The Razer Edge will go on sale in the US on January 26 in partnership with Verizon. Note that there is also a Wi-Fi only version if you are not a fan of Verizon or don’t plan on gaming while out and about. The Razer Edge Wi-Fi will sell for US$ 400. The Founders Edition includes a Razer Hammerhead True Wireless (2021) earbuds and costs US$ 500. You can reserve a Wi-Fi model today from Razer.com.
Alternatively, there is the Verizon
version. The retail price is US$ 600, but you can get it for US$ 360 (US$ 10 a month for
36 months) for a limited time with a new contract. Another option is buying a
new 5G smartphone alongside the Razer Edge 5G, which will drop its price to US$ 180 (US$ 5 a month for 36 months). Anyway,
the Razer Edge is powered by the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1, which seems to be based
on the Snapdragon 888. This console has active cooling, so it will be able to
sustain higher performance levels than a phone. The chipset is paired with 8GB
of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage (expandable with microSD cards up to
2TB).
What gives this an edge (heh) over the
likes of the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch is the 6.8” AMOLED display – it
has 2,400 x 1,080px resolution (20:9) and 144Hz refresh rate. For comparison,
the Switch OLED has a 7” display, the Steam Deck has a 7” LCD, but both have
only 720p resolution and run at only 60Hz. There is no word on touch sampling
rate, however.
All versions of the Razer Edge have Wi-Fi
6E connectivity. You can use this to stream games from your gaming PC or
console, as well as using game streaming services. Of course, the chipset is
powerful enough to handle native Android gaming and emulation too. The version
Verizon is offering has 5G – both sub-6GHz and mmWave. Both the 6GHz Wi-Fi and
the 5G offer low-latency connections for minimal lag.
There is Bluetooth 5.2 on board and the
controller has a 3.5mm headphone jack. If you don’t want to use headphones,
there are 2-way speakers with THX Spatial Audio, plus 2 microphones for voice
chat. There is also a single 5MP front-facing camera (1080p@60fps video). There
is a 5,000mAh battery inside, but there is no word on charging speed. The
device itself weighs 264g, which goes up to 5401g once you attach the controller.
