Are You Gamer Enough for the Razer Phone 2?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,511 words · ~7 min read
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when it comes to phones i don't conform to the mainstream trends i don't need a
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tall aspect ratio screen a good camera or a thin sleek design what i need as a
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gamer is the fastest high resolution screen the biggest thx sound and a logo
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that says this product was made by a lifestyle brand for gamers
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and like it should have like
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RGB and okay so just to be clear
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you don't want any of the stuff that most people would consider important yeah
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as long as it has RGB and [ __ ]
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yeah okay thanks i think we're done here
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no not just yet first i need to tell you about our
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the same cable mallet is here for you make your video card the main attraction
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in your case by vertically mounting it with cablemod's vertical PCIe bracket
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check it out at the link in the video description
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when we reviewed the razer phone one we weren't exactly sure what a gaming phone
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was supposed to be and frankly now that we're looking at
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the second iteration it isn't much more clear so under the
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hood of the razer phone 2 you'll find a qualcomm snapdragon 845 processor 8 gigs
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of lpddr 4x RAM 64 gigs of expandable
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internal storage a large 4 000 milliamp hour battery and dual 12 megapixel rear
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cameras with sony sensors that support 4k 30fps recording
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just like pretty much any other non-gaming phone
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not to mention in a much more attractive form factor like this this whole thing
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that they got going on this really looks more like a cost-saving approach to
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tooling rather than an attempt to create an
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iconic design which isn't to say that they haven't improved anything to last
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year's model they've added wireless charging thanks to the glass back
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slightly faster cellular networking ip67 water resistance
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oh damn it a blessing and a half for toilet
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gamers a brighter screen with HDR capability and of course
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razer chroma not gonna lie
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it looks pretty sick like honestly i'm
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getting kind of like an underwear model vibe here like it's it's beautiful from
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the back with the new glass finish and the illumination but then
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it's got a face that deserves to be cropped right out of the frame like dem
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bezels yo the screen to body ratio of the razer phone 2 is absolutely abysmal
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for a modern device and not helping matters is the 16x9 screen aspect ratio
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that makes the overall design of it feel really dated especially with the
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on-screen navigation buttons taking up even more real estate like it kind of
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felt like going all the way back to a 4x3 monitor by comparison i mean in
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fairness to razer 16x9 is still the
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dominant aspect ratio for tv and youtube
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content consumption so they've got that going for them and of course
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in exchange for those unruly bezels we are getting the rare treat of dual
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amplified front-facing stereo speakers it's just that
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the ASUS rog phone has that too and its
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bezels aren't nearly as cumbersome that
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right there is honestly the biggest problem for the razer phone too it's not
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the only gaming phone in town anymore and if we compare our two gaming phones
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side by side the rog phone really seems
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to meet or beat the razer phone 2 at
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nearly every turn on the spec sheet and it's got a headphone jack something that
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razer addresses with a dongle in the box so then
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contrary to our silly intro i've always
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been into the performance aspects rather than the lifestyle aspects of gaming
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hardware so how does it fare there then well this
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is actually a more complicated question to answer than you might initially think
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on mobile devices in particular specs
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tell us only part of the story a high-end CPU without adequate cooling
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can perform like a mid-tier or even an entry-level one and it's here that razer
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manages to really shine while the razer phone 2 isn't far and away the single
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fastest phone out of the bunch we tested in its normal mode it maintains its
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performance for longer than many of the phones we tested rog phone included in
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games this along with its large battery
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makes its high performance gaming endurance its main source of gamer cred
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over most of the competition moving on then
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of our three major complaints about the razer phone one we've crossed one of
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them off the list so far let's look at the others the ergonomics frankly they still suck
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the big one because they didn't really change so i could tell you guys just go
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watch the original video to get our thoughts on that but that's
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kind of stupid so here's a summary it's heavy and boxy which makes it dig into
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the palm of your hand more than a more rounded design and the fingerprint
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sensor equipped lock button is flush mounted making it difficult to find by
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feel and even harder to access if you use a case as for the camera
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well i don't know it's probably better i'm not 100 sure since we accidentally
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on purpose kind of trashed our razer phone one when we were installing liquid
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metal on its processor but even if it was better than the original razer phone
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that's about like beating your six-year-old cousin in a foot race compared to current non-razer phones the
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most charitable thing i can say about it is that it sometimes manages to capture
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an image that i would describe as competent the issue is just that at this
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price it draws comparisons to true
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flagship phones like the iphone 10s max and the galaxy s9 plus and it just can't
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hold a candle to them i mean there might be a candle there but that bright point
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in the image it would be so blown out it would be hard to tell i mean razer's
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camera app is at least a little more fleshed out but it's still laggy and it
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lacks features like slow motion face detection or anything resembling manual
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control and the only thing i can say in its defense there is that the rog
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phone's camera ain't great either so at this point as you've probably
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guessed this is not gonna become my daily driver like its first gen sibling
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it's just it's not competitive especially not for the eight hundred
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dollar price tag for a hundred dollars more the base model rog phone offers
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double the storage a two to one screen aspect ratio an always-on amoled display
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albeit at a mere 90 hertz versus 120 max
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a far better camera app dual sim card slots and better overall performance
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plus it includes an active cooler though you do give up the superior ip67 water
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resistance and a micro sd card slot on that note the razer phone 2 has its
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bright points it's still got an excellent almost stock Android skin and
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front firing stereo speakers with that 120 hertz panel that is just
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so smooth the problem is just that while people like me can
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rank phones and talk about their pros and cons
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you the end user can only buy one
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and this just ain't it you know what is it though
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service robots are easy to work with their products are affordable and ship
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worldwide and you can check them out at the link below
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so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video the button's right there but if you
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liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the
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video description that backlight is very cool also down there is our merch store
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turned off that's breathing also down there is our merch tour which has cool
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shirts like this one and our community forum which you should definitely join