A Closer Look at the Razer Phone's Impressive Features and First Impressions

When it comes to smartphones, one thing that always catches our attention is the display. And when we talk about high-end gaming smartphones, the refresh rate is often a key feature to look out for. The Razer Phone, however, takes this to the next level with its 90Hz refresh rate, which strikes a balance between battery life and super smoothness. However, I decided to bump it up to 120Hz right away, as that's essentially just a max frame rate. But what happens when you're not really using the phone or it's just sitting on an image or on the settings page? The refresh rate drops to a lower frame rate to save battery, and then it picks up immediately again when you start touching it – it's really impressive variable frame rate stuff.

While not every game will take full advantage of this right off the bat, Razer knows gaming pretty well and has connections with big game makers and developers to get popular games optimized for 120Hz. In fact, the rest of the specs are pretty much the holy grail when it comes to gaming. The Snapdragon 835 Adreno 540, eight gigs of RAM, 64 gigs of internal storage, and a massive 4000 milliamp hour battery make this phone a powerhouse.

One aspect that's particularly impressive is the cooling system. Using 120Hz display at full brightness with graphically intensive games at 1440p will burn through battery pretty fast, but having a massive battery helps mitigate this issue. And according to Razer, they've created a heat sink design that uses the entire metal frame of this phone to cool the CPU – it's really cool. I'll leave a benchmark for good measure if you guys are curious about that.

But performance isn't the only thing that matters in a smartphone; software experience also plays a crucial role. The Razer Phone comes with Android 7.1, but they're promising an Android Oreo update first thing next year in quarter one – another advantage to being near stock. Additionally, the cameras on this phone are not expected to be too much of a focus for non-gaming users, as mostly they have nothing to do with gaming right now.

However, I should note that the cameras do come in handy. There's a pair of 12 megapixel cameras on the back, f1.75 on the main camera, and f2.6 on the secondary telephoto lens, along with an 8 megapixel f2.8 wide angle front facing camera – it's not slacking in the numbers department at all. And if you're concerned about packaging, rest assured that Razer has executed it well, with some pretty sweet accessories including braided cables and individually packaged items.

The final word on the Razer Phone is that my impressions right off the bat are pretty positive. It's been really hard to get a new smartphone company off the ground and do things well, but it seems like Razer isn't just another newcomer trying to make an impact – they know what they do well already gaming-wise. This phone could be a really interesting buy for those people who have similar tastes, as all those things that are good for gaming are still good in the real world.

