It’s a little late to the party, but hey, the Razer Phone 2 is finally here in Malaysia. Since the original Razer Phone never officially set foot locally, the Razer Phone 2 aims to do things differently – with the backing of local telcos and retailers (both online and offline).
The Razer Phone 2 is a scorcher of a device, still occupying the top spot in mobile benchmarks. This in part thanks to flagship-level hardware. It features last year’s flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor mated to a powerful Adreno 630 GPU, spiced with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. Storage is surprisingly paltry for a gaming phone, topping 64GB onboard, although you can expand via microSD. As a comparison, its closest rival the ASUS ROG Phone packs 128GB at its most basic, with up to 512GB.
No gaming phone can be without two things: a cooling system and RGB lighting. The Razer Phone 2 comes with a vapour chamber cooling system and a customisable Razer Chroma RGB logo on the back of the device. The logo offers 16.8 million colour options and this can be managed via the pre-installed Chroma app.
Design-wise, it’s a familiar form factor, adopted from the Razer Phone which in itself was a Nextbit Robin with a slightly tweaked design. Razer acquired smartphone maker Nextbit in 2017.
It has squared off edges and a generally clean look. You will find it a little dated, with the big chin and forehead and all. No notch. No full-screen 19:9 wide ratio display. Pretty conventional looking. That said, because it’s squarish, it’s easier to hold and grip in the hand.
It packs a 5.72-inch Quad HD+ display with a cutting-edge 120Hz UltraMotion refresh rate. This is the highest ever refresh rate on a phone. You’ll need to experience it see and feel the difference. Definitely something gamers would love especially when playing racing simulators or FPS-type games.
What’s also interesting is that the Razer Phone 2 offers IP67 dust- and water-resistance, something not found on gaming phones.
In the camera department, Razer has improved on the shortcomings of the original, although camera performance will not be close to today’s flagship devices. It gets a 12MP f/1.75 main shooter coupled with a secondary 12MP f/2.6 telephoto shooter. It comes with OIS and is capable of shooting 4K video.
On the front, it gets an 8MP f/2.0 selfie shooter. Nothing fancy, but certainly functional.
Keeping the device juiced is a large 4,000mAh battery that supports QuickCharge 4.0+ via USB Type-C. It also supports wireless charging.
Audio is solid, with one of the loudest I’ve heard on smartphones. However, if you’re planning to use headphones, they would need to be Bluetooth ones because the Razer Phone 2 makes do without a headphone jack. There’s always “the dongle life.”
Software wise, the Razer Phone 2 runs Android 8.1 Oreo out-of-the-box and comes pre-installed with Nova Launcher Prime. With the Razer Cortex Mobile app you’ll discover a curated list of popular mobile games and use Game Booster software for launching games, and optimising settings. You can tune performance such as resolution, frame rate, and CPU clock speeds.
For more info, visit Razer.
Pricing and availability
The Razer Phone 2 retails for MYR3,449 and is available in a single configuration – 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The gaming-focused device is available for purchase now, unlocked and sans mobile contracts via major retailers like All IT, TMT (Thunder Match Technology), Gamers Hideout as well as leading e-commerce platforms Lazada and Shopee. If you prefer to pick it up with subsidised prices bundled with a mobile contract, you can do so from Maxis and U Mobile.
Maxis is offering the devices from as a low as MYR101 per month on the Zerolution programme. If you prefer a normal contract, you can pick one up for MYR2,029 over a 24-month contract.
U Mobile is offering the Razer Phone 2 from as low as MYR120 per moth with its UPackage and also on a normal contract for MYR2,299 on Unlimited Hero P139 and MYR2,799 on Hero P99.
U Mobile is also giving away free 100 Razer Gold (worth MYR100) to the first 500 U Mobile customers. If you’re the first 50 to purchase the device from the U Mobile experience store at Berjaya Times Square, you will also get 100 Razer Gold (worth MYR100) and an exclusive Razer Swag pack that contains a Razer Hammerhead BT headset, Razer Chroma mug, Team Razer Coaster, Team Razer T-shirt and Team Razer lanyard.
What do you think of the Razer Phone 2? Would you pick it over the ASUS ROG Phone?
Header pic: Zachary Yoong | SoyaCincau
