Razer unveils its beast of a smartphone

It’s been rumoured and teased but it’s now finally here. Razer has finally taken the wraps off the Razer Phone, a smartphone the company is gearing towards gamers but can also handle any other needs you might have. It has a bunch of standout features but one of the big ones is it’s the first smartphone to come with a 5.72-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate, meaning the screen refreshes super-fast for smoother animation/movement in games as well as scrolling through the UI. It looks almost like the darker cousin of the Nextbit Robin, which makes sense as the company bought Nextbit earlier this year to make this phone possible. But it has a matte black finish with the Razer logo in Chrome instead of the usual green we see (although there will be a special edition version with the green logo at the back).

Aside from the design and the display, the Razer Phone is no slouch in other respects. It runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which is used by some of the big flagships now; Android Nougat 7.1.1, with Android Oreo 8.0 coming in the first quarter of 2018; a sizable 4,000mAh battery; 8GB of RAM; and 64GB internal storage with microSD expansion. It follows trends with a dual 12-megapixel rear camera setup with one a wide-angle lens and the other a telephoto one plus it has an 8-megapixel front shooter. Speaking of following trends, the Razer Phone doesn’t have a headphone jack, too. But the unit comes with a THX certified 3.5mm to USB-C DAC adapter. Razer said they needed to get rid of the audio jack for the battery and the speakers. One of the great things about the Razer is it retails for $699 in North America when you can expect it to break the $1,000 mark. The phone is expected to ship starting November 17^th.

Source: TechCrunch

Razer might be launching a smartphone on November 1st

When we say Razer, we think high-end gaming machines and peripherals. But that just might change pretty soon. The company teased an upcoming event happening on November 1^st. The tweet talking about the announcement says “WATCH for our biggest unveiling…” and the image attached to the tweet also has the words “WATCH – coming soon, Nov 1” with a guy holding on to a mystery handheld device.

As you may or may not know, Razer bought smartphone startup Nextbit back in January. It isn’t unreasonable for us to expect this to be Razer’s attempt at entering the smartphone market. Back in June, Razer CEO Tan Min-liang has been quoted talking about how there are no mobile devices or mobile platforms catering to actual gamers. Whether that means, they’re entering the mobile smartphone market, we can’t say yet. But the event is happening sooner than later so we’re keeping our eyes peeled.

WATCH for our biggest unveiling...
👁️https://t.co/gwrwrxbhf9 pic.twitter.com/OyBFVocHOF

— RΛZΞR (@Razer) October 11, 2017

Source: GSMArena

Razer might be looking to get into the smartphone business

Is a Razer smartphone in the works? Apparently, it is. A new report from Bloomberg claims the company is working on one. And it’s targeting an IPO in Hong Kong around October that could value the business at US$5 billion. According to the report, some of the funds will be used to build this gaming-centric smartphone. It’s not an unlikely move for the company, even with its current focus on gaming laptops and peripherals. Razer bought smartphone company Nextbit earlier this year. They have said it’ll operate as an independent company but they haven’t really spoken about plans for Nextbit since then.

We won’t know at the moment if the phone will be sold under Nextbit or Razer and when it could be released—if it does hit the market. But with the IPO scheduled later in the year, we’re sure we’d have to wait until next year for this rumoured smartphone to come out (if it ever does, that is).

Two Razer prototype laptops get stolen at CES

California-based gaming company Razer didn’t have as great a time at CES. Two of Razer’s new prototype laptops have been stolen from its booth in Las Vegas on Sunday. The company is willing to pay US$25,000 to find out who took the products. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan describes on Facebook that the theft could be seen as industrial espionage. “Our teams worked months on end to conceptualize and develop these units. It is cheating, and cheating doesn’t sit well with us. Anyone who would do this clearly isn’t very smart.”

The said laptops were named Project Valerie and are described as “a new standard of immersive entertainment.” The units had three built-in 17-inch screens to give gamers a less cluttered multi-monitor setup. Tan has said they are working with show’s management and law enforcement to get into the bottom of this issue.

Source: CNN