machine simply a better, albeit flawed one. I would also not recommend the 2013 blade, it is great in design but flawed by a torrent of manufacturing defects that can`t be overlooked. I had to return 4 machines due to fan issues, sounded like the fan blades were scraping along the casing of the laptop, it was a terrible grinding sound. All of them had casing defects as well such as a creaking hinge, poorly machined edges and mismatched lid and base which sucks for this price range, returned the final device due to the keyboard lights refusing to work and another broken fan. I finally mustered the courage to buy a 2014 blade and thankfully I immediately noticed it was manufactured more precisely. The casing is 100% perfect, solid hinge, consistent edges and lid matches the base perfectly. Screen is great and scaling is not too bad, batterylife is slightly reduced from the 2013 version with 5-6.5 hours of batterylife as opposed to 6-7 on the 2013 model (p34g v2 47whr v got around 4 hrs in my time testing). Keyboard is nice and solid very stable, no flex, similar travel to the w230st and more than the p34g v2. Touchpad is the best out of all your interests with a matte glass top that reminds me of the macbook pro`s, its spacious and very sensitive. The buttons have been improved too with more travel and a softer feedback, not so clicky as the 2013 blade. Temps are good, the temps drop overtime, I have a -70mv uv and cpu temps stabilise around 85 with gpu being in a similar region (p34g v2 cpu gets to around 90-95 sometimes 99, gpu is cooler however around 75 ish for me). Fan noise is great too, always silent except when gaming, if i set max cpu to 99% in power manager (disables turbo, max clock 2.2ghz vs 2.8ghz) the cpu temps max at 60 whilst speed is still 85% and fans remain dead silent. When gaming fan noise is decent unless you elevate the laptop, its definitely louder than the 2013 model but its not anywhere near loud and much quieter than either the p34g v2 or the w230st. Apologies for the lengthy comparison, hope it helps any confused users.

 

Yikes whizkid. Thanks for the post. I was very close to pulling the trigger on the p34g v2, but am now having second thoughts. Does anyone know if these quality control issues are common with the p34g v2?

 

I have the p34gv2 and so far (knock on wood) 0 issues. Seems like you got a lemon... You can fix the clicking yourself though, slightly loosen al the screws on the back, click pieces together completely and re-tighten screws
As for performance I have OC'd the gpu in the P34gv2 to BEAT the 870m in the blade 2014. This is in both synthetic benchmarks (3DMark 11) and real world performance (BF4). Here is the video. So all in all by getting the blade you are paying 600$ more for a heavier, less storage, no Ethernet port, glossy screen (preference; matte is better in my opinion as no glare at all) with unrealistic resolution for gaming, equally performing laptop (the 870m is Kepler meaning it will OC SIGNIFICANTLY less than the 860m Maxwell) BUT it is 3mm thinner and has better fit/finish. Worth 600$? Up to the user to decide

 

Isn't the battery life quite short on the P34Gv2? There seems to be a bigger battery one only in the EU though.

 

I followed the P34gv2 thread and watched several of your videos Sebi97, and strongly considered getting it over the Razer. Your points are very valid, and for me it was a really tough decision... I basically took price out of the equation because since I was considering the blade in the first place It was within what I was willing to spend and decided to focus on actual day to day use. I ended up going for the blade because of larger battery, better overall build quality, and possibly higher resale value if I wanted to upgrade next year (this last one is probably silly).

With that said the P34G V2 is a solid laptop from what I have read and I don't think I would have regretted going that route. If I have any regret it will be not waiting for the Aorus X3/X3 Plus.

 

Congrats on the purchase! The Blade 2014 is a very very nice laptop if it is within your price range. Being a student, it simply didn't make sense performance/cost. If I had the $$$ for it, I would go with the blade 2014 in a heart beat

Also, can you do me a quick favour on the blade 2014? Set the resolution to 1600*900 and let me know if you see any difference in quality (other than size of icons). Since it's exactly half the native, apparently, there should be no quality loss (eg it looks just as good as a native 900p panel)

 

I should be getting mine tomorrow, but will be definitely trying out 1600x900 and 1920x1080.

 

just received the razor blade 14 2014. Much better all around. The only issue is the qHD 3200 by 1800 resolution renders some programs and remote desktop to have tiny text. I switch the resolution to 1080 which is also a 16:9 ratio and all is well. Quiter, no flex, screen is very good. I think that we all have to be realistic about these led LCD displays. You're not going to find 1 with zero backlight glow bleed. We just have to be cognizant of what's acceptable and what isn't.