The Razer Phone certainly had generated some buzz when it made its debut around three weeks ago. While it is true that many were impressed by most of the phablet’s specs, others were a bit let down by the device’s camera. Thankfully, Razer is wasting no time in giving its first ever flagship offering a needed camera upgrade.
The upgrade is made possible through a software update, which is now being deployed. Basically, the enhancements revolve around improving the shutter speed, and reducing noise especially in minimal light settings. Razer is also looking to raise the overall imaging quality with a better color cast, plus additional fine tuning of the handset’s camera app. Finally, the update also delivers a few bug fixes, including corrective adjustments to the auto brightness functionality.
Despite the fact that the software update is centered around camera improvements, it actually also delivers a patch for unrelated sound issues. Specifically, the update comes with fixes for enhancing overall audio clarity, and minor issues with the Dolby audio, as well as some improvements on the quality of voice calls.
Before debuting its smartphone, Razer is primarily known as a gaming company, and it should surprise nobody that the Razer Phone is deliberately geared for gamer users. As far as hardware specs are concerned, the device can hold its own as a flagship offering. It offers a 5.7 inch 120 hz display that is designed to refresh at a very fast rate, allowing for a significantly smooth scrolling experience, aside from rendering top quality graphics and animated sequences when launching games. Apple’s iPad Pro also has a 120 hz screen, but the Razer Phone may be the first high profile smartphone to get this display.
Outside the rather modest camera specs (12 megapixel cameras on the rear side -- one a telephoto lens and the other a wide angle sensor, each with varying optical zoom capabilities -- and an 8 megapixel selfie shooter on the front side), the phablet is fitted with Qualcomm’s ultrafast Snapdragon 835 chip set, as well as an Adreno 540 graphics processing unit (GPU), supported with 8 gigabytes of random access memory (RAM) and 64 gigabytes of onboard storage. Other cool features include a fingerprint reader (hidden in the power button, just like Nextbit’s Robin), a powerful 4,000 mAh battery, support for near field communications (NFC) technology, and Google’s Android 7.1.1 Nougat mobile operating system.