But, of course, the only way to find out is through testing – and I'll be getting to that for the full review. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already to be among the first to see the full review when it comes out.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what is up guys mkbhd here and remember next bit they made that one phone that one time well razer a gaming company bought next bit but hey i guess if red can make a smartphone then pretty much anyone else can too and essentially this has been a really interesting year for those new smartphones and new smartphone companies so it's official this is the razer phone this is a smartphone built entirely around gaming all the hardware decisions all the specs all the design the form factor and features are all made with the idea of making gaming as good as possible but as it turns out a lot of those things also make for pretty great everyday use too first of all the build quality if you've ever seen a razer gaming laptop you've seen the matte black finish with the logo on it this is that same finish no the logo doesn't glow rgb or anything crazy like that but i kind of like the stealthy look even though it's kind of a big phone it's pretty fingerprint resistant and it kind of blends in and being all metal all the way around it has a sturdy literally rock solid feel on the hand now one thing you may be thinking is hey it's 2017 why doesn't this new razer phone have edge to edge displays like we're getting used to on all these phones now well this phone has big bezels on purpose like i said their mindset is gaming and gaming trying to hold a phone with an edge to edge display can actually be kind of tough there's not a whole lot to rest your thumbs on so instead they're giving us massive stereo front-facing speakers flanking the display on either side it's a place to put your thumbs while gaming and they also happen to sound absolutely incredible loud full crisp and surprisingly little distortion actually at high volumes and you can even go into the sound settings and mess with dolby atmos settings so movie mode or music mode or whatever you want to do just to get the eq just right so yeah right off the bat you can see the hardware is built around making the gaming experience great but that also means the rest of using the phone benefits too the only downside i really see with this hardware is the buttons which are left over from the next bit robin the fingerprint reader and power button combo on one side is kind of cool but the cheap tiny plastic feeling volume buttons on the other side definitely aren't but let's talk about this display though shall we if i know anything about gaming it's that we want the highest frame rate possible at all times and razer knows that so they've built as far as i know the first phone to come to the us with 120 hertz display 120 frames per second all the time on an android phone that's incredible remember the ipad pro the new ipad pro has that promotion display that i've raved about and really liked in the full review this has that all the time it's a 5.7 inch 2560 by 1440 ips display ips because it's not yet possible to do this high refresh rate with oled yet and it checks all the normal box as being a pretty good display it's decently bright but pretty contrasty it's crispy and then it's just so liquid smooth everywhere i've never seen android run smoother than it does on a pixel on any other phone until this razer phone now out the box it will actually be set at a 90 hertz refresh rate sort of striking a balance between battery life and super smoothness but of course i bumped it right up to 120 hertz right away but that's essentially just a max frame rate so when you're not really using the phone or it's just sitting on an image or on the settings page or something nothing's moving it drops to a lower frame rate to save battery and then it picks up immediately again when you start touching it it's really impressive variable frame rate stuff now not every game will take full advantage of this right off the bat but again razer knows gaming pretty well and they have connections they're working with big game makers and developers to get all these popular games optimized for 120 hertz so in the next couple weeks when i see those updates i'm definitely going to be testing that so the rest of the specs since specs are pretty much the holy grail when it comes to gaming snapdragon 835 adreno 540 eight gigs of ram 64 gigs of internal storage and a 4 000 milliamp hour battery that's that last part is the most impressive i think you already know that using 120 hertz display at full brightness with graphically intensive games at 1440p that will burn through battery pretty fast having a massive battery is great for gaming and for the rest of the phone also in talking to razer they seem pretty proud of their their cooling and if you know gaming you know how important thermals are to performance and essentially what they've done is created a heat sink design that uses the entire metal frame of this phone to cool the cpu which is really cool i'll leave a benchmark for good measure if you guys are curious about that but the bottom line is performance should also be really great for gaming and for real life and then last but not least the software experience on the razer phone is pretty close to stock android with just a couple of added features i'm a pretty big fan of the strategy obviously as i've said before and it works well here no bloatware comes on this phone the stock launcher is actually nova launcher prime so you get a ton of customization right out the box and while it's launching with android 7.1 they are promising an android oreo update first thing next year in quarter one so that's another advantage to being near stock the cameras on this phone i don't expect that to be too much of a focus no pun intended because mostly they have nothing to do with gaming right now but for what it's worth there is a pair of 12 megapixel cameras on the back f 1.75 on the main camera f 2.6 on the secondary telephoto lens and it's rocking an 8 megapixel f 2.8 wide angle front facing camera that you can see in the speaker grill definitely not slacking in the numbers department but i'll say that's something that's got to be tested for the full review but i mean basically i'm i've just been really impressed that they thought of all this stuff to go at their first try at a smartphone and executed on it so well like did you see the packaging this might be the best smartphone packaging of any phone in this price point maybe of any phone at all right now it's got some pretty sweet accessories they're all braided cables and individually packaged and with stickers the whole deal well done razer it has expandable storage it has this this really nice subtle chamfer all the way around the display uh usbc fast charging no headphone jack but it does come with an adapter with a thx certified deck i don't know how much weight you want to put in the thx certified part but not bad no headphones though but overall my impressions right off the bat are pretty positive at this thing i don't think i was expecting it to be this good mostly because like i said it's been really hard or really interesting to get a new smartphone company off the ground and do things well but it seems to be worth noting that razer isn't a new company and they know what they do well already gaming and they've built this phone around that they have a following of people who have the same tastes this phone could be a really interesting buy for those people to use every day and it turns out this enthusiast phone might translate really well to regular everyday use because all those things that are good for gaming are still good in the real world only one way to find out though and that's through testing so i'll be getting to that for the full review make sure to subscribe if you haven't already to be among the first to see the full