Razer Wednesday night unveiled the Razer Phone 2, a redesigned take on its category-defining gaming phone with a beefed up processor, enhanced cooly system, wireless charging support, and Razer Chroma lighting.
The phone, which goes on pre-order this week for $800, still features a 120 Hz screen refresh and touch sampling and now also has two front-facing speakers.
A big element of the redesign was making sure that the Razer Phone 2 would be more than simply a good phone for gaming.
“It needed to be not just a gaming phone, but a great phone,” said Michael Breslin, head of global marketing and sales mobile business at Razer. “We completely redesigned the phone from the ground up for a multitude of reasons.”
Chief among them was likely the sub-par reviews the original phone received when it came to using the device to do things like take pictures.
“One of the biggest points of consumer feedback was around camera performance and imaging quality,” said Vivek Gowri, senior manager of hardware at Razer. “We knew that was going to be very critical for us.”
The Razer Phone 2 now has two rear cameras: a 12 MP wide-angle with optical image stabilization and a 12 MP telephoto with two times zoom. This time around the cameras use Sony IMC sensors and are tuned to produce low-noise images with a wider gamut of colors. The front of the phone features an 8 MP lens that supports streaming at full HD resolution. The Razer Phone 2’s camera app has also been completely redesigned.
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While the body of the phone looks similar to the original, it now has a glass back which supports wireless charging. The phone is also now 1P67 rated, meaning it can be submerged for up to 30 minutes without damage.
The back of the phone features Razer’s three-headed snake logo, which can change colors using the company’s Chroma system.
Inside, the phone is powered by the Qualcomm 845 Snapdragon chipset and Qualcomm Adreno 630 graphics processing unit. Razer redesigned the cooling system as well, expanding the vapor chamber to give it a much larger surface area for heat dissipation.
“We didn’t want to have a phone that had good framerates for 10 minutes and bad framerates for 50,” Gowri said. “That’s not anyone’s idea of a good gaming experience. Now we can spread heat throughout the phone and that means it can run faster for longer.”
The phone also features a 4,000 mAH capacity battery and works with LTE Gigabit networks with download speeds of up to 1.2 Gbit per second.
Alongside the new phone, Razer also unveiled a Raiju Mobile controller for the phone and USB-C ANC Razer Hammerhead earbuds.
The controller features an adjustable phone mount and Bluetooth connectivity along with four remappable buttons, a directional pad, two thumbsticks, and two triggers with stops for hair-trigger mode. The $150 controller is due out the later this year.
The new Razer Hammerhead USB-C earbuds draws its power for active noise cancellation from the phone and includes a built-in digital to audio converter for 24bit/96 kHz audio quality. It also has an in-line remote with volume control, ANC control, and play, pause, end call buttons. The $100 Hammerhead is due out on Oct. 22 via Razer’s website.
