Razer Phone Review – 120Hz £699 smartphone for gamers

1. Introduction2. Design & Display3. Performance & Software4. Camera & Battery5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Camera

Here we present a gallery of some Razer Phone photos. They have not been edited either on the phone or with any post-processing software, so what you see is what you get straight from the phone without any additional processing.

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On the whole I actually think the camera is pretty decent. With good lighting, the images are nice and crisp and colours are also pretty accurate and appealing.

Low-light performance is not the best, though, with a noticeable loss of detail and some blurriness introduced. No phone is perfect in low-light situations, though, so overall I think the camera image quality is quite good.

However, the camera app is a great disappointment. I have several issues with it, so I will do my best to explain them here:

1. Everything is automated. Pretty simple, there's no manual mode at all and I find that a definite missed trick.
2. HDR. The HDR setting is either ‘on' or ‘off' – there's no auto HDR detection – but taking a picture with HDR on is painfully slow. Unacceptably slow, I'd say.
3. Switching camera lenses. Interestingly, Razer came up with a ‘smooth zoom' feature to switch between the wide-angle and zoom lenses, so as you zoom in using the camera app, it automatically switches lenses for you. The problem with that is you don't know when digital zoom begins, something which degrades image quality. I would've much preferred a dedicated button for switching lenses just so it is clear what lens you are using when.
4. It's slow. Just pressing the shutter button can result in a one-or-two second delay before the image is taken, by which time your subject could've moved or gone completely. It is not that bad all the time, but it has caused me frustration on several occasions.
5. Lacking features. We're spoiled for camera features in 2017, but the Razer Phone lacks things like portrait mode, time lapse and slo-mo options.

Now, Razer has promised several updates to the software, but as of now, I stand by my view that the actual camera is pretty good, but it is definitely let down by the software.

Update 25/01/2018: We have now published an in-depth Razer Phone camera analysis over HERE. This follows a couple of updates to the software and covers both primary and secondary lenses, HDR, low-light shooting and more.

Battery

Given the beefy CPU and high refresh-rate 1440p display, the Razer Phone definitely has the potential to be a battery guzzler. Because of that, Razer fitted a 4000mAh battery to make sure users can get to the end of the day without needing a recharge.

I always managed to last a full day on a single charge, and occasionally I could manage two with intermittent use. That being said, I'm not the heaviest of users and I reckon power users may struggle to make it last a full day on a single charge, so some topping up may be necessary.

If you do need to top up early, though,  the Razer Phone does have the advantage of being the first phone to support Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0+, so you can go from 0% to 85% battery in just one hour.

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