Gadgetory

hey how's it gone Dave TD here today's video is about gaming phones and whether or not you should get one because every company's approach to their gaming foam is a little bit different and in front of me are three gaming phones the razor phone - the ROG phone from Asus as well as shammies black shark - all three of these phones came out in the fall of this year they're all kind of like the new gaming phone in town if you're interested in getting a gaming phone one of these is probably on your radar there are other companies lesser-known companies that make gaming phones but if you're gonna pick one I recommend looking at one of these three so we're gonna go through these phones and talk about things I like about them things I don't like about them as well as whether or not you should get a gaming phone at all so first up the specs on these phones are different but the SOC is the same they're all running the snapdragon 845 so powerful hardware with big screens but they're also heavy and not super cheap the cheapest one here is one from Xiaomi but it's still gonna be like 550 600 dollars now the thing that separates the premium phones here are their screens they're running faster screens and that was originally the real differentiating factor for a gaming phone like originally last year when gaming phones came out they were the high refresh screens and the benefit of a high refresh screen is actually quite difficult to convey in a video especially one being shot at 24 frames per second if you see them in real life they look very smooth and when he's picked up a razor phone and played with that 120 Hertz screen notices it right away if you're wandering the 120 Hertz screen on the razor phone does look a bit smoother than the 90 Hertz on the ACS phone but not every game supports a high refresh screen there's a lot of popular games out there that are capped at 60 or even 30 frames per second the brightest screen of this bunch is the asus rog phone it's an AMOLED display looks really clean really bright and it's noticeably brighter than the screen on the razor phone - now this is an improved screen last year the razor phone one had a notice lead em screen it's brighter this year but it's still not as bright as I'd want it to be the other thing is that the razor phone to screen is once again certified for Netflix HD our thing is it's not as awesome as it may seem Netflix HDR content looks really dim on the razor phone to screen especially if you in a brightly lit environment the visual detail from this HDR mode is better for sure like I can see the details in the bright air is much clearer on the Rays of but the overall image is really dark like you need a really bright screen to take advantage of HDR content that's just the nature of HDR and the razor phone doesn't have a super bright screen the asus screen is brighter and although it's not HDR certified I think most people would prefer the image on that phone over the razor phone even if some of the light detail is blown out or crushed on that phone just because it's a brighter screen to look at the black shark to screen feels more generic to me it's a regular 60 Hertz panel but it still looks good now the design on these phones are all quite different I personally like the design on the ROG phone the best it looks the most unique to me like I like the way that the lines are etched into the glass and the copper accents on the back are nice the razor phone looks more boxy it's got the whole next bit design going on still the glass back definitely gives it a more premium feel and look compared to last year's razor phone but it's still a pretty boxy phone the black shark too looks the most uninspired to me not that it's an ugly phone or anything it's just more generic looking and not as iconic as the other two phones even though these are all gaming phones the only phone with a built-in headphone jack is the ROG phone I'll be honest to me any kind of like gaming device especially a gaming phone should have a headphone jack like a gaming anything should have a headphone jack in 2018 but for whatever reason these two phones the razor phone - and the black shark - both need dongles but that's just the way things are in 2018 in terms of the design ergonomics none of these phones are super comfortable I find that the razor phone is actually the least comfortable of the three in terms of like long-term gameplay the corners of the phone kind of dig into your hand after a while the other two also aren't super amazing like compared to a Nintendo switch or like a Game Boy Advance those things are built for your hands perfectly these are phones right so they have to be thin they're never gonna be super comfortable in your hands I would say that the black shark 2 has the edge over the other two but it's still not amazing ok lighting all three of these phones have light-up logos on the back that you can control through software to change their colors and stuff and we've seen light-up logos on gaming peripherals and laptops and stuff like that they finally made their way into phones and it's something that's actually a little bit different on phones than gaming peripherals so I've said this before in many of my videos lighting on laptops and peripherals and stuff like that you play with it you enjoy it it's fun and it's cool but that novelty wears off pretty quickly for whatever reason on phones I like it a lot more than I thought I would there's something about customizing your phone to showcase a particular color that feels fresh right now in 2018 it makes your phone stick out a little bit differently from all the other phones out there like having a blue logo is something that I personally like it just makes your phone look different and for me because my phone is a very personal object to me it's just nice to be able to have that customizability the razor and the ROG lighting look the best to me feel like the ROG phone has more surface area for that light to kind of shine through so it's like the most prominent the black shark 2 also has lighting on the side so you can make this thing go bonkers but it's almost too much at this point okay so the speakers on all three of these phones are front-facing so there's a reduced chance that you'll be covering the speakers while you're playing games which is a good thing they're all loud but in terms of sound quality I'd say the Asus is the best the Razer phone is a close second and then I guess more distant third is