Razer please tell me this is a defective display or its how Mini LED technology implemented in this laptop and it's considered "normal".
White objects on black that are smaller than 2cm turns grey. I recorded a video showing this problem.
Page 3 / 5
I returned my blade 16. I was going to buy the IPS screen instead - but I’m not sure I’m willing to support Razer after this…. Pretty shitty. Maybe time to give the Legion a try...
Userlevel 1
Just bought this laptop. several hours in, I am disgusted by this absolute piece of shit display module.
I used to work at a LCD display manufacturing company here in Korea and did optical design for LCD displays for quite a while. I can tell you that this laptop display is an piece of junk that would’ve NEVER would’ve even come close to the standards Apple has for their display devices (which our company also manufactured as an OEM).
The diffusion sheets, light guide panels and LED lenses used for this module seems to be poorly patterned and manufactured for cost reduction and to meet Razer’s packaging requirements. Moving the white mouse cursor around dark screens, I can visually observe the LED arrays turning on and off in within the module. Absolute joke of a display.
I guess having the single-zone mode would make things slightly better, BUT I don’t even think having all LEDs on in a “single zone” mode would make this display a good one. The lens design and diffusion sheets and patterning on the light guide panel used for this module are obviously shit quality, it does absolutely NOTHING to even out the optical distribution. I can clearly see the array patterns with my *bare eyes* LMAO.
I have never seen anything like this besides cheap direct-lighting LCD screens from China 10 years ago. Its really hard to type bright text on a dark background text editor with this display; almost unusable.
TBH I bought this on company funds so I have no choice but to get used to this garbage. If you do a lot of typing on dark backgrounds (programming) avoid this laptop. Probably fine for gaming though.
Can you check out my first post? My BOE panel looks like it's all horizontal stripes, anywhere there's alternating light and dark content, even in games.
Anywhere with dark/light contrasts you will see the horizontal arrays. Its a darn joke lol. Razer will have to update Synapse to disable local dimming. This is almost unacceptable
Does your screen also have horizontal stripes like mine? What is your panel supplier? (You can view it in Device Manager-Monitor-Details-Hardware ID). Mine is a BOE panel, and the AUO panel has almost no such problems, or is almost unnoticeable.
Ah yes. I see its the BOE panel. I might actually ask for a trade-in if this is only a problem with BOE panels.
But unfortunately, it seems that all recent production has switched to BOE panels. I originally bought my Blade16 in September (in China), it was made in July and the panel is AUO (it's great but unfortunately has dead pixels). But after using it for less than two weeks, it developed dead pixels, and then the panel was replaced, which was BOE, (due to more problems after repair), and then it was replaced with a new unit, which was still BOE. This new unit is produced in October. And the Chinese after-sales customer service told me that there is currently no stock of AUO panels.
I got the Razer Blade 16 Mercury and it came with a BOE Panel (see image). I do mostly content creation and tried calibrating the colors, but I do not trust them and they are still overblown. White text looks gray and black bleeds into light backgrounds which is terrible. The performance is good and the chassis is great. Razer had to do right by their clients and allow for “single zone” dimming. Even this might not be enough to solve the issue. I am debating returning this laptop, and my trust in Razer is truly in question.
Out of curiosity, which 2023 miniled model did you have?
I had the same one you had.
I wish they would have given me a miniled and am curious if I theoretically could have gotten a miniled despite being denied.
I think it’s possible as I managed to get one, though I had some unique circumstances associated with my case. Namely, I was receiving a brand new (2023) replacement regardless as Razer had damaged my laptop in a previous RMA. Certainly made it a lot easier for me to convince them to grant me a 2024 replacement instead. Having the person responsible for my replacement see the 2023 Blade 16 in person likely helped too.
The first time around, they offered me the same spec’d down OLED version as you were, and to add insult to injury, they wanted me to pay. After a good deal of frustrating back and forth, I declined, and then I was offered one of the Mini-LED models as a replacement option. It was quite a spec bump from my 2023 one, so I accepted.
For the most part, I didn’t go out of my way, nor was it really my goal, to seek an upgrade—the furthest I went was asking for a “functionally equivalent, one-to-one, 2024 model.” I kind of left the ball in Razer’s court to interpret what I meant by that. Though in hindsight, it’s an implied upgrade request as there is no one-to-one model since Razer changed up their SKUs from 2023 to 2024.
Just bought this laptop. several hours in, I am disgusted by this absolute piece of shit display module.
I used to work at a LCD display manufacturing company here in Korea and did optical design for LCD displays for quite a while. I can tell you that this laptop display is an piece of junk that would’ve NEVER would’ve even come close to the standards Apple has for their display devices (which our company also manufactured as an OEM).