review when it comes out but that's been it for the first impressions either way thank you for watching talk to you guys in the next one peacehey what is up guys mkbhd here and remember next bit they made that one phone that one time well razer a gaming company bought next bit but hey i guess if red can make a smartphone then pretty much anyone else can too and essentially this has been a really interesting year for those new smartphones and new smartphone companies so it's official this is the razer phone this is a smartphone built entirely around gaming all the hardware decisions all the specs all the design the form factor and features are all made with the idea of making gaming as good as possible but as it turns out a lot of those things also make for pretty great everyday use too first of all the build quality if you've ever seen a razer gaming laptop you've seen the matte black finish with the logo on it this is that same finish no the logo doesn't glow rgb or anything crazy like that but i kind of like the stealthy look even though it's kind of a big phone it's pretty fingerprint resistant and it kind of blends in and being all metal all the way around it has a sturdy literally rock solid feel on the hand now one thing you may be thinking is hey it's 2017 why doesn't this new razer phone have edge to edge displays like we're getting used to on all these phones now well this phone has big bezels on purpose like i said their mindset is gaming and gaming trying to hold a phone with an edge to edge display can actually be kind of tough there's not a whole lot to rest your thumbs on so instead they're giving us massive stereo front-facing speakers flanking the display on either side it's a place to put your thumbs while gaming and they also happen to sound absolutely incredible loud full crisp and surprisingly little distortion actually at high volumes and you can even go into the sound settings and mess with dolby atmos settings so movie mode or music mode or whatever you want to do just to get the eq just right so yeah right off the bat you can see the hardware is built around making the gaming experience great but that also means the rest of using the phone benefits too the only downside i really see with this hardware is the buttons which are left over from the next bit robin the fingerprint reader and power button combo on one side is kind of cool but the cheap tiny plastic feeling volume buttons on the other side definitely aren't but let's talk about this display though shall we if i know anything about gaming it's that we want the highest frame rate possible at all times and razer knows that so they've built as far as i know the first phone to come to the us with 120 hertz display 120 frames per second all the time on an android phone that's incredible remember the ipad pro the new ipad pro has that promotion display that i've raved about and really liked in the full review this has that all the time it's a 5.7 inch 2560 by 1440 ips display ips because it's not yet possible to do this high refresh rate with oled yet and it checks all the normal box as being a pretty good display it's decently bright but pretty contrasty it's crispy and then it's just so liquid smooth everywhere i've never seen android run smoother than it does on a pixel on any other phone until this razer phone now out the box it will actually be set at a 90 hertz refresh rate sort of striking a balance between battery life and super smoothness but of course i bumped it right up to 120 hertz right away but that's essentially just a max frame rate so when you're not really using the phone or it's just sitting on an image or on the settings page or something nothing's moving it drops to a lower frame rate to save battery and then it picks up immediately again when you start touching it it's really impressive variable frame rate stuff now not every game will take full advantage of this right off the bat but again razer knows gaming pretty well and they have connections they're working with big game makers and developers to get all these popular games optimized for 120 hertz so in the next couple weeks when i see those updates i'm definitely going to be testing that so the rest of the specs since specs are pretty much the holy grail when it comes to gaming snapdragon 835 adreno 540 eight gigs of ram 64 gigs of internal storage and a 4 000 milliamp hour battery that's that last part is the most impressive i think you already know that using 120 hertz display at full brightness with graphically intensive games at 1440p that will burn through battery pretty fast having a massive battery is great for gaming and for the rest of the phone also in talking to razer they seem pretty proud of their their cooling and if you know gaming you know how important thermals are to performance and essentially what they've done is created a heat sink design that uses the entire metal frame of this phone to cool the cpu which is really cool i'll leave a benchmark for good measure if you guys are curious about that but the bottom line is performance should also be really great for gaming and for real life and then last but not least the software experience on the razer phone is pretty close to stock android with just a couple of added features i'm a pretty big fan of the strategy obviously as i've said before and it works well here no bloatware comes on this phone the stock launcher is actually nova launcher prime so you get a ton of customization right out the box and while it's launching with android 7.1 they are promising an android oreo update first thing next year in quarter one so that's another advantage to being near stock the cameras on this phone i don't expect that to be too much of a focus no pun intended because mostly they have nothing to do with gaming right now but for what it's worth there is a pair of 12 megapixel cameras on the back f 1.75 on the main camera f 2.6 on the secondary telephoto lens and it's rocking an 8 megapixel f 2.8 wide angle front facing camera that you can see in the speaker grill definitely not slacking in the numbers department but i'll say that's something that's got to be tested for the full review but i mean basically i'm i've just been really impressed that they thought of all this stuff to go at their first try at a smartphone and executed on it so well like did you see the packaging this might be the best smartphone packaging of any phone in this price point maybe of any phone at all right now it's got some pretty sweet accessories they're all braided cables and individually packaged and with stickers the whole deal well done razer it has expandable storage it has this this really nice subtle chamfer all the way around the display uh usbc fast charging no headphone jack but it does come with an adapter with a thx certified deck i don't know how much weight you want to put in the thx certified part but not bad no headphones though but overall my impressions right off the bat are pretty positive at this thing i don't think i was expecting it to be this good mostly because like i said it's been really hard or really interesting to get a new smartphone company off the ground and do things well but it seems to be worth noting that razer isn't a new company and they know what they do well already gaming and they've built this phone around that they have a following of people who have the same tastes this phone could be a really interesting buy for those people to use every day and it turns out this enthusiast phone might translate really well to regular everyday use because all those things that are good for gaming are still good in the real world only one way to find out though and that's through testing so i'll be getting to that for the full review make sure to subscribe if you haven't already to be among the first to see the full review when it comes out but that's been it for the first impressions either way thank you for watching talk to you guys in the next one peace\n"