the black shark - all right performance all three of these phones are strong performance with the snapdragon 845 the Asus phone is running supposedly binned chips which means that they're cherry-picking chips that can run at a higher clock speed these are supposed to boost up to two point nine six gigs instead of two point eight and when you run some benchmarks that there's a difference but I don't think it's significant and when you're playing games I really couldn't tell the difference between them they're all very strong performers in mobile games they also have identical battery sizes all four thousand milliamp hours the Black Shark - actually runs through battery life the quickest when I'm playing games I'm not sure if it's a software thing because this is a pre-release version of this phone the camera is just a quick note on them none of these have amazing cameras I would say that the razor phone - is probably the best of the bunch it looks sharpest to me compared to the others here and the low-light is better than the Asus phone compared to pixel devices and iPhones these cameras just aren't nearly as good all right one of the last things I want to talk about are one of the most unique features on the ACS phone it's the air trigger so if you're unfamiliar what they are they have sensors built into the frame of the phone that detect when you press it so basically on a console you have like your l2 r2 l1 r1 buttons and it simulates that on a phone without their Ashley being a button there it's just a sensor built into the frame now the idea of this on paper is awesome when I first heard about it and tested it out in Taiwan I thought was pretty cool but now that I've used this for a while there are limitations to this Knology for one there's a little bit of lag when you press it there's a delay as to when it triggers and if you bind it to something that's really important like shooting for example you don't want there to be a delay it's got to be instant when you've lined something up right you want to have to see it target it trigger and it should shoot right away but that split-second of processing time is annoying you can bind it to other things that are just less crucial and it just gains utility in that sense but for super important actions I wouldn't bind it to the triggers the other thing I've notice is that even at the highest sensitivity it's not as sensitive as I'd like I'd like to be there just graze it and it's trigger but you got to press a little bit you have to be very deliberate with your presses on it and that kind of takes away from the utility again it's not a bad thing to have it's kind of unobtrusive and you can't even tell that there's air triggers on this phone I think software can fix it and make it quite a bit better but right now it's cool but not a game changer another thing is that the vibration motor on the Asus phone is very powerful it's actually one of the strongest motors I've felt on a phone if you're into that whole like haptic feedback life and it'd be great but it's also for games like if there are games out there that take advantage of vibrations then yeah good phone for that there's an accessory that this phone comes with it's like a fan that's designed to keep the temperatures down I've used it quite a bit and I got to be honest it feels like a bit of a gimmick not that it doesn't do anything like when you plug it in the fan does blow out air but it doesn't really seem to make a difference in terms of the performance I've tested it on several benchmarks several stress tests and I'm just getting the same kind of performance with or without the fan so maybe if you're playing for like hours on this device then it would make a difference but for my personal testing didn't make much of a difference the razor phone has an optional wireless charger and I really like this wireless charger so it has lighting which can be obnoxious at night you can turn that off and stuff but it has two positions it's got a flat position we can kind of lie your phone on it flat and it also has a tilted stand mode where you can kind of prop up your phone and watch a show on it while it's charging wirelessly it's pretty cool the black shark - has this included controller which you can clip on to the case and becomes a more ergonomic gaming experience it works through bluetooth it's not like an analogue connection but yeah I actually like this little accessory you can get stuff like this for any phone but the fact that they include in the box is nice so concluding thoughts are these phones really worth your money because these things are not cheap they're definitely a premium just because of the fact that it's a gaming phone I find that the Razr phone is the most well rounded the 120 Hertz screen looks awesome in the UI and certain games can really make you so that screen speakers are rich the RGB lighting is cool and the camera is improved this year compared to last year's phone here's my take on it if you never play a game if we literally never play a single game on this phone it's still a great phone overall I feel like you're just getting a really good user experience with this phone and if you play games it's a bonus the Asus phone feels more it feels more niche to me it's definitely a gamer oriented phone if you don't play games at all then I wouldn't recommend this phone just because there's a bunch of features on this phone and included fan accessory they're obviously geared for gaming performance but if you're a gamer and you can take advantage of those things then this is a good phone as well particularly the screen it's a nice looking screen the black shark foam it's the cheapest of the bunch and if you're North America it might be quite difficult to get this phone but with the included accessory and the way this thing feels in your hand when you're actually playing games it's actually a very good option as well but I would only get one of these if camera performance really doesn't matter to you because for the money that you would spend on either of these phones like the 800 900 or 600 dollars you can get a smart phone with a way better camera so if that matters to you I would opt out from a gaming phone now if you're really in love with that RGB backlighting or the backlit logos I mean let's be honest here these look really cool then you got to go from one of these phones okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs we liked it subs we loved it see you guys next time