Razer Phone

High-end features without a high-end price. ADAM PATRICK MURRAY looks at Razer’s first smartphone

The Razer Phone is a bit of a puzzle. It’s not surprising that it exists, given that Razer, best known for PC hardware and peripherals, acquired smartphone maker Nextbit in January of 2017 in order to produce this device. Nor is it surprising that, based on our hands-on time with the device at a recent briefing, the Phone seems to be equal parts Nextbit’s Robin and Razer’s laptop line, touting impressive specifications at a reasonable price of £699.

What’s confusing is what it isn’t. Razer says this isn’t meant to be a gaming phone. Rather, it’s a phone for gamers, Razer fans, and Android enthusiasts, meaning it’s intended to deliver a great experience for all kinds of ‘content consumption’, not just gaming. But it’s a weird message when Razer’s core audience is gamers – and Razer is still pushing gaming partnerships that take advantage of the Razer Phone’s unique screen.

A 120Hz display

The Razer Phone is packed with a 120Hz, 2560x1440, 5.72in LCD panel. If you’ve ever used a high frame rate PC display, you know the difference a faster refresh rate can have on simple tasks – not just games.

Thumbing through feeds, switching apps, and ‘consuming content’ all felt super-smooth. I even got to track the refresh cycles with Razer’s own built-in version of FRAPS (yes, I asked, and yes, you can turn it on in the final version). The panel uses some of the same adaptive refresh technology as Nvidia’s G-Sync and

AMD’s FreeSync, so when you’re idle you also aren’t wasting precious battery.

Speaking of battery, the Razer Phone packs a 4,000mAh one inside its 197g body. That, paired with the newer Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, help it last for long ‘content consumption’ sessions. The phone also features 8GB of dual channel LPDDR4 RAM clocked at 1,600MHz. Razer really knows its audience when it lists detailed specifications like that for a device.

How about another PC-centric spec to catch your attention? Members from the same team that came up with the custom-cooling solutions in the Razer Blade line also had a hand in custom cooling for the Snapdragon 835. Razer says its cooling solution allows the 835 to run longer before throttling down, and when it does, it doesn’t throttle as low.

Shared design language

Razer also wants the Razer Phone to feel right at home with the company’s other hardware offerings – and it does. The engineers worked with some of the same teams that helped make Razer’s refined Razer Blade laptop series. At first glance it looks much like the Robin that came before it, but in my hands, the Razer Phone made the Robin feel like a toy. I would describe the overall design to be monolithic.

The chassis is aluminium and has a nice, tactile feel in my hand. I’ve never been a fan of all-glass phones, so I’m glad to see Razer lean into what it knows. It also feels like a tank that could easily withstand some drops – much like LG’s V20. It was dense without feeling too weighty.

The back of the phone is one solid piece of aluminium, disrupted only by Razer’s snake logo in the middle and a camera bump at the top. The edges show a glimpse of antenna lines, but they blend in well. On the front of the Razer Phone is a dual speaker grille – again, like the Razer Blade – with notches taken out for the front-facing camera and sensors.

Phone audio with a punch

The Razer Phone’s dual speaker grille and stereo speaker configuration are not a first by any means, but I’d be hard-pressed to find a louder setup on any phone! Each speaker has its own amp, allowing the Phone to be pushed to higher decibels without distortion. I’m currently using a Google Pixel 2 XL (which also has dual front-facing speakers), and side by side it’s no contest: The Razer Phone blew the Pixel out of the water at the highest levels.

Sadly, the Razer Phone does not include a headphone jack, and I’m not a fan of this decision. It especially makes no sense when Razer makes a number of high-quality headphones that still support this format. Razer does offer a couple of headphone options that support Apple’s Lightning connector, so I’m hoping the company releases USB-C support in the future. Until then we are stuck with dongles.

Stock for the Android enthusiast

Razer is also trying to court Android enthusiasts. The Phone runs a near-stock version of Android 7.1.1 out of the gate, and Razer promises 8.0 Oreo support in Q1 of 2018. Unlike Nextbit with the Robin, Razer

focuses on the basics while adding only a few custom tweaks, like its own Gamebooster technology and a theme store. We’ve heard this ‘focus-on-the-basic’ approach before (re: Essential), so I’m hoping Razer can deliver.

One choice I liked was Razer’s decision to default to Nova Prime Launcher rather than make its own. I’ve been using Nova Launcher for years, and it’s one of the most popular out there. The Robin had a heavily skinned UI that matched the aesthetic they were going for at Nextbit, and Razer could easily have gone down that same path. Instead Razer is allowing the freedom of stock Android and providing a theme store if you want custom Razer looks.

To round out the enthusiast angle, the Razer phone is sold unlocked (GSM only), with the bootloader unlocked out of the box as well. This phone might be a great option for the tinkerers out there!

Verdict

I would have loved to have seen a headphone jack and more attention paid to the camera setup (it’s very basic), but there’s still plenty to like about the Razer Phone. Gaming phone or not, Razer is still partnering with big phone gaming publishers like Square Enix (Final Fantasy) and Tencent (Arena of Valor) to offer

120Hz optimized experiences. During my meeting, I got the feeling that the team from Nextbit got to follow their passions on the software side while having access to the hardware resources of the teams at Razer. It feels like a grown-up Robin, which is what Razer needed.

Specifications

5.7in full-HD (2560x1440, 515ppi) IPS display Android 7.1.1 Nougat Qualcomm MSM8998 Snapdragon 835 processor Octa-core (4x 2.35GHz Kryo and 4x 1.9GHz Kryo) CPU Adreno 540 GPU 8GB RAM 64GB storage, microSD up to 256GB Fingerprint scanner (side-mounted) Dual rear-facing cameras: 12Mp, f/1.8, 25mm and 12Mp, f/2.6, 2x optical zoom, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash 8Mp front-facing camera, f/2.0 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.2 A-GPS NFC USB Type-C Non-removable lithium-polymer 4,000mAh battery 158.5x77.7x8mm 197g