Razer Leans into the Gaming with their Gaming Phone

Razer acquired Nextbit about a year ago and now we get to check out their first official smartphone. Now, Razer doesn’t know a whole lot about making phones. They make gaming tech, not handsets. There are two possible solutions to this. One is to learn how to make a good, dedicated smartphone, though there’s already so much good smartphone tech out there that you’re putting yourself at a serious disadvantage. The other solution is to lean into what you’re good at and make a mobile gaming device that just so happens to be a pretty decent smartphone.

The Razer Phone has a 5.7-inch 1440p screen, 8GB RAM, a Snapdragon 835 processor, a 4,000mAh battery, dual 12-megapixel camera system, 64GB of expandable storage, and a variable refresh rate. It lacks a headphone jack, but comes with a THX-certified audio dongle that gives you 24-bit “audiophile-quality” sound. The sound also comes out of two pretty big stereo speakers that double as places to hold the phone while gaming.

The most impressive bit is the Sharp IGZO panel with variable refresh rate. The frame rate maxes out at 120Hz, but slows down when the higher rate isn’t necessary, preserving battery life. It’s the sort of feature that should become standard, hopefully in the not-so-distant future.

The Razer Phone will cost $700, £700, and €750, in the US, UK, and Europe, respectively. It will available through Amazon and of course Razer’s own online store. Online reservations open today. I’ve attached two hands-on videos from MKBHD and The Verge’s Dan Seifert. Be sure to check them both out and read Vlad Savov’s impressions to get a few different takes on the device. It will be very interesting to see how the phone fares when it goes up against the other high-end phones out there. That competition is fierce.