Razer Blade 14 - Not worth the Trade up

Hey everyone I just want to start this thread by saying WOW! Razer has been really stepping it up every year, I am really impressed with the latest iteration of the Razer blade 14. With that being said I am extremely satisfied with my current Razer blade 14' and have no intention of trading up this year.

Anyone else in the same boat?

I can afford it, and initially planned on selling my current blade for the newer version. However I just feel a 20% performance bump, with a 4k screen in which I will never use past 1080p when gaming isn't all that practical....

I have a dedicated gaming PC at home, and use my razer blade only for gaming when I am on the road or have friends over and feel my 765m will last me just fine at 1600x900 for another year.

What do you fellow Razer Blade 14'' owners think?

 

Yeah, I pre ordered the new one and am having second thoughts if it is really worth it...
I think I will keep the pre order though as my main complaint is that for normal windows use the screen really bothers me.

Pretty sure I will still game at 900p though to avoid pixel blur while maintaining a nice smooth frame rate.

If I had more sense in agree not really enough of a performance boost to justify

 

Not a owner of old one but i preorder the new one. I agree with you OP. In your shoes i would wait for maxwell high end update... But i will trade up again and i know it s not good.. It can t be helped .

 

Well the screen is more than some extra pixels
Beter contrast,better colors, better viewing angels. I should upgrade for the display alone considering how bad the 2013 was IF I could afford it to buy a new 2500$ notebook every year.(which is def. NOT)
You dont have to game on 3840x2160, but you can, older games can be run on that res.
Also the GPU is more like 50-60% faster,
and the display is now edge 2 edge (no dust between notebook and panel you cant remove)

So I think it is a bigger upgrade than you think (display is one of the most import things for me)
but its ofcourse a lot of money..

 

I just bought the my blade 14 a few weeks ago. I'd love to trade up but I really don't like the idea of spending that much money for a better screen and GPU. Especially right now when we're not sure how battery life is compared to current, and if the drives are the m.2 then that severely limits drive choices/capacity at this point. I think I will keep mine for a while and if possible, skip a gen of blade 14.

I played GW2 all weekend on ultra and it worked great. In game I had no issues with the screen and the blade never missed a beat. No lockups or heat caused problems after long game sessions. Razer might be expensive, but I still believe they build a very good product.

 

I have a 2013 14". I pre-ordered a 2014 14". They had me at IGZO.

 

I decided I am going to upgrade from the previous gen Razer Blade as well. Outside of gaming, the screen really bothered me because I do some video editing on it and watch movies. You really have to be at the sweet spot angle which is very small the entire time.

 

My original thought was like DAMM ! I just bought my Razer Blade now they release a new one ?! I called Razer to see if I can excahnge it but i was past my 14 day period. After some thought it's prob not worth the price to upgrade at-least for another generation or if the screen is not doable for you. I've always been a early adopter but I suppose I'm learning some patience. The current Blade is still a beast.

 

If you can sell your 1st gen Razer 14 for at least 75% or more of its original value and you have the money with the added cost on the 2nd gen Razer 14 then it's definitely worth it. Remember this is not about the 1800p resolution since I would have preferred it to be 1080p instead but the quality of the display on the new one is way way better, IPS panel, way better contrast ratio, brightness, black value cd/m, and color gamut coverage.

 

I am in the same boat as most of you are. I purchased my blade in Feb 2014. I was already on the fence about not getting it due to the bad reviews of the screen, but I decided to get it anyways. Now I see that they came out with the new blade with the screen that I really wanted to have in the 2013 model so I found myself also pre-ordering and now i'm hoping to sell the one I have for at least 75% of the value. The 2013 Blade is awesome albeit the screen, but the new 2014 just puts the Blade into a whole new level IMO. I definitely keeping my pre-order.

 

I was also burned by Razer, 4 days after the return policy for the Blade Pro I have, they release the new Blade Pro. I'm still very pissed. Worst customer service EVER. So you either keep your over priced old model or you take a 15% loss on your old model and then you have over paid for the new model. Makes me want to say screw Razer and buy an Alienware next time. I didn't pay $2500 to have an outdated machine in 18 days......

 

You think Alienware's any different?

The only company I know of with a trade up program is eVGA.

 

Atleast with Alienware I know what I'm getting. And they aren't going to have some half baked scam like 15% restocking fee just to get even more money off of you. I'd rather them just said no than try to scam me again.

 

Your being completely unreasonable. Razer provided you the laptop EXACTLY as advertised, they have no obligation to appease current customers when they issue a model refresh....

I just bought a f150 last year, am I expecting Ford to now trade me up to the new aluminum f-150?

When Razer initially released the Razer Blade with the 555m, and than released an updated version with the 660m which was LEAPS AND BOUNDs faster. They did compensate customers which was very generous on their behalf.

