Razer Phone review By Android Central

For, most of us, the term gaming phone probably conjures up memories of things like the Nokia engage and Sony Xperia Play. For all the hype that preceded those gadgets. They were spectacular, commercial flops mainly because they pushed gimmicky gaming features above just being a good phone. Now PC gaming brand Racer is hoping to succeed where Sony, Nokia and others have failed. Their new phone built with the town required from the next bit last year, aims to be game eccentric, but not to a fault. The idea was to build the phone, not just for playing games, but one with a hardware and features that gamers want sounds promising, but can the racer phone avoid the pitfalls of all the other failed gaming phones? It's time to find out in the Android central review, you could call the racer phones, hardware and a quiet taste.

It certainly goes against the grain of super tall super thin bezel, us phones, we've been seeing this year. Your eyes are immediately drawn to these giant stereo speakers on the front which yes, I'll, ludicrously loud and a fairly bold design feature as well elsewhere. The blocky aesthetic of the next bit robin has been transformed into a sheer aluminum unibody making for a chassis. That's simple, angular and shares plenty of DNA with raises gaming laptops, it's a serious piece of hardware, but its nowhere near the visual aneurysm that we usually witness when companies try to pander to gamers. So the razor phone is big, and it's heavy and one handing.

It is more than a little awkward there's branding around the back in terms of a giant Racer logo, but even that is pretty subdued and tastefully done. There's no mistaking it for any other phone on the planet. Like the Robin, the razor phone uses a recessed power button on the side with a built-in fingerprint scanner. I've heard others complain about this, but I've had no problems using it with either hand once you get used to it. Muscle memory quickly kicks in.

It is worth touching on the coating of that metal. For a second, though, the soft touch finish feels great, but in my experience it's been incredibly scratch prone, and it's scratched more visibly than many glass phones I've used after just a week or so, which is not great anyway. The design certainly isn't for everyone, but that's really fine. A niche product like this, so I, actually like it quite a lot of being a phone for gamers. Naturally, the razor phone includes the most powerful hardware available in any Android phone at the time of launch the top-end Snapdragon 835 chip from Qualcomm, eight gigs of ram 64, gigs of storage, plus micros expansion and a huge 4000 William hour battery and that's ion stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary.

What makes the razor phone unique is its display, the 5.7-inch quad HD LCD can run it up to 120 Hertz, pushing more frames than any other Android phone for smoother gaming and a more fluid experience in general. Ideally, you get double the 60 frames per second, that most Android phones max out at the defaults, actually 90 Hertz, but you can crank it all the way up to 120. If you like superficially, this looks like a decent panel with policing, colors and decent viewing angles, use it indoors to play a game or watch a movie, and you'll have a great time, but between a highly reflective screen and what seems like a lower than average brightness daylight visibility is just flat-out disappointing for a phone, that's expensive. It's a couple of years out of step with the competition in this area. It's not quite LG g5 bad, but it's far from ideal in bright outdoor conditions and I.

Don't need to explain why subpar daylight visibility is bad and, what's supposed to be both a premium smartphone and a portable gaming device thought it's worth, though. The extra smoothness that this high refresh rate offers is kind of revolutionary I'm. Sure it's something we'll see more phones in the coming year. You really can see the difference even bumping up to the default 90 Hertz, most Android apps will just look and perform more smoothly on the razor phone super responsive panel. However, there's a big hurdle to be overcome, ironically, in terms of game support.

The titles pre-loaded on the phone by Racer, like Titan for assault and Gear club, worked really well up to 120 fps, but there are still big gaps elsewhere and when you step down to 60 or even 30 FPS in games like Need for Speed No Limits, it's really noticeable Racer is working to grow compatibility among Android games, but 120 Hertz support isn't anywhere near Universal. Just yet another bump at the road is the lack of a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. As I said, the built-in speakers are excellent, loud bass, II and clear. Almost too loud at times, things like notification sounds, but for wired, audio you'll need to keep hold of racers proprietary THX certified dongle, which, like all dongles, is easy to lose in a bag or a pocket. It's basically bad is what I'm saying so.

