Razer Phone
A gaming-focused phone that stands out due to a 120Hz screen, but battery life suffers
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE 64GB, £583 (£700 inc VAT) from razerzone.com
Razer’s first phone is no me-too affair. Razer is a brand built on gaming credentials, and this thread snakes through the Phone from the 120Hz screen to the cutting-edge components. Indeed, turn it over and all you’ll see is the dual-camera arrangement and Razer’s threeheaded snake logo.
It’s the screen that really makes this phone stand out, though. Touching, scrolling and playing games on a 5.7in 1,440 x 2,560 IGZO LCD is a far more fluid experience than on any other phone available today. It needs to be played around with to be believed: the bump from a typical screen’s 60Hz to a 120Hz refresh rate both looks and feels phenomenal. Most apps support the silky smooth 120Hz refresh rate, but you aren’t locked at 120Hz if you run into any issues. Should you need to, you can manually bump the display down to 90Hz or 60Hz.
Naturally, it’s in gaming where 120Hz has most effect. Razer uses a technology it calls UltraMotion – similar to Nvidia’s G-Sync – together with an adaptive refresh rate to avoid annoyances such as screen tears and to make sure the gaming experience is as smooth as possible.
Naturally, it needs a hardware specification to match, so it’s no surprise to see a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor inside, complete with 8GB of RAM. That’s enough to ensure the Razer is competing with the latest Android handsets at the top of the performance table in Geekbench. See the results, along with its rivals, on p56.
Graphics performance is a similar story. Running GFXBench’s Manhattan 3 test recorded a native resolution onscreen result of 40fps, and an offscreen score of 63fps. It appears that despite the 120Hz display, the Snapdragon 830’s GPU is unable to handle higher framerates at 2K resolution.
There are two final factors in its favour: first, the loud front-facing speakers sound terrific; and second, even after some intense gaming, its chassis feels cool to the touch. That’s to reduce the effect of thermal throttling, but it makes a pleasant change during use too.
Where the Razer Phone struggles is design. Some may like its brutalist, square-jawed looks, and I’m a fan of its matte, fingerprint-friendly aluminium design. I even like the chamfered edges at the top and bottom of the phone, its softly rounded sides and that snake logo on the back. But, compared with the edge-to-edge displays of rivals, the Razer Phone looks old hat. And there are practical problems with sharp corners, which are raring to tear a hole in your pocket.
That’s a shame, because the Razer Phone isn’t lacking when it comes to enthusiast features. You can add a 2TB microSD card to expand on its 64GB of built-in storage; there’s a fingerprint reader positioned sensibly on the right-hand side of the phone, which doubles as a power button, while the USB-C port at the bottom supports the latest Quick Charge 4 standard.
Plus, the phone has an enormous 4,000mAh battery, so I was hoping battery life would be another killer feature. The problem is that its 120Hz display is power hungry. In our continuous video playback test, with the screen set to our standard 170cd/m2 brightness and Flight mode
“Some may like its squarejawed looks but, compared with the edge-to-edge displays of its rivals, the Razer Phone looks old hat”
engaged, the Razer Phone reached only 10hrs 37mins before hitting zero. That’s a good six hours less than Samsung’s A-Listed Galaxy S8. In real-world performance, I managed to scrape a day’s use on a single charge with moderate use.
As for the camera, the Razer Phone is equipped with a pair of 12-megapixel rear-facing cameras, complete with phase-detect autofocus. The main f/1.7 aperture camera utilises a wide-angle sensor, while the secondary camera uses a narrower f/2.6 2x telephoto lens, which helps when capturing scenes from further away.
Outdoors, in brightly lit conditions, the Razer Phone’s rear camera performs splendidly. It captures photographs with crisp details, and rich colours, while exposures are balanced and focus assured. I like the camera software too. There aren’t any pro or manual shooting modes on offer – this is a point-and-shoot affair – but the ability to switch between both lenses simply by zooming in is most welcome.
Indoors in low light, it’s perfectly capable, too. Noise levels were kept to a minimum, and the flash helped to pierce through the darkness. Objects did look a touch soft, and weren’t as well-defined as the Pixel 2’s efforts, but this is a superb rear shooter nonetheless. So, despite its foibles, Razer has done enough to make an impression with the Razer Phone. Its unique 120Hz display and laundry list of high-end components sets it apart from the other flagships. Whether anyone other than gamers will be attracted is a different matter: at £700 SIM-free on the Razer Store, it’s almost £200 more expensive than the Galaxy S8.
SPECIFICATIONS
Octa-core 2.35GHz/1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor 8GB RAM Adreno 540 graphics 5.72in IGZO IPS screen, 1,440 x 2,560 resolution 64GB storage microSD slot dual 12MP rear cameras 8MP front camera 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.2 NFC USB-C connector 4,000mAh battery Android 7.1.1 Nougat 77.7 x 8 x 158.5mm (WDH) 197g 2yr warranty