The diffusion sheets, light guide panels and LED lenses used for this module seems to be poorly patterned and manufactured for cost reduction and to meet Razer’s packaging requirements. Moving the white mouse cursor around dark screens, I can visually observe the LED arrays turning on and off in within the module. Absolute joke of a display.
I guess having the single-zone mode would make things slightly better, BUT I don’t even think having all LEDs on in a “single zone” mode would make this display a good one. The lens design and diffusion sheets and patterning on the light guide panel used for this module are obviously shit quality, it does absolutely NOTHING to even out the optical distribution. I can clearly see the array patterns with my *bare eyes* LMAO.
I have never seen anything like this besides cheap direct-lighting LCD screens from China 10 years ago. Its really hard to type bright text on a dark background text editor with this display; almost unusable.
TBH I bought this on company funds so I have no choice but to get used to this garbage. If you do a lot of typing on dark backgrounds (programming) avoid this laptop. Probably fine for gaming though.
Can you check out my first post? My BOE panel looks like it's all horizontal stripes, anywhere there's alternating light and dark content, even in games.
Anywhere with dark/light contrasts you will see the horizontal arrays. Its a darn joke lol. Razer will have to update Synapse to disable local dimming. This is almost unacceptable
Does your screen also have horizontal stripes like mine? What is your panel supplier? (You can view it in Device Manager-Monitor-Details-Hardware ID). Mine is a BOE panel, and the AUO panel has almost no such problems, or is almost unnoticeable.
Ah yes. I see its the BOE panel. I might actually ask for a trade-in if this is only a problem with BOE panels.
But unfortunately, it seems that all recent production has switched to BOE panels. I originally bought my Blade16 in September (in China), it was made in July and the panel is AUO (it's great but unfortunately has dead pixels). But after using it for less than two weeks, it developed dead pixels, and then the panel was replaced, which was BOE, (due to more problems after repair), and then it was replaced with a new unit, which was still BOE. This new unit is produced in October. And the Chinese after-sales customer service told me that there is currently no stock of AUO panels.
That sucks. After using this a little more I’m seriously considering returning this. I’ll ask my local service center tomorrow to see if they have any AUO panels in stock. Otherwise, I might request a refund and wait until next year to get something else.
Finally, the last update brought a new option for it now.
But it is obviously not working, at least on my side.
Changing Tabs will reset the value.
When switching the toggle on or off, there is no change at all, not even minimal.
There does not seem to be any Release or QA Management in place 🙈
I can imagine that we are waiting for a bios/firmwar update now to connect the toggle to the hardware.
Userlevel 1
I got the Razer Blade 16 Mercury and it came with a BOE Panel (see image). I do mostly content creation and tried calibrating the colors, but I do not trust them and they are still overblown. White text looks gray and black bleeds into light backgrounds which is terrible. The performance is good and the chassis is great. Razer had to do right by their clients and allow for “single zone” dimming. Even this might not be enough to solve the issue. I am debating returning this laptop, and my trust in Razer is truly in question.
The colors will be much better after you turn on HDR. But despite this, due to backlight driver issues, horizontal stripes will appear at the junction of any dark and light content, especially when scrolling up and down. If you can still return it now, I highly recommend you return it. This Miniled screen is a piece of shit, if you really like it. Then replace it with a black QHD240hz screen.
Userlevel 2
Ok so bios update 2.02 from april 24 does not fix anything related to the Display I’ve noticed it make one fan not so loud the right one and some V-Bios issue were fixed nothing about the Mini-LED issues and the Bios update they prommised to Fix these devices
Sorry for the long post/rant, but I thought I'd share my experiences with getting a replacement. Maybe it'll help anyone still pursuing one.
---
Razer ended up replacing my 2023 Blade 16 with a 2024 Mini-LED model after, to put it nicely, they did a less than adequate job with my 2023 Blade 16 RMA. Like many in this thread and forum, I was unsatisfied with the BOE panel, and I requested an AUO panel replacement from Razer. After much pushing and prodding, a CS rep eventually agreed to initiate an RMA for an AUO panel replacement. Unfortunately, my laptop came back with a significantly worse (somehow) BOE panel and excessive physical damage.
The replacement BOE panel was really quite poorly behaved—I measured a black-to-white transition time of ~700 ms (no, not a typo), which rendered the display wholly unusable. Eventually, Razer did a recall repair, and I found out that the repair center has "consumed the [AUO] parts required to repair your unit with no foreseeable date for parts supply." I was offered a one-to-one 2023 Blade 16 replacement.
