Up Your Mobile Game With The New Razer Phone

Gamers being gamers, over time they’ve cultivated a stigma surrounding mobile games, that they aren’t as “real” as games on PC, console, or even dedicated gaming handhelds. As someone who spent five years covering mobile games almost exclusively, I’ll be the first one to tell you the space has some Problems, mostly revolving around free-to-play mechanics (which are now also infecting AAA console games). But it’s foolish to deny the loads of awesome games, from fun casual puzzlers to deep strategy RPGs, you can play on your phone or tablet.

Serious gaming demands serious hardware, and one of our favorite makers of serious gaming hardware is Razer. You may know Razer from its PCs and console gaming peripherals like awesome laptops, headsets, and controllers. But when the company purchased smartphone manufacturer Nextbit earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before Razer expanded into the mobile market. And that time is now. We recently got to check out the upcoming, gamer-friendly, Razer Phone.

Some specs for Razer Phone leaked out not too long ago, but here’s what the device officially packs, including some phone firsts. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor. A whopping 8GB of RAM. 64GB of storage and microSD card support. A custom version of Android Nougat 7.1.1. A 5.72-inch 1440p IGZO LCD screen. 12MP rear cameras and a 8MP front camera. A beefy 4000 mAh QuickCharge battery. And speakers so loud we want to use this phone as our dedicated DropMix machine.

So what does all that mean in practice? Well take for example the screen’s powerful variable refresh. It can go up to 120hz making for some of the smoothest Twitter scrolling I’ve ever experienced, and that’s cool for games too I guess. But the refresh is also smart enough to under throttle itself down to 20hz when the phone is idle to save power. In fact, you can customize loads of aspects, from resolution to frame rate to clock speed, to prioritize battery or performance. It’s like a gaming PC.

The PC comparisons don’t stop there though. For mobile games that support it, which is all games by default unless the developers choose otherwise, they can run with smoother uncapped framerates thanks to the power of Razer Phone. Our demo units even had a frame counter so we could see this in action. Combined with the “Ultramotion” 120hz display, we compared this feature to Nvidia’s G-Sync technology.

The Razer Phone is also just a nice physical product. I’m not a fan of big phones, but the thin black-and-grey rectangle still felt very sleek and fairly comfortable for one-handed casual play. Most of Razer’s product shots also show folks holding the phone sideways and tapping with both thumbs, again treating it like a serious mobile gaming device and maybe even a Nintendo Switch competitor. There will be limited versions of the phone with the trademark green snake Razer logo that’d be nice and visible when held this way. But unfortunately and inexplicably there’s no headphone jack, just USB-C.

So what does it feel like to actually play games on Razer Phone? Pretty good! I played some more portable Prompto in the upcoming Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition, and the experience seemed better than my time playing the game on a tablet at New York Comic Con. Other games Razer is working with include popular MOBA Arena of Valor, shooter Shadowgun Legends, and strategy spin-off Titanfall: Assault. Meanwhile, Pokemon GO already runs with an uncapped frame rate so it should see improvements on Razer Phone right from the start. And truly no phone can deliver a more hardcore Animal Crossing Pocket Camp experience.

My biggest question going into this Razer Phone reveal was who is it for. A “gamer smartphone” sounds like an oxymoron these days considering how much the mobile gaming market favors casual free-to-play money traps. Even if you look at the biggest, most competitive, money-making, eSports-esque mobile games, would they and their audiences really get that much more from an ultra-powerful phone?

But when you look at Razer Phone’s specs and $699 price point, you realize it’s pretty much in line with other high-end Android phones. The smattering of gamer features and Razer name are really about giving the phone a distinct identity in a sea of competitors more than anything else, and if there’s one thing gamers and smartphones enthusiasts both obsess over it’s cultivating personal identity through tech.

Razer Phone launches November 17 but you can pre-order it right now. In America you can pick it up through Amazon or the Razer store while in Europe you can get it thanks to Three. Get Razer Phone over the iPhone X and not only will you up your mobile gaming experience but you’ll get to keep your face, too.