CEO of Razer, Min-Liang Tan, confirmed in an interview with CNBC’s Managing Asia that Razer is working on a mobile device. Right off the bat, I’ve got to say that this is very exciting, especially considering that he says it may be released in 2017. Razer is one of the most prestigious gaming companies in the world, renowned for both their hardware and their software. If Razer produces a mobile device to the same quality as their gaming laptops and accessories, we’re in for a treat.

In January of this year, Razer acquired smartphone manufacturer, Nextbit. Nextbit only produced a total of one smartphone before Razer came along, the Nextbit Robin. The Robin was famous for its intelligent Cloud-Based storage system. The phone would look for apps that you hadn’t used in a while and automatically transfer the app’s data off of the phone and to the cloud. When you wanted that data back, you simply tapped the app’s icon on the home screen. This was a marvelously clever idea and is something that even Apple has taken inspiration from with an equivalent feature built into iOS 11.

The major downside of the Nextbit Robin was its lackluster build quality – as seen in this JerryRigEverything video. Hardware issues aside, the Nextbit Robin aesthetically looked excellent with its unique, sleek and modern design.

Why does Nextbit matter?

If you combine Nextbit’s superb team of designers and software developers, with a company renowned for their incredible hardware, you’ve got yourself a party! Seriously though, this is a great and exciting combination.

We have to remember, however, that this ‘mobile device’ may or may not be a smartphone. A mobile device could be a number of different things. Mobile phone? Tablet? Portable games console like the Nintendo Switch or PS Vita? We just don’t know at this point.

Will this definitely be a gaming device?

It may seem obvious and that’s kind of because it is… Yes. Razer’s first mobile device will be orientated for gaming – as he told CNBC:

“One of the most hotly rumored things about Razer is that we’re coming up with a mobile device. And I can say that we are coming up with a mobile device specifically geared toward gamers and entertainment,”

This is great new – at least in my opinion. There simply aren’t any decent smartphones on the market aimed at gaming (that is presuming that it is a Razer smartphone and not a tablet or portable games console). There is a Gamepad MotoMod for some Motorola smartphones and that’s’ about it in terms of gaming hardware on a smartphone. Oh, and Samsung has a game mode on some of its smartphones which essentially disables notifications whilst you’re playing a game.

Gaming on Smartphones is growing bigger and bigger every day; take Clash Of Clans, for example, thousands of people not only play the game but also watch people streaming it on Twitch and YouTube Gaming. It is one of the largest growing markets in 2017 and as far as I’m concerned, this is a great opportunity for Razer.

A Razer Smartphone would be very exciting

Like I mentioned above, the competition for a gaming smartphone is little to none. Razer’s biggest challenge would be competing in a very competitive smartphone market. No doubt if it is a Razer Smartphone, it will be expensive. Meaning that it would be competing with titans such as the Samsung Galaxy S8, HTC U11, LG V30 and the iPhone. Technically a Razer smartphone could be considered a niche product, but as the Razer CEO said himself, there are over 2 billion gamers in the world. That’s a huge potential audience.

Let’s just hope that it’s better than Sony’s effort from a few years ago…

Source: CNBC