I was rather reluctant to receive another laptop with a BOE panel, so I asked for assurances that would not happen again. Someone from the Razer USA Repair Operations Laptops Specialist team reached out and offered to do a "white glove" panel confirmation of the replacement unit at their Irvine office. Online anecdotal evidence suggests that all Blade 16 units manufactured from mid-2023 onward use BOE panels, and I questioned how Razer would proceed if they found my replacement with BOE; I suggested a one-to-one 2024 replacement unit instead as a pragmatic solution. They were okay with that, but wanted me to pay a relatively hefty sum to account for the price difference between what I paid for the 2023 model and the 2024 MSRP for a spec downgrade.
Communication with the repair operations laptop specialist got cut off there, and I was rather appalled by that offer, so I declined anyways. I got passed around to a few different teams for a while until the Repair Operation Laptop Specialist got back to me and confirmed that the one-to-one 2023 Blade 16 replacement unit had a BOE panel. They ended up apologizing for my experiences and gave me a 2024 Blade 16 as a replacement at no charge.
Between my initial outreach and receiving the 2024 replacement in hand, this whole process took around 2 months with ~130 emails exchanged back and forth. Nearing the end, I was on the verge of taking Razer to small claims court and was getting ready to send them a letter stating my intentions to sue. I didn't have to go down that route as Razer offered me the 2024 replacement before I had an opportunity to send them the letter.
---
I purchased my 2023 Blade 16 from (US) Amazon, and on the product page, there's a banner that advertises the display as "AMLCD Powered by AUO." Razer's (US) 2023 Blade 16 product page also takes you to that Amazon page. For the most part, I used that as a central point in my messages of bait and switch and false advertisement, alongside general incompetence and negligence. I was genuinely frustrated with how Razer let the BOE panel ship in their laptop and proceeded to do nothing about it for nearly an entire product cycle, so I don't think I was too far off the mark with the incompetence and negligence. I'm not sure how anyone at Razer looked at the panel, assuming they even went that far, and thought, "Yeah, that's totally fine. Ship it!"
The panel is, IMO fairly obviously, problematic and flawed in a way that's unsuitable for daily use, let alone the advertised purposes of content creation. I don't want to rant too much here, as those reading this comment likely already know what I'm talking about, but the only thing the BOE panel is consistent at is being inconsistent. I provided about 20 different pictures and videos in a Google Drive folder and implored the CS reps to take a look at them and tell me the panel behavior is acceptable.
Like many on this forum, I received promises of a firmware fix, but I heavily leaned on the aspect of their promises being empty when they've been promising the same thing for nearly a year and not delivering. Until Razer explicitly acknowledges the BOE panel issues and provides a concrete date for the fix to me, I do not consider waiting to be an acceptable solution. Honestly, I don't think my arguments got me anywhere as Razer adopts a universal caseload CS management system instead of assigning an individual staff member to a case—all previous context is lost after 2 exchanges, and I've received the same canned responses more times than I can count. I got nowhere with CS until they butchered my initial RMA and escalated the recall repair. It's needlessly frustrating. Maybe others will have better luck with the “AMLCD Powered by AUO” angle if purchased from (US) Amazon.
Right before Razer sent the 2024 replacement, I received an apology for Razer "not been able to fulfill our expectations held in our warranty agreement." While I never explicitly brought up their warranty terms and conditions, I alluded to their actions not aligning with what's stated under their "Remedies under this Limited Warranty" section. As a result, the Repair Operations Laptops Specialist got approval for a 2024 Blade 16 which should have “the previously advertised AUO panel” (spoiler, it does not). Also, not once did Razer CS acknowledge that the BOE panel is problematic or provide a date for a fix.
---
As for the 2024 replacement unit I received, it has the same BOE BOE0B90 panel as the 2023 variant, along with all the local dimming quirks and issues. The date of manufacture on this panel is Week 30, 2022, as per HWiNFO64. Internal Razer assembly part tracking stickers have a November 2023 date on the panel ribbon cable. There was a BOE firmware update released for the 2024 Blade 16 in (IIRC as I can't find the webpage atm) February 2024 to address display flickering, but that did nothing to change the local dimming behavior.
Fortunately, the option to disable local dimming works reasonably well and turns the panel into (just) a good IPS one. Unfortunately, some of the issues intrinsic to the BOE panel persist with local dimming disabled, namely the relatively poor LED matching from the factory (or it could be a limitation of their LED backplane/edge case in uniformity compensation). The issue is exacerbated under 10% brightness (HDR off), as you'll be able to (more easily) distinguish between how the LED zones are partitioned and the zones themselves. There’s a post a few pages back by someone working at an “LCD display manufacturing company” in Korea discussing the optical sheets in the panel and I cannot agree more with their points.
