Gaming has become a dominant form of entertainment
and gamers tend to be early adopters of cutting edge tech. The new Razer Phone
2 is an entertainment powerhouse with unique features and various improvements
over the original.
The screen is
a 5.7” IGZO LCD panel with QHD resolution instead – Razer believes 16:9 is best
for multimedia. It did make the new screen 50% brighter than before, hitting a
maximum of 580 nits (470 nits typical). The company claims that the new panel
is better at preserving detail in dark scenes.
The screen has retained the variable refresh rate of
up to 120Hz, which eliminates stuttering and tearing. It supports HDR and
DCI-P3 wide color gamut for better visuals in both games and videos. The new Snapdragon 845 chipset
has a new vapor chamber cooling system. Razer’s goal was for the chipset to
never experience thermal throttling. It’s connected to 8GB of fast RAM and 64GB
of UFS storage (we were hoping for an upgrade on this last bit, but we are in
no luck). There’s a microSD slot to expand the storage, but it’s not as fast as
UFS.
The 4,000mAh battery now supports QuickCharge 4.0+
and fast Qi wireless charging – up to 15W! To accommodate the wireless
charging, the back of the Razer Phone 2 is now made of glass while the body is
still CNC-machined aluminum. It’s now water resistant with an IP67 rating (1m,
30 min).
The logo on the back is RGB backlit and supports
Chroma. This means that the Razer logo on the back will match the color of its
LED lights to the lights on the phone. Razer also has a new pair of USB-C noise
canceling headphones that have synchronized RGB lighting as well (both
accessories are sold separately). There’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, but Razer
bundles a 24-bit DAC dongle with the phone.
The dual camera on the back is new and substantially
improved. It sports new image sensors courtesy of Sony. The main 12MP image
sensor gains Dual Pixel AF and optical image stabilization (OIS) and it has a
bright f/1.75 lens. Then there’s the second 12MP camera with a 2x telephoto
lens (f/2.6).
The phone’s 2160p video capture now goes up to 60fps
and there’s a 1080p @ 120fps slow-motion mode. The selfie camera is mostly
unchanged, an 8MP fixed-focus shooter, though it does gain support for 1080p @
60fps video capture.
The Razer Phone 2 brings back the powerful
front-facing stereo speakers. They are Dolby Atmos-certified and each is fed by
a dedicated amplifier. The phone is launching with “near-stock” Android 8.1 Oreo, but Razer
is promising an OS upgrade “soon”.
The Razer Phone 2 can be pre-ordered starting today
at a price of US$ 800/€ 850/£ 780. Note that there's a premium version with a Satin
finish that costs US$ 900/€ 950/£ 880, which will be available later on. There is a variety of accessories
too. The Razer Wireless Charger is US$ 100. There’s a Leather and a Kevlar Case
for US$ 40 and US$ 50, as well as a tempered glass screen protector for US$ 20. A new Cortex App will be released soon to replace the Game Booster.
It will offer per-title game optimizations and tuning of resolution, frame rate
and even CPU clock speeds.