Anyone whom knows ANYTHING about mobile release schedules, could of told you not to buy a laptop in Q1 2014. As whether its razer or another competitor, their will be a new laptops with faster mobile cards released months/weeks later....

 

Also if it had been six months from purchase I wouldn't have cared.

 

If you bought a laptop at the start of Q1 without understanding that the new refresh of mobile graphics was only weeks/months away than you were an ill informed buyer.... I wouldn't be soo bold to call you any names.

Nobody is to blame for you being an uninformed buyer other than yourself.....

 

No more so than with Razer. Dell/Alienware can choose to refresh a laptop's specs at any time.

I don't see a restocking fee listed at Razer's online storefront.

I have to question why you bought from Razer's online store instead of a third party retailer like Amazon. I only buy from Razer if I'm pre-ordering or they're the only ones with the part (Edge batteries...). If I were buying mid-cycle, I'd buy from Amazon for the shipping and the returns convenience.

 

The 15% restocking fee is what Razer is doing for anyone like me who got screwed. Poor excuse to try to make up for it. It extends the return for 30 days and it's a poor excuse of a way to make it up to a customer. I bought it from Razer expecting to get the most recent possible, afraid of being an old model becuase who knows how long they have set in a warehouse for a place like Amazon. I buy alot of stuff from Amazon just was leary of getting an old model which I did anyway so I guess it didn't matter.

 

uhh ok, I don't care how long you waited. Buying when you did was a poor decision, that any informed buyer could see coming.

Enjoy what you have, your laptop is no less powerful just because a new machine is out there. Fact is all laptops are slow compared to my gaming PC, doesn't make gaming laptops any less effective.

Now with all due respect, this is my thread and you have taken it way off topic. Go throw you tantrum somewhere else, please and thank you.

 

Re: cthulhucometh
I feel that IF top performance is that important to someone buying something not on day one is doing it wrong, because it's always going to be outdated in a number of months...

 

Or in his case, days.

 

What was Razer supposed to do. Stop selling it a month before hand and dump the remaining stock in the trash?

 

Of course not. Razer or any other business has no obligations to convince a customer not to buy a product because they have something new up their sleeves to reveal around the corner. That's why you want to buy a product at the beginning of the refresh cycle, he bought his 9 months after the initial release so he should expect his product to be outdated within the next 3 months give or take a few.

 

I just bought mine a few weeks ago and I'm sure not upset at Razer. I WANT them to keep refreshing things and coming out with new ones.

Do we know much about the SSD config? It is confirmed to have 2 usable slots? When will a 1TB M.2 be released? These would be my biggest concerns.

Also I’m curious about battery life, since it’s bigger/heavier I would not want to give up any battery life either.

Will it use the same power supply? I ask because I'm sure a bunch of us have multiple supplies already and it would be nice not to have to buy them all over again. Plus I loved the standard style connection, and firmness of it so it doesn't fall out.

 

To be blunt. This model was released beginning of July last year. It has been on the market for 9 months. Rumors of new GPU tech being released in March had been swirling since Jan.. This was why I didn't pull the trigger on the 2013 blade even though the thought crossed my mind.

If I had, I for sure wouldn't expect them to let me return it full price. If they somehow do, consider it crazy and the nicest thing a company has ever done for anyone. Then you publicize that Razer did this for you and everyone that bought one expects Razer to eat costs because they can't be bothered to do some basic research.

This is on you, not Razer.

 

While a tad blunt its still a lot nicer than I would have been. Either way nicely said. If he had bothered to read Razer's return policy it clearly states 14 days for systems and they do give you a full refund minus shipping. The fact that they were going to disregard their policy and still allow him to return within 30 days less the 15% restocking fee is what I would call excellent customer service. By the way, Alienware has a 15% restocking fee.

 

Since it's needed, this is a reminder for everyone, to abide by the forum rules. That means no insults, whether overt or veiled. If you are getting insulted, report it rather than starting throwing insults back.

 

You know, I can see his point though. Wouldn't you be rather upset if after days your $2,500 laptop is now out of date? I understand some brand loyalty where you yourself might not be upset, but to someone who isn't Razer brand loyal it could be quite upsetting.

 

Certainly not throw them in the trash, but maybe dropping the price on those a couple of hundred dollars? I'm sure there are some who would love to have purchased one at a lower price. Given though, the Blade and Blade Pro is a niche product that not everyone would be interested in because of the price. You can get normal sized gaming laptops that are around $1000 less.

 

I am not Razer brand loyal, I am common sense loyal. Of course I would be upset, but in the end it would be my own fault.

Besides, his notebook isn't "out of date".. The 2013 model is still formidable, apparently the buyer wanted it. A new model coming out doesn't automatically obsolete the old one. If the display is an issue, there are at least 20 high profile reviews since July 2 of last year speaking very truthfully about the weaknesses of the 2013 blade.

