I don’t like any of the Razer products I’ve had so I’m going to say “no” to their laptops.

Originally posted by Affronter:

I don’t like any of the Razer products I’ve had so I’m going to say “no” to their laptops.

What kind of stuff did you get when you tried them?

Any "gamer" branded stuff is going to be overpriced and over-engineered cosmetically, but skimp on the finer hardware details. Unfortunately if you need a gaming laptop, you're kind of stuck in that space.

I would see if you can find a media production type laptop that has the option for a game viable GPU, because that will very likely offer better hardware value for the pricing.


As for Razer specifically - I used Razer's early generation mice (Diamondback, Copperhead) back in the day, and they were fantastic. But I stopped using Razer several years ago because all the modern mice fell apart quickly. I can't speak to any of their other peripherals or hardware, but make of that what you will.


Oh and as to "will X 'accept' Linux" - really the question is whether Linux will accept the hardware. There's no rule of thumb; you will need to cross-reference the hardware list with whatever distro you intend to install.

You can definitely swap SSDs from a technical standpoint, but be aware that very very few laptops are designed in a way that is maintenance-friendly, opening them and replacing components is always a process just because of how packed-in all the components are. And nobody I'm aware of has a warranty that isn't voided by opening it.

They are 'nice' but overpriced and not particularly well built as far as longevity goes. Lenovo, Asus give more bang for the buck and Acer at the right price depending on the model has some nice laptops, same for HP.

Originally posted by peremptor:

They are 'nice' but overpriced and not particularly well built as far as longevity goes. Lenovo, Asus give more bang for the buck and Acer at the right price depending on the model has some nice laptops, same for HP.

Yeah on that say what you will about brands like Asus but last year I bought one of their laptops for gaming and so far I am reasonably happy with my purchase. It has an older model processor and only 4gig gpu laptop 3050 but it does what I want it to do and I did a clean install of the OS without bloatware. So far so good and I can't complain about it that much.

My only real complaint is the keyboard being a little bit warm if gaming but it's not a deal breaker for me.

if i had the money Framework is the kind of laptop I would want. One of their models has a slide in GPU which you can swap with a higher power GPU. I mean their system is very modular and serviceable, but you pay a price for all that.

I had no problems with my razer mouse and keyboard. I had my blackwidow chroma v2 keyboard for 9 years and not a problem till this year when one of the rgb lights stopped working so it need to be replaced. My mouse I had for 3 years and not a problem with it.

Originally posted by HighVotageMuffin:

Originally posted by Affronter:

I don’t like any of the Razer products I’ve had so I’m going to say “no” to their laptops.

What kind of stuff did you get when you tried them?

Over the years I’ve had/used

A couple of mice (I did not hate those but did find better ones)
A couple of keyboards
Portable speakers
Headset
Cellphone

Generally overpriced and overrated. Their Synapse software utility at the time was atrocious.

Yeah I got an Asus g18 strix... really good laptop for the price but you do pay extra for the portability. Just got a desktop again and still use it more than the desktop at the moment while transitioning.

Any laptop is going to get warm to hot depending how far you push it especially if its a high end gaming/creative model... no way to get around the fact that you got most of the power of a desktop in such a small package. My laptop at the top end can handle around 300w... gets noisy as well.

Got it undervolted and tweaked so it runs pretty cool and relatively silent though, don't let the cpu use more than 75w total power (keep it under 50w normally) and also undervolt and power limit the GPU some to max efficiency and keep the temps cool all around.

This also has the benefit of extending the laptop's life. The less hot it gets and the less gunk it accumulates due to high fan usage the better (though cleaning it every so often is no big deal).

So in essence if you want a powerful laptop you need to put some time into it to make sure it runs well in the short run and long run. No big deal but for some its just asking to burn though 1-2k pretty quickly if they don't keep track of that stuff.

Originally posted by ↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect:

I had no problems with my razer mouse and keyboard. I had my blackwidow chroma v2 keyboard for 9 years and not a problem till this year when one of the rgb lights stopped working so it need to be replaced. My mouse I had for 3 years and not a problem with it.

I got a razer mouse... I had a keyboard... well still do just don't use it haha. They might make the best mice for some that doesn't mean their laptops are worth the money. Imo they are overpriced just by that metric I wouldn't bother with them.

Originally posted by Affronter:

Originally posted by HighVotageMuffin:

What kind of stuff did you get when you tried them?

Over the years I’ve had/used

A couple of mice (I did not hate those but did find better ones)
A couple of keyboards
Portable speakers
Headset
Cellphone

Generally overpriced and overrated. Their Synapse software utility at the time was atrocious.

Yeah not a fan of the software that needs to be active for you to get full functionality from your mouse vs other brands where you can just launch the app program the mouse and exit it and you get all the benefits.

Honestly razor the only thing I might get again is one of their mice... love the basilisk model.

Originally posted by HighVotageMuffin:

Originally posted by peremptor:

They are 'nice' but overpriced and not particularly well built as far as longevity goes. Lenovo, Asus give more bang for the buck and Acer at the right price depending on the model has some nice laptops, same for HP.

Yeah on that say what you will about brands like Asus but last year I bought one of their laptops for gaming and so far I am reasonably happy with my purchase. It has an older model processor and only 4gig gpu laptop 3050 but it does what I want it to do and I did a clean install of the OS without bloatware. So far so good and I can't complain about it that much.

My only real complaint is the keyboard being a little bit warm if gaming but it's not a deal breaker for me.

if i had the money Framework is the kind of laptop I would want. One of their models has a slide in GPU which you can swap with a higher power GPU. I mean their system is very modular and serviceable, but you pay a price for all that.

Framework is nice in theory but for the price its a waste of money... instead of worrying about upgrading imo use your laptop and then sell it or give it to a family member if you want to upgrade. They resell for decent value if you keep them in good condition.

Heck if you don't mind using a mac and that ecosystem works for you... just get a mac they basically don't lose their value if they are in good shape. Of course you'd have to use a mac :|

But basically not having to worry about charging or being near an outlet to get full use of your laptop is pretty awesome if the mac gets it done for you.

Another +1 to the "♥♥♥♥ Synapse" sentiment

Last time I did have a Razer mouse, Synapse was required for anything other than running the mouse on default firmware settings....so I wouldn't bother if you don't want to pay the bloatware "tax."

That said, mouse manufacturers without a bloatware soft-requirement seem to be few and far between these days....

Razer is both overpriced and overrated. No.

Originally posted by Wiᛊard:

Razer is both overpriced and overrated. No.

Seems like we all can agree on it because honestly it's obvious. For instance they came out with the first 5090 laptop and I daresay it looked pretty nice... but it was like 5k... for what it was it was imo 2x the price it should be on a good sale and that was only feasible if you needed the power in that size envelope (relatively thin with mid power constraints for a laptop design).

it's a scam company