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Historically, gaming-focused smartphones and tablets that run Android haven't sold well. Nvidia took a serious shot at creating a gaming market for Tegra-powered devices, and even went and so far as to help with game-specific optimizations on multiple titles. But it's historically been the case gamers care less about whether SSAO is implemented in a tiny smartphone screen, and more about whether they can play Angry Birds, Flappy Bird, or Minecraft. It'due south been years since nosotros've seen a visitor try to launch a smartphone specifically aimed at gaming, but that's what Razer has done.

Razer-Phone-3

The Razer Phone has a number of interesting features, including a 120Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM, a five.7-inch IGZO display (2560×1440), Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, dual 12-megapixel cameras on the back with one interim as a telephoto lens, and support for Dolby Atmos and THX Audio. It too has no headphone jack and enormous bezels, though the speaker quality is reportedly excellent.

Power is via a 4,000 mAh battery, though we really need to know what kind of power consumption drives the device before evaluating battery chapters. Tests of PC monitors have shown that higher refrsh rates tin can draw more power (PCPerspective found an Asus ROG Swift PG279Q drew 22.9W at 60Hz and 25.6W at 120Hz, a gain of 1.12x). 8GB of RAM will too describe slightly more power than a smaller RAM loadout. This is not to say that the Razer Telephone will automatically accept poor battery life, only to illustrate that there are some factors in play that could pull a iv,000 mAh battery downwardly to Earth.

Razer-Phone-1

All of this said, the phone is essentially a NextBit Robin with updated internals, a mandatory sound dongle, and a focus on an uncertain marketplace. Gamers oasis't bought loftier-finish peripherals in tablets or smartphones for these capabilities. Yous aren't going to find the difference between a 60Hz and a 120Hz refresh rate when staring at the Android lock screen, and 8GB of RAM isn't going to make Google Hangouts run more quickly.

Razer is arguing its "Ultramotion" engineering is similar to Thousand-Sync and allows the phone'southward frame rate to link to the GPU. Only that highlights another oddity–technologies like One thousand-Sync and FreeSync don't typically engage above a certain refresh rate because the advantages of both shrink the college the native frame charge per unit. You can however run across G-Sync above 60fps, merely the technology shines at low frame rates, when the gap between frames is longer and the stutter from erratic frame commitment is most pronounced.

All of this hints at the essential problem with the Razer Phone–it's congenital by a visitor with no previous experience in smartphone pattern in a marketplace inundated with choice. Samsung and Apple dominate, just the Essential Telephone, LG V30, HTC U11, and OnePlus 5 are all valid alternatives with their ain client bases. Razer has congenital some genuinely proficient gaming laptops, simply the smartphone market place is harder to break into, especially given how competitive the space is already. The Razer Phone costs $700 and ships November 17th.