The Razer Phone 2 has only recently been released in Malaysia, and we feel it’s a little too late to the party. With how fast technology keeps moves, especially in the smartphone market, higher end phones really need something that helps them stand out in such a competitive market. While the Razer Phone 2 is a good gaming phone, we feel that it’s priced itself out of the market with its RRP of RM3,449.

 

Verdict

Pros

• Great front facing speakers
• Buttery-smooth 120Hz screen
• Good battery life

Cons

• Larger Screen bezels
• Heavy squared design (doesn’t feel ergonomic but is debatable)
• No 3.5mm headphone jack or USB-C headphones

Specs

• 5.7-inch,120Hz IPS LCD, QHD (1440 x 2560), 16:9 screen
• Snapdragon 845 CPU(4×2.8GHz & 4×1.7GHz)/Adreno 630 GPU
• 8GB RAM
• 64GB storage (up to 512GB via dedicated microSD slot)
• 4000mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0+, fast wireless Qi charging
• 12-megapixel f.1.8 (wide) with OIS and 12-megapixel f2.6 telephoto 2x optical zoom
• IP67 dust/water resistant (up to 1 meter for 30 mins)
• Chroma RGB Logo on back

 

Gaming smartphones are starting to make their entrance in the mobile market, and as consumers we’re always happy to see more competition. The imaginatively named Razer Phone 2 is a solid smartphone for gaming.

For all the gamers, the Razer Phone 2 comes with a one of the best screens in the market. Equipped with a 120Hz screen, you get a buttery-smooth experience – but the 16:9 ratio and large bezels around the screen make the phone feel cramped. We should also mention that the Razer Phone 2 uses a LCD screen, so the viewing angles aren’t as good when watching stuff with friends or a partner.

The only other key feature that separates this phone from many others are the great dual front facing speakers. These are some of the best front-facing speakers money can buy on a smartphone for entertainment purposes. 

Despite being marketed as a high-end gaming phone, the internal hardware is not particularly amazing, but still top of the line for 2018 mobile chipsets. This works fine with the 4,000mAh battery which will last you throughout the day, or about 7-8 hours of Youtube/Netflix binging. With fast charging enabled on the device, you can juice the Razer Phone 2 from 9% to 80% in 1 hour and 15% to 100% in two hours with the included braided USB-C cable.

Like other gaming phones on the market, don’t expect to be taking great photos or videos – but at least it can capture videos in 4K. 

Design-wise, the Razer Phone 2 is not as bold or frilly as the Asus ROG Phone, as Razer’s designers kept the similar blocky design of the first Razer Phone. This blocky design feels uncomfortable and unergonomic for us, especially when playing games. The Razer Phone 2 is one of the heaviest phones on the market, and has somewhat sharp corners that dug into our palms. With its bulky size, it’s also harder to get a comfortable grip for one handed operation – which was especially true for our colleagues with smaller hands. You might get used to it in the long run, but we didn’t during our review.

Now, coming to the back of the Razer Phone 2, the biggest difference design-wise from the first Razer Phone is the gorilla glass back and Chroma-illuminated RGB logo. The RGB logo is a nice touch, and the glass back allows for wireless charging.

Some other design choices we should mention is that there is no 3.5mm audio jack – and sadly they didn’t include the Razer Hammerhead USB-C headphones either. While you do get a good quality USB-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box at the very least, you won’t be able to charge your phone during power-hungry gaming sessions and use headphones at the same time.

Now coming towards the software and using the phone on a day-to-day basis, the Razer Phone 2 comes with Android Oreo 8.1 and Razer Cortex, which allows you to customize how your phone handles games. With Razer Cortex, you can easily link games in the app and assign specific settings such as antialiasing and clocking speeds to get the most out of your phone. So for one game that you can have settings that don’t care about the graphics and can save on battery, while other more intense competitive games you can put your smartphone in high performance mode with ease.

As for actual performance, the Razer Phone 2 is similar to other Snapdragon 845 phones like the OnePlus 6T, Asus ROG Phone or Samsung Note 9 and will get warm when playing graphically intensive games. However, this warming won’t have any negative impact on gaming performance and doesn’t ever get uncomfortably hot.

Conclusion

The way we see it, the Razer Phone 2 is meant for any combinations of the follow three groups: hardcore mobile gamers, entertainment/movie enthusiasts, and/or Razer fans. It’s a solid phone – but with the new Snapdragon 855 on the horizon we would say to wait for the 2019 flagships phones to come out and see how pricing or new features play out.