Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Razer Phone Review: The Real Deal!”.
Hey what is up guys mkbhd here – and this is that razer phone, so this thing kind of came out of nowhere. It was born from that razer acquisition of next bit a couple months ago. It happened, didn’t really expect much from it and then boom. Suddenly this new phone – and it’s impressed me a lot – i got ta, say now.
If you caught that first impressions video, i was very positive about it back then i’ve been using it since then, and i got ta tell you it’s been pretty damn good. A lot of the things i originally was impressed with, i still like a lot: the build quality, the industrial design choices and just overall how unique it is. I actually love it now.
Razer is a gaming company and they say this is a phone built for gaming, but when you build for gaming, a lot of things end up also being great as a result, so on the outside. This thing might as well be the opposite of the iphone 10, where all these modern phones now are shooting for this sleek curvy modern pebble, look, razer phone is more of the boxy squared off brick, and i kind of dig it there’s. Only one color and razer told me it’s the same matte black, that they use on their laptops, and that makes sense here – and it’s been surprisingly good at not catching fingerprints. As you can see, we all know matte black can catch a lot of them.
So that was a pleasant surprise. The one thing about the back is this logo. I wish it wasn’t in this little cutout. It might be laser etched, but because they put it in the cutout, it feels like it’s like this sticker that i could accidentally scrape off. If i’m not too careful, it feels cheaper. I wish they just put the laser etching right on the outside of the metal.
Everything else about the outside of this phone, though, is prime i’m telling you huge, front-facing speakers, quad hd, ips, display clean lines everywhere, obviously well hidden antenna lines, and at this point no other phone looks like it next bit robin. Obviously, you can’t really get any more, but that was smaller and way more flimsy and plastic. This is that all metal beast, but the buttons are terrible, though i wish they ditched those buttons from the robin, but you still have these tiny but, more importantly, really mushy buttons. I’Ve been trying to give them a chance, since i first got them, but i’m really not a fan the power button, also being the fingerprint reader.
You know that’s cool with the placement. The combo makes sense for unlocking your phone without thinking about it, but it’s not very tactile or clicky so stuff like double tapping to open the camera feels mushy, so i just stopped doing it taking a screenshot, etc. I just don’t enjoy pressing these buttons and the volume buttons are just lame. I wish they were bigger, clickier, just a lot better good thing.
You don’t have to press those buttons very often, though, because we’re going to be spending all your time is that display that 5.7 inch quad hd, 120 hertz ips display. I am so glad they did this, i’m so glad somebody finally decided to do this ever since we saw the pro motion displays and the new ipads, the high refresh rate i’ve been thinking about it on phones, i thought maybe the new iphone 10 might have it. It didn’t obviously – and obviously these high refresh rate displays, aren’t new, but it’s just something different about it being at the touch of your finger. That’S what makes a difference.
Razer says they did this for gaming, and i get that gamers are obsessed with frame rates and games always feel more immersive at higher frame rates. But this is a 120 hertz display also through scrolling through the ui and messing with android and with your apps multitasking, etc. So it’s all twice as smooth as any other android phone ever has been. It actually makes me not mind scrolling as much like i was cool with spreading out my shortcuts across more home screens and leaving stuff in dumb out of the way places, because i didn’t mind scrolling to them, because it was so smooth.
Long lists are actually fun. On this phone it sounds weird, it’s kind of hard to explain and it’s impossible to even show in this article on youtube, but you got ta, see it in person or trust me on this one, and the actual display panel itself is pretty good. Looking as well. Despite not being oled, which doesn’t exist at 120 hertz at this time it has some solid color and contrast.
Some have said it doesn’t get bright enough. I disagree. It gets bright enough for me to read outside it’s just that, there’s not a huge range of brightness.
So it doesn’t feel like you have much to play with when you try to turn it up and also auto. Brightness is a bit wonky and inconsistent, but that can be fixed with software pretty easily and speaking of software, the razer phone runs pretty close to stock android. Now, right now it is on top of android 7.1.1 fingers crossed it’ll, be on 8.0 oreo sooner than later. Hopefully, by the beginning of next year, but it is pretty clean and it essentially takes the oneplus approach of just adding a couple features here and there where it’s useful and the phone is already a great performer with the snapdragon 835 and the fully ridiculous 8 gigs Of ram and gliding through your settings, you can see, there’s not a whole ton of extra stuff. There’S some display settings to cap the max adaptable frame rate, some management of the expandable storage and there’s a game booster, and while i didn’t find, i needed to use it to get great performance, i did find the do not disturb, while gaming mode pretty useful that Just straight up stops any and all notifications from getting through and interrupting, while you’re in a full screen gaming session nice, but basically the biggest customization that came on this phone came from their decision to use nova launcher.