 

They did have the 20% edu thing going on. Granted that's not for everyone. Perhaps they should have like Apple a refurb/outlet store but Razer doesn't seem like that type of company.

 

By Razer's standards it is out of date since you cannot buy it any longer. While there is some truth of the "still formidable" excuse, it's more of a Corp. excuse for charging the customer full price for an old model. The 20% for EDU was also a poor excuse for Public Relations. Because most people that can afford to buy one aren't in college. As much as I dislike Apple, that would be something good for Razer to have a refurb/outlet store. It wouldf give people more options which would in turn make Razer more money. I'm all for the refurb/outlet idea. Think about how many more people could afford to buy one if you could get a factory refurb for let's say, $500 less and instead of a full year warranty make it a 6 month warranty for refurbs?

Common sense is not sticking your finger in an electrical socket or running out in front of traffic. Common sense to you might not be common knowledge for others. When talking to people everyone needs to keep that in mind. Just because something may feel like it's common sense to me doesn't mean it will be common sense for you, and like wise, something you feel is common sense it may not be for me. See what I mean? PC parts have two sides, if you never mess with anything but desktop builds, you may not realize when stuff comes out for mobile platforms. Or lets say you are into car audio, and very limited into something else, some things in car audio will be common sense to you but not to others, and something you are mildy into others will find common sense that you just don't know. I think everyone here has been on the wrong side of this at one time or another. I'm just saying we should be tolerant of others because we don't know their whole story and don't know what they are going through. It was wrong for the other person to lash out, but it was also wrong for the OP to say that the other one was ignorant (the demeaning type of ignorant).

 

Back on topic, I think the power supply is the same, possibly the same plug too form the pictures and what little info we have. Meaning if you have 3 power bricks (as I do) you could keep the extra two and still have 3 if you choose to upgrade.

Assuming that both M2 slots are available for SSD's, what's anyones guess if these work or would they be wrong size? http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-M500-480GB-6Gbps-Internal/dp/B00HBKM6UO I am completely unfamiliar with the M2 standards. This would mean you could buy the 128GB and upgrade yourself to 960GB for the same price as the 512, plus you end up with an extra 128GB SSD.

Battery life is still unknown, could be about the same but my worry is if it's below 90% of what the 2013 got.

Here's what I've come up with:
2014 pros:
better screen
better GPU

2014 cons:
slightly larger and heavier
less drive choices (don't think there is a 1TB available yet like there are in mSATA)
heat or noise certainly has to be more, maybe both. (100W GPU vs a 75W 765m)

2014 possible cons (in other words, unknown now):
worse battery life (just a guess, it's really not known yet)
possible throttling? I sure hope not, I never have noticed any throttling on mine, like I have many times in past on other small gaming notebooks

Oh man I am so close to buying one and I am just trying to talk myself out of it!

 

You and me both. it's taking a decent amount of willpower to sit tight and wait for reviews, but it's the smart choice.

 

Me 3, and I feel the same. I feel battery life & the heat should suck a bit more at the cost of performance. Cmon reviews come already. When do the venders or sites get them to review?

 

They probably get them around the same time pre-orders do

 

A tad bit suspicious that you only have 6 posts under your belt and your supporting a freshly banned user. In either case I never claimed ignorance of the person in question, all I said was he was an ill informed buyer a statement I still stand behind. My example of buying the f150 in 2013 is very apt. Anyone whom did their research would know a model refresh for the f150 is coming out in 2014, therefore if having the top of the line product is important to you buying an f150 in Q4 of 2013 was a poor choice. Same thing can be said about buying ANY laptop in Q1 of a year. Doing a bit of research will tell you that it's a poor decision, IF having a top of the line machine is that important to you. For most it's not a huge factor in a decision on whether or not to purchase a laptop.


Anyways getting back on topic, I can't wait for reviews to challenge that 50% additional performance comment. I really don't think the 870m will be 40-50% better than the 765m... but I can be proven wrong.

In either case I stick with my statement that the 3k screen is a bit perplexing in a laptop which is supposed to be focused on gamers. I have no quams about paying the higher price tag, and if I didnt already have my blade I would likely be jumping at this product. However despite my denial, I finally came to the conclusion that a gaming ultra-book can not be a dedicated gaming pc. As much as I tried with my blade, I realized that a gaming PC was much more practical than using my blade for gaming while at home.

However I travel frequently and I absolutely LOVE my blade for gaming on the go, and for those purposes my current generation suits me fine. It's an easy decision for me to wait a year or two before upgrading.

For the record I am a professional whom earns a large income, so the cost of the upgrade is not a factor for any means in this decision. I just not hat excited about a 3k touch screen display, more so I would be excited about the upgrade in graphics processing. Yet I will wait for reviews and benchmarks until I finalize my opinion on this matter.

