Gadgetory

companies have really stepped up their game putting some of the best combinations of specs and features together in this incredibly busy smartphone year but only a few smartphones in 2017 actually went above and beyond in terms of their spec sheets two of them are what we're looking at right now and they're both available in the West a is jaja Vergara what's going on everybody and this is the razor phone versus the 1 + 5 t both phones take very different approaches to design with the razor phone basically resurrecting the aesthetic of the next bit Robin and then putting a coat of razor paint on top the result is a matte black slate with sharp corners and flat sides all around aside from the sheer size of the phone which doesn't really lend itself to the best one-handed usage it's hard not to like the blocky form factor that we don't really see a whole lot of these days but that is where the 1 + 5 t comes in the middle slab that updates the continued design language started in the 1 + 3 smooth metals what you get here but with a smaller and more accessible size than its competitor oneplus continues to put as much as it can including a headphone jack in a phone that is delightfully thin other features like the alert slider return though the fingerprint reader has been moved to the back for a more accessible reach it's kind of funny to see these two phones go head-to-head in terms of design because they're so different the 1 + 5 t feels familiar and now is even more familiar because of the position of the fingerprint reader the razor phone is also familiar because of an old design that we did like from the next bit Robin but aside from the handling the phone is really eye-catching especially because of that Razer logo prominently shown on the back part of the handling experiences due to the screens and the 1 plus 5t rocks an 18 by 9 Full HD AMOLED screen across its entire front 1 + did well to remove the front-facing home button and fingerprint reader and move it to the back effectively making the entire front basically all screen all the time there are a few extra display features that really add to this appeal one feature being the reading mode which allows for an almost Kindle like experience when reading things like websites and even Kindle e-books none of those extra features make it onto the razor phone's IPS quad HD 16 by 9 display but razor was not to be outdone taking inspiration from their laptop screens they put on a ultra motion capable display that provides 120 Hertz refresh rates that are synced up with the GPU what that means is no matter what content you're viewing on this phone it will always be performing in its smoothest and most beautiful fashion it's easy to see the enhancements when this phone is put up against another phone screen and in this comparison the razor phone just feels and looks smoother there are some qualms to the razor phone's display it doesn't get as bright as we feel it should at 100% brightness and its color reproduction is lacking compared to the AMOLED screen of the 1+5 teeth but ultra motion is something that we're hoping to see in more phones moving forward and we think razor may have started a trend here so up until this point you have some very different features between these two devices but once you get down to the spec sheet and you get underneath the surface these phones show that they are the most powerful ones in the game right now you have the Snapdragon 835 and eight gigabytes of RAM on both of these devices and it is really only the storage that is different between the two because the razor phone rocking 64 gigabytes of on-board storage can use a micro SD card this is contrary to the 1 plus 5 T which can come in a 128 gigabyte configuration if you pay a little bit of extra money so there really isn't a lack of power or performance in either of these devices as a matter of fact the razor phone actually gives you the power to dial it down a little bit in the game booster you can change the clock speed of the processor and even show what the frame rate will be when you're playing particular games that way you can get more battery life out of the razor phone then if you are just going at a full clip all the time and razor also tried really hard in the hardware front when it comes to sound sound is a bit of a give-and-take between these two phones however as the 1 + 5 t does keep a headphone jack while the razor phone puts it in an adapter but that adapter has a 24 bit DAC installed that makes good headphones sound awesome and then the front-facing speakers of the razor phone are heads and shoulders better than the one found on the 1 + 5 t they get incredibly loud are certified by dolby atmos and it actually can replace small bluetooth speakers that you might already have by having the razor phone you can actually leave that Bluetooth speaker behind so finally we can talk about cameras and the razor phone has been well-documented to have some issues when it comes to its cameras you have dual 12 megapixel cameras here on the rear where one of them is a telephoto lens at F 2.6 and the regular lens is at F 1.8 now the razor phone did get an update since our review and it mainly added an indicator to show which lens you are using as far as picture quality goes which we'll get to in a second there have been a few improvements but without adding actual features to the software Suites it still pales in comparison to what is provided in the 1 plus 5t the 1 plus 5t went a different route it still has dual cameras on the back but one is a 16 megapixel lens and the other is 20 megapixels and together they are supposed to provide sharp photos and good low-light performance one feather in the cap of the 1 + 5 T is at 16 megapixel front-facing camera which is a lot more powerful than the one found on the razor phone it also provides face on lock which is a new method of unlocking the phone by which you can just turn on the device by pressing the power button and if it recognizes your face in any of its frame then it will unlock immediately the razor phone unfortunately does not have any of these modes or capabilities and as far as the update that recently came out for it shows picture quality has only gotten a slight boost just like in our review the camera continues to be a bit slow especially with shutter lag during HDR shooting which is really annoying never mind the fact that the camera tends to overexpose when HDR's off which means you have to fiddle with the exposure compensation pretty often but when you're shooting in HDR the shutter has to be open for so long to take all of the photos for the high dynamic range photo that you have to be as steady as possible even in good lighting situations that little bit of time and even just a tiny bit of shake could yield a blurry photo this gets immensely worse in low-light situations where the shutter might be open for up to 2 or 3 seconds the razor phone is a first attempt at a camera that still needs a lot of extra baking and hopefully future versions of the razor phone will greatly improve on what we see right now even after the update and finally in software we have a couple of different ways of looking at Android oneplus has really matured oxygen OS into something that actually stands alone oxygen OS has its own flair it has even its own font and it has its shelf which is a different way of putting all of your widgets together so that they don't take up all of the home screens and overall oneplus does well to keep things Spartan but still unique and personal and most importantly smooth but personalization is a high point in the razor phone thanks to their partnership with a well known and very popular third-party launcher Nova Nova Launcher prime is included on the phone which provides a ton of possibilities for customization in the interface icons swipe gestures even icon grid sizes so you can actually change the look of the UI to whatever you want it to be and even have it function in different ways Razer keeps everything else pretty stock just with the splash of Razer green thrown on top so in the end these two powerhouse phones really showed different philosophies in the Android flagship space either you really kill it in one particular niche or you try to provide the best in every manner possible what's so interesting about this comparison is that the 1 + 5 team manages to check so many boxes while still undercutting its competition by about a hundred dollars the Razer phone is an exceptional device don't get us wrong and it looks a different operates beautifully through its ultra motion display and sounds better than most thanks to the Dolby Atmos enhancements in both the speakers and the deck enabled headphone jack adapter now the camera is the deepest point of contention when it comes to the Razer phone and even though Razer plans on putting so many updates out there in order for the experience to get better unfortunately the first attempt doesn't seem to have done much so we'll see what happens more in the future but until then if camera is something you really want this phone simply does not hold a candle to the 1 + 5 t and plenty of the other competition does the camera experience actually means so much to you that it would be the deal breaker on the Razer phone or is ultra motion that enticing and is the media consumption experience something you would really want and thus you might want to go for the Razer phone let us know what you would pick in the comments below and remember to stay tuned to android authority as we are headed to CES in just a couple of weeks stay tuned to this channel for all of that coverage and even more because we are of course your source for all things Android