Prime, as the stock launcher out, the box, which is awesome, nova, has a ton of customization and plenty of android users know that already. I think that was a great move. So then, on top of all that, if all that didn’t have you convinced, razer phone also happens to have the best speakers ever in any phone that i’ve ever heard. So, there’s that these are separate, stereo, front-facing speakers, independently amplified and tuned specifically to blow your mind now.
These are great. Basically, they are so loud. I stopped connecting to my google home at home to use as a speaker. I just toss the phone on a table wherever i’m at in the middle of a room, and that is the personal jukebox. Instead of the google home, it’s kind of amazing, also pro tip the alarm clock volume in the settings on this phone is all the way maxed out by default uh. So if you don’t adjust that, then the first day you wake up after buying the razer phone, you will be absolutely shook. My decision, okay, battery life uh turns out. It’S also amazing.
I mean, i guess we shouldn’t be surprised by a phone with a 4 000 milliamp hour battery and near stock android, but it’s true. This thing killed it. I originally thought when i got this, that they built the lower frame rate caps under 120 hertz to save on battery. I think they kind of knew that 120 hertz that would kind of kill the battery.
They set it by default to 90 hertz. But this thing has had the longest battery life of any phone. I’Ve used this year at 120 hertz. I set it to 120 hertz when i got it and haven’t even tried the other modes, because i’ve had such great battery life. The last couple days, i’ve had five five and a half and six hours of screen on time with extra battery at the end of the day to go so i’m not really concerned, and i haven’t even bothered trying the lower frame rate caps because i don’t think I’Ll need them all right, so this one has a lot going for it. So i think at this point it’s time to talk about the one thing: that’ll, probably let you down about this phone, and that is the cameras this uh this. This camera isn’t good and i i kind of had a feeling going in. I mean it’s not a big focus of this phone anyway, you know you’re, building you’re building something for gamers. Does a gamer really even need a camera at all? Not really so you know they threw in your typical dual cameras that you kind of are required to have as a 2017 flagship phone, but don’t expect this to do anything above the bare minimum of just capturing a subject. If you really want a more detailed explanation, white balance was pretty inconsistent and i constantly saw color casts, which is unusual. Uh dynamic range was just poor, just weak af exposure was hit or miss depending on. If hdr wanted to kick in or not uh. Taking a picture, and actually focusing itself was also pretty slow and everything every photo and video you take is just soft soft, the front facing camera same thing. Clearly, i don’t have a lot of good things to say about this camera, but uh you’re not buying it. For the camera, let’s just put it that way now it could always change and miraculously get a software update. That brings it from a d plus to a c plus. That is acceptable. Maybe, but i doubt it honestly, this is an actual deal breaker for me and it’s the only reason i can’t keep using it as my daily driver and while we’re at it uh no headphone jack and it’s 2017. So i get it. That’S been the trend, but i think razer kind of miss out on an opportunity to be another one of those phones and manufacturers that listens to the enthusiast and gives them what they want right now.
I think that go-to enthusiast phone is the oneplus 5 or the oneplus 5t, and that’s because oneplus listens to their fans and they know that they want to keep the headphone jack around. I think that’s a missed opportunity for razer. I think they could have easily kept the headphone jack around on this phone and not have had a problem and been again one of those enthusiast type phones, also the vibration motor in this phone trash straight trash. I’M gon na call myself, so you can hear this.
It sounds broken like it’s, but it sounded that way out the box since day one so that is the razer phone. I got ta say it’s a really strong, all-around gaming, handheld, wrapped in a metal jacket, plus the sim card that turned it into a smartphone, but really the only reason i can’t keep using this phone, as my daily driver is because the camera is that bad and The pixel 2’s camera is that much better, but i just don’t want to leave 120 hertz. This really is the definition of a deal breaker and i know a lot of people throw that term around a lot. You know. Oh, this phone isn’t water resistant. That’S a deal breaker to me, but like is it really, though, like unless you’re constantly dunking your phone or constantly walking around with the threat of mist or water, you’ll, probably be fine? Without that water resistance or like you know it doesn’t have wireless charging? That’S a deal breaker no headphone jack deal breaker.
There are annoyances for a lot of people, but this camera is an actual deal breaker. For me to the point where i literally can’t keep using this phone, so i won’t be i’ll, be switching back to the pixel. Despite that, though, the rest of this package is the real deal and i’m super impressed with this being their first try how well considered and well executed.
This actually is, and i can’t wait to see more 120 hertz displays coming up in phones, even if i have to wait till the next razer phone to see it. So that’s been it thanks for watching talk to you guys, the next one peace .