The backlight behavioral distinction between HDR on and HDR off remains, observably, the same on the 2024 BOE implementation: HDR on prioritizes luminance stability at the expense of a larger blooming amplitude, and HDR off prioritizes blooming minimization at the expense of crushed shadow detail. These are just pitfalls with having a limited amount of dimming zones, but I wish Razer/BOE handled the behavior better, or like Asus, offered the user options. Horizontal banding artifacts, like ripples, are present on the 2024 BOE panel—that is clearly an unintended consequence of their local dimming algorithm, otherwise we’d have vertical artifacts too. Particularly annoying, especially when coupled with the backlight delay on the order of 100s of milliseconds (seriously how is it so bad?) in certain circumstances, such as HDR gaming or HDR content consumption.
On the bright side, there are a couple of welcome additions to the Razer Synapse display tab. There's a calibration report present, seems like they calibrated to Display-P3 and Power 2.2 Gamma at the factory, along with the option to switch the display between Native, DCI-P3 (default), Adobe RGB, Rec. 709, and sRGB. I haven't had an opportunity to validate these profiles with my colorimeter, but perceptually, they seem fine with the appropriate primaries and EOTF tracking. Probably in the realm of good enough for casual use. Also with the option to disable local dimming, you can properly calibrate the display.
I should note that there's a weird intermittent brightness flickering behavior on my laptop display that appears nearly identical to the flicker you get when enabling or disabling local dimming. I can't tell whether it's a bug or a hardware defect, but either way, I'm not looking forward to having to deal with it.
All in all, the BOE display is generally fine with the option to disable local dimming enabled. The local dimming implementation itself is still problematic, and it's frustrating to see how Razer lets these issues, IMO most of which are probably fixable via a firmware update, persist across two product generations. I can’t say I’m completely happy with the display, but it is better—even if by virtue of a band-aid solution in disabling local dimming.
Yeah guess it really takes a lot to get it to a proper person that can handle it
Single-zone dimming feature and optional sRGB color space profile is going to make this laptop screen much more useful. I’m holding on to my blade 16, and believe this problem will resolve soon.
Razer, keep up the good work, and let make it better.
Razer - any updates? I am about to return two units if this can’t be fixed… (I don’t WANT to return - just don’t have a choice unless Razer confirms that a solution is pending). Thanks!
Yeah guess it really takes a lot to get it to a proper person that can handle it
Sadly. There were a few points in time where I was seriously contemplating and weighing my options of straight-up suing Razer in small claims court (a US thing) instead of continuing to engage with their frontline customer service, especially towards the end of the 2 month mark. I wanted to exhaust customer service avenues before resorting to legal action, but it was rather frustrating at times.
In retrospect, I’m kind of glad I stuck around the customer service route and resolved my issue amicably. They ended up shipping me an upgrade from my previous 2023 Blade 16, and while I didn’t ask for it, it’s a pleasant outcome.
Userlevel 2
I had no luck mate they did cut me off one time for a new unit with the You did not buy it from Us Excuse
Userlevel 2
Wow, I really wish I saw this thread before buying one of these for 3D and After Effects work. Your object gets a glow! And your object gets a glow! And faded mattes everywhere! Jesus.
Looks like I’ll try to sell and go with the Legion, sadly it doesnt have as high res of a display.
If your laptop is under their one year warranty still, I would contact them and let them know about the issues with your device. Their warranty clearly states that if you make a valid claim, they will either replace the device or give you a refund.
From my experience with Razer support, you have to pester them a bunch of times, even if they try to pull some BS about how you aren’t eligible. I’ve been told three times now that I am out of luck with repairs or replacements, but after I told them how it was unacceptable and clearly an issue on their end, they reached out to escalate the case yet again. at the moment, I think they will be giving me a 2024 blade 16 in exchange for my 2023 with problems. However, I’m sure they’ll be able to give you a refund if you’d rather.
this will take some time, but you’ll come out ahead of where you’d be if you just sold the device. People who do their research will probably see these issues with the 2023 models and not want to buy them for as much.
Did you get a new device from them? Did they replace the model?
Anyone actually getting lawsuit ready? They just took my laptop for “repair” and isn’t sending it back so I can return it. they won’t fiux it but also won’t return which I think is ridiculous
Yeah guess it really takes a lot to get it to a proper person that can handle it
Sadly. There were a few points in time where I was seriously contemplating and weighing my options of straight-up suing Razer in small claims court (a US thing) instead of continuing to engage with their frontline customer service, especially towards the end of the 2 month mark. I wanted to exhaust customer service avenues before resorting to legal action, but it was rather frustrating at times.
