Gadgetory

hey guys this is Austin the razor phone 2 is official and it takes everything that was good about the original and brings it up a notch was the added benefit of not having a notch the original razor phone was a polarizing device what it did well it did really well what didn't work though was basically a deal-breaker the highlight last year was the 5.7 inch 1440p XO display now what made this so good for gaming wasn't just the pure size of the display or the quality but the frame rate as opposed to basically every other smartphone out there which is capped at 60 frames per second the razor phone can go all the way up to 120 fps and that continues with the razor phone to the 120 Hertz panel carries over this year but with some key improvements most notably brightness so the last year's panel actually was a good solid accurate display but it just didn't get all that bright thankfully that is something that has been improved with the razor phone - with up to 50% more brightness now mind you when we were able to try it on a brief hands-on the difference wasn't massive but it is definitely going to be at least somewhat brighter than last year the fluidity is just as impressive as it was last year with a full 120 Hertz refresh rate everything is buttery smooth not just games I mean the UI itself is one of the most noticeable things we're doing something simple like scrolling through a web page or some email now the closest competitor is actually the iPad pros with pro motion this is a very similar feeling with that 120 Hertz refresh rate and it's really some things that you kind of have to see to really understand what's kind of interesting is that the game support actually is a little bit more hit and miss so on the Android side a lot of titles only hit around 30 frames per second much less 60 or even 120 but a fair few games are becoming optimized for that higher refresh rate either with running with unlocked frame rates or with running with some kind of higher mode that will at least target something like 90 FPS when it does support it it makes a big difference but the issue is is that well a lot of games don't even come close but I guess the hardware is there my actual favorite feature though are the speakers now with a razor phone one what you got were two incredibly loud incredibly detailed speakers and that carries over to the razor phone too but with some key upgrades unlike most other phones with dual speakers such as the iPhone which takes advantage of the earpiece as well as the bottom firing speaker and don't get me wrong that does sound good but with having to huge proper speakers aimed directly at your face it makes a big difference it's really straightforward the razor phone has the best speakers on any smartphone period now not only are they rich and detailed but a big part of it is the stereo separation now it is further helped by the fact that it does have Dolby 5.1 surround support which is weird because there are two speakers but you move past that what you're kidding is something that does give you some real presence music and video sound good but it's especially noticeable in games so specifically with hub G you can really tell where people are around you purely using the speakers which is really impressive the only downside to the whole audio setup is that we still don't have a headphone jack which would be nice on the ultimate gaming phone but I mean at least there's a good dongle in the Box the screen speakers were really the strong suit is the original RAZR phone it's nice to see they've been at least somewhat enhanced for this new version and that's going to definitely be a trend it is a very similar phone of the original RAZR phone just improved in some not so subtle ways see the problem with the og was that while it was a good gaming phone it really wasn't good for much beyond that there was no water resistance no wireless charging the screen was a little bit dim in daylight and the biggest issue was that the camera was straight-up abysmal no credit where credit's due they have improved the camera quite a bit with firmware updates but there's only so much you can do with the hardware that's included which is where the razor phone 2 comes in thankfully they've stepped up the game with new Sony sensors improved optics for both the standard as well as telephoto cameras and a fully rewritten software stack from the ground up to better take advantage of photos that are not crunchy and terrible the phone I tried wasn't running final software so I'm not able to share the images that I took on it but it was a big improvement over the original razor phone no no it probably won't compete with the iPhones and the pixels and the galaxies of the world but at the very least it should be a usable camera which is very nice in your expensive flagship gaming phone and that is a big deal when you're spending this kind of money you should expect no compromises so one of the additions this year is full IP 67 water resistance now that's actually kind of impressive considering just how huge those speakers are it's not easy to waterproof something like that there's also a new glass back which supports wireless charging it up to 15 watts speaking of the glass back while the overall dimensions of the phoner very similar there is a revolutionary new feature this year an RGB chroma Razer logo yes it actually isn't as bad as it might seem so you can of course turn it fully off and the colors are not only going to be full RGB but fairly subtle it kind of looks more like a colored logo than a bright flashy damer logo gamer logo gamer unlike other gaming phones the razer phones design is fairly subdued now sure it doesn't have the same sort of flash as the ROG phone but a lot of people myself included probably would prefer something that's just a little bit more subtle the rest of the specs are good but nothing all that crazy you've got the snapdragon 845 paired with 8 gigabytes of RAM 64 gigs of storage expandable via microSD as well as a big 4 thousand milliamp power battery the only thing that's really remarkable is the vapor chamber cooling unlike a lot of other water-cooled smartphones which have a tiny little heat pipe razor instead opted to go for a nearly full sized vapor chamber which goes directly on top of the processor now how much of a difference this makes is remain to be seen but it does make a big difference when it comes to gaming for long sessions when you don't want to throttle down to like half your normal clock speed like some other smartphones the razor phone really did kick off the gaming phone trend something I don't think is going anywhere anytime soon but the real question as it was last year is do you actually need a gaming phone take a look at the PC space for example there's a very clear need for gaming focused hardware sure you can play some games on ultrabooks but it's not going to be anywhere near the experience of playing something with proper CPU especially proper dedicated graphics on the mobile side though that need is there but the actual hardware really hasn't caught up so when you consider that the $800 Razer phone has the same spec as a 400 hour poco phone sure the razor phone might not throttle quite as much but the overall experience not counting the screen the speaker's the actual performance itself isn't going to be massively different all that being said the razor phone one had a ton of potential but some major drawbacks whereas the razor phone 2 can be really summed up very simply it is a refinement of that original design and it really is what the razor phone one should have been that $800 price though it means that this is squarely up against the high-end flagship of the world now the main question for me is going to be the camera I really don't think it's going to match up to the very very high-end stuff like the pixels and the galaxies but as long as it is decent enough I think that'll be good enough for most people but the difference between good enough and great is a huge one in this space right now the real elephant in the room right now is the ROG phone now on paper it does have some superior specs in some ways it does have the headphone jack some additional accessories and that 90 Hertz OLED display so I would like to think that the Razr phone ROG would be a good head-to-head comparison but until the ROG phone comes out it's really hard to nail that down there's no doubt that the razor phone too is a big step forward with that high refresh rate display the loud speakers and the solid performance it should be a real winner if you're into gaming I'm really curious what do you guys think about the concept of a gaming phone and is it really worth the extra money