Razer Phone: The Mobile Gaming Experience
May 30, 2019 • Android • Razer • Reviews
Razer has recently released their Razer phone, one that is obviously targeting a niche audience –the gamers. As a new player in the smartphone arena, Razer is trying to differentiate itself from the competition by focusing on two core features i.e. the screen and sound.
The Razer Phone sports a 5.7-inch display screen that is the world’s first 120Hz refresh rate on a smartphone. This screen is crisp and brilliant – optimized for gaming. Using the 120Hz refresh rate drains battery quickly. Fortunately, it has a large enough 4,000mAh battery to allow the phone to last a day.
This screen is flanked by 2 THX-certified stereo speakers which are also Dolby Atmos-tuned. These speakers are able to create a 3D visualization of sound. As such, regardless of whether you are in front or behind the phone the audio is equally good. They can easily be touted as the best speakers on a smartphone.
Notwithstanding these nice features, the Razer phone is not a revolutionary phone of 2017. It per se has quite a handful of negatives.
The physical form Razer phone is 8mm thick and boxy without any curved edges. While some people appreciate this design, many found it to be clunky. It is also not very comfortable to hold it vertically. At 197g, it’s also one of the heavier handsets in the market.
The Razer phone uses dual 12MP rear cameras – a telephoto f/2.4 lens and a wide-angle f/1.7 offering. On the front, there is an 8MP camera. They take pretty mediocre photos with average HDR with exposure inconsistency. The camera UI is bare-bones without any photo filters and modes.
Speaker grills has been found to collect dust easily and the volume buttons of the side are very poorly placed and of bad size. The fingerprint reader works reliably albeit quite slowly.
If you looking to play games on the phone with a headphone, you are going to be disappointed. The Razer phone does not come with a headphone jack, although Razor includes an audio adapter with a built-in 24-bit DAC with Dolby Atmos support in box.
Another thing worth pointing out is that even though Razer’s Game Booster app allows you to adjust the frame rate for each game and the 120Hz variable refresh rate panel offers smooth user experience, many apps and games are not optimized to utilize the 120Hz high frame rate. Furthermore, the games that can fully utilized this technology are not easy to find on the Play store.
The Razer Phone has some big-name games going for it like Shadowgun Legends, Final Fantasy 15, Tekken and Arena of Valor, but only the latter is available now. The others are slated to release next year.