The software like I, said absolutely flies on the razor phone in part, thanks to the top-notch internals razors performance tuning and the hundred twenty Hertz display it's running Android 7.1.1 so disappointing, not to see 8.0 out of the box race. I said it would have been impossible to ship android Oreo waltz also optimizing. The OS for this new display the basic look and feel is stock, android, plus a bunch of green accents. There's theming support and a whole theme store to choose icons and stuff from if that's your thing and speaking of customization, the stock launcher for this phone is actually nova launcher. Specifically, a special version of Nova Launcher prime created for this phone with Google feet.

Support a standard. Nova is fast, a joy to use and highly customizable and just a great fit for this phone in general Racer software customization is pretty light on the whole. Besides that splash of green paint, the game booster app, is one important addition, though, unless you prioritize battery life or performance or disable notifications in games. If you don't want emails and internet messages getting in the way of your fun, and this shouldn't come as any surprise, given the enormous battery this phone's packing, but the razor phone is, in my experience, good for at least a day and a half of use per charge. Sure if your gaming constantly you'll be able to knock that down to under a day, but in any case you're.

Looking at really reliable battery life from this phone, whatever you're doing, even with that faster screen and for faster refills, the razor phone is the first and currently only device to use the new Qualcomm quick charge for plus standard, which is great to see. So what's next, oh right, cameras, there's no delicate way to say this. So I'll just say it. The cameras on this phone are a hot mess, embarrassingly bad for a $700 phone and while they're probably improvements that can be made in software right now. Photography on the razor phone is just inexcusable.

The Raoul 12 megapixel sensors around the back behind a regular F 1.75 lens and a telephoto F 2.6 lens no optical stabilization, but that's not necessarily a deal-breaker, but certainly is the deal-breaker, though, is image. Quality photos are consistently dark, flat and lifeless becoming increasingly noisy in low-light conditions compared to the competition I call it a mid-range camera experience. But, to be honest, even that is being generous. The camera app itself is a joke. There are no shooting modes at all, literally none besides an HDR toggle and no way to quickly zoom in to a telephoto.

If you need to pinch to zoom, which is incredibly awkward on a phone of this size, and you're just Sol completely. If you want to take panoramas or manually adjust settings, those features are supported. It's also buggy slow, consistently, fails to focus, and just is not what should be shipping on a phone well on any phone really in 2017 and that pretty much sums up the camera. For me, this is about the worst photographic experience. I've had in a $700 phone, admittedly, I haven't used the essential phone, but in any case it's disappointing that such a massive area of the modern smartphone has been overlooked like this.

So what does that mean for the razor phone overall? Well, the camera obviously is a big miss and, for me, probably the biggest reason not to buy this phone. It'll probably get better with the time, but whatever is shipping this month and right now, the camera is, like I, said a hot mess. It's also weird to see an enthusiastic phone missing, important enthusiast features like a headphone jack and an up-to-date OS, and that's aside from the table stakes things like water resistance and a screen that looks great outdoors as well as indoors. These are things that just about every other $700 phone worth buying does that the razor phone does not this device. Overall is a nice little portable gaming, / entertainment gadget, but it does that at the cost of being a great phone which right now, it's really not.

The main reason for that is the camera, but it's also not helped by those other bizarre feature. Emissions I, don't think the razor phone has fallen into the same trap as the engage of the Xperia Play, though the idea isn't fundamentally flawed, but the feature set is incomplete and the execution, particularly the camera, isn't quite there. Yet that's the core of a great product here, Fraser keeps working at it and I really hope they do. Until then, the razor phone is a quirky little device with probably quite a limited audience. Unless you absolutely must experience Android games and 120 Hertz display I'd recommend you wait and see what the first two rounds of updates do for the phone's camera before you splash your cache.

That's it for now check out our written review on android central. com and be sure to subscribe. So you don't miss the latest android reviews and opinions as they land. Thanks for watching, and I'll, see you next time.

Source : Android Central