 

Here's your discount.. Amazon has dollars off what appears to be the 2013 blade maybe..

http://theslanted.com/2014/03/14258/amazon-offers-savings-razer-gaming-products-razer-blade/

 

Wow, not cool. it's not cool at all to throw accusations like that. But like I said before, not everyone knows some of these things.

 

Not cool at all although completely correct. Goodbye.

 

I don't understand how people could be upset. It doesn't change what you bought or how much money you spent. The 2013 Blade isn't obsolete, by any means. There's just a more expensive one with more features, as there is with almost everything else in the world. Then again, the "I must have the best" attitude never made sense to me either

 

Glad that guy was banned, there is a reason why we have these forums so you can know before buying whats out there and whats down the pipe. As everyone else I am anxiously waiting on some hands on reviews of the new 14 before if I decide to bit or not.

 

I would agree if the 2013 model would have had a decent screen, but it was extremely bad, it had the worst contrast ratio I have ever seen (including 500$ budget notebooks), colors were bad, viewing angels a disaster...
This was THE reason not to buy it.
If I spend 2000$, I want to have a good screen, period.

the 2014 upgrade is quite big

Advantages:
- MUCH better gpu
- Display PPI, contrast, colors are excellent. This is huge, not just a minor upgrade
- M2 ssd, if PCI could get speeds past 800MB/s vs 500MB/s
- Touchpanel, yes it is usefull if you run windows 8
- Better sound (?)

Disadvantages:
- Will probably get a lot warmer (GPU cores are doubled compared to the GTX765M) since the case is still the same thickness
- Probably noisier since it has to cool a lot more cores and a bigger die
- Less battery life while gaming
- Throttle? (150W adapter included, GTX870M rated at 100W and CPU at 47W, so not much is left for SSD, RAM, ports, etc)

I really dislike the disadvantages, since i hate burning, noisy laptops.
But on the other hand the GPU and display are soooooo much better compared to prev gen..

I dont know what to do

 

Do what I did, I said the heck with it and ordered one. Unfortunately I have more money than sense:laugh:

Anyone looking for a very nice, 3 week old 512GB 2013 model, very well taken care of! "Pretested" so you know it's free of any factory defects!

 

But those who bought the laptop knew of that screen. They saw the price, knew the screen was of sub-par quality, and purchased it still. Just because another iteration of the product came out doesn't mean their prior purchased was suddenly a rip off. I do agree, the screen is horrid, but for anyone to rage when the next-in-line comes out just screams greedy.

The small number of people saying the new Blade runs hotter and louder are running benchmarks that strain the machine for all it's worth. Probably native resolution (3k) and super high setting benchmarks. Although to be honest the 2013 Blade is really quiet, and saying it's louder could still mean it's very below the average of fan noise. If you run games at 900p instead of 1080p or 3k, it'll also most likely be less warm than they've said so far as well.

I had some questions typed out to help you decide between the two versions, but I can tell you won't be happy with the 2013 version at all. I'm not sure why you're considering it still. I had the 2013 version in my hands for all of 15 minutes before I packed it back up and sent an e-mail for a refund because of that screen. So here's what you do: Wait for the 2014 version, order it, play your favorite games on it and see if it gets too hot/loud for your liking. Razer has a 14 days money back guarantee on all systems, so just tell them it's too hot or loud and they'll refund all your money (minus the shipping charge to send it back).

The only way you'll know for sure is if you try it yourself

 

Yup, but the heart wants what the heart wants I guess... I am excited about my preorder!

 

Resolution while gaming doesnt really matter for heat output.
It will still work as much. Doubling resolution, doesnt mean the load being doubled. I will just run at a lower framerate.
I worry about heat since the 2013 was already quite hot
I dont own one, but up to 50C on notebookcheck, although extremely nice idle temps.
But I already own an HP Envy15 (2010) which also uses an metal casing and temps I have now, are max i want. Hotter would be annoying (pe when its a 35C summerday)
And its still 25W MORE than the 765M.. quite a lote

 

Oh, I've seen worse. I own worse. A friend of mine bought the 2013 256GB model for $1800 from the Microsoft Store and received it after the 2014 model was unveiled. I told him he could return it, unopened, to the Microsoft Store and pre-order the 2014, but he decided the $600 delta wasn't worth it (256GB to 256GB). He's seen mine. He knows what the screen looks like.

Buy the 2014 model and run it at 1920x1080? That's what I plan to do with mine. I figure between that and setting it to run at 35 FPS when on battery it should be fine.

 

So hateful Hope all is well for you CSHawkeye81!

 

Weird, with my current laptop it makes a difference. If I lower the resolution, the fans wont be as loud and it wont be as warm.

I don't think Razer is going to provide a product that you'll be happy with then, unfortunately.

Personally, the heat wont be a problem for me as long as it doesn't throttle the machine. That's all I can ask for when it delivers so much already