In retrospect, I’m kind of glad I stuck around the customer service route and resolved my issue amicably. They ended up shipping me an upgrade from my previous 2023 Blade 16, and while I didn’t ask for it, it’s a pleasant outcome.
Damn upgrade would be great
Man I was about to buy the new 2024 16 with mini led for content creation until I saw this. May have to pass and look elsewhere now. Bummer
Userlevel 6
Well the saga continues. After waiting 5 days for higher management to decide what to do they denied me the 2024 model and want to try another 2023 replacement. If this next one has display issues I'm going have to personally escalate this further. Already been without my Blade for over a month. I'm not giving up on this.
Edit: Are all these models plagued with this issue? Or only a certain ones?
Not sure if I’m eligible to join since they replaced my device with a working one, but I never signed anything saying I wouldn’t come after them.
I would gladly join in hopes of some compensation for my time wasted.
Like you got a AUO panel one or an upgrade? They refused to do so for me because they are out of stock with AUO but also they cannot replacem a laptop unless it’s “not fixable”
Why the hell is half of my text black and the other half grey? Razer, when are you going to correct this misunderstanding?
Userlevel 2
Wow, I really wish I saw this thread before buying one of these for 3D and After Effects work. Your object gets a glow! And your object gets a glow! And faded mattes everywhere! Jesus.
Looks like I’ll try to sell and go with the Legion, sadly it doesnt have as high res of a display.
If your laptop is under their one year warranty still, I would contact them and let them know about the issues with your device. Their warranty clearly states that if you make a valid claim, they will either replace the device or give you a refund.
From my experience with Razer support, you have to pester them a bunch of times, even if they try to pull some BS about how you aren’t eligible. I’ve been told three times now that I am out of luck with repairs or replacements, but after I told them how it was unacceptable and clearly an issue on their end, they reached out to escalate the case yet again. at the moment, I think they will be giving me a 2024 blade 16 in exchange for my 2023 with problems. However, I’m sure they’ll be able to give you a refund if you’d rather.
this will take some time, but you’ll come out ahead of where you’d be if you just sold the device. People who do their research will probably see these issues with the 2023 models and not want to buy them for as much.
Userlevel 2
Go leave a comment on this youtube video which razer has definitely seen and wants me to remove with your issue and device.
Is there any development for this issue? my screen is horrible for content creation
Guess I should keep pushing for upgrade as I prom[ted them to return my laptop for refund 7 days ago but no updates on that still and return window for me is lamost closed now. Im stuck with a bad laptop at this point if no upgrade is offered
Userlevel 1
My Razer Blade 16 Mercury Screen (BOE) had some wild local dimming artifacts, similar to the following video:
The following workaround made my screen more acceptable (but still no solution for content creation):
- Press Win key, type and open "Color Management"
- Select "Advanced" Tab on the top row
- Click "Calibrate Display" Click "Next" and accept the warning.
- Click "Next" until you arrive at the color balance with the 3 color sliders.
- Move all color sliders completely to the left.
- Now use the back button on top to get to the start of the calibration.
- Adjust gamma and brightness now to your liking (and maybe also colors if required).
- Finish calibration.
Colors look less overblown and more accurate now and local dimming artifacts seem down to a minimum on my screen. But they can still be seen.
I did not test this yet, but it might also have a positive impact on battery life.
The Bad:
- The max brightness of the screen in non-HDR is quite limited now, but more than bright enough for me (HDR is still very very bright).
- The factory calibration, that is seemingly hard wired or baked into firmware in the screen is still way off (maybe some sign error?).
- Still no screen for content creation as long as local dimming cannot be deactivated, because the brightness levels on screen do not match the brightness levels in the created files (e.g. images or videos).
Can confirm this helps. I did this about a month ago and it has helped for now but not a solution by any means. Razer please just revert the firmware i have installed or drop a new one already. It cant be this long to create a functional firmware from your team
Userlevel 6
This is definitely concerning to me. I bought a Blade 4090 back in May 2023. Didn't appear to have any display issues. However I needed to get a replacement as it started overheating and throttling most recently. I'm getting a replacement in the mail come Thursday. Now I am worried I will have a problematic display. I may have to push them for a 2024 model if this the case.
Page 3 / 5
Reply
Sign up
Already have an account? Login
Log in with Razer ID to create new threads and earn badges.
LOG INEnter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.