If I told you Razer made a smartphone, you'd probably develop a mental picture pretty quickly. Since the company is mostly known for its gaming mice, keyboards, and laptops, you'd expect this phone to be For Gamers. It'd be crazy powerful, of course, with all the best specs and the highest numbers and probably a bunch of chips you don't need but sound really cool at a LAN party. It'd probably be huge, and super expensive, as gaming gear tends to be. And it would definitely glow, for sure, no question. Maybe red flames? Maybe Razer's own multicolored Chroma system? Lots of ideas.

The actual Razer Phone almost counts as boring, by gaming gear metrics. It's a slightly blocky black rectangle with no glowing lights, no sound effects when you press the right button, and no glowing lights. Even Razer's three-headed snake logo, usually neon green, comes only in black. The Razer Phone was largely created by the team behind Nextbit, a design-led company that built one pretty cool phone, called Robin, and then sold to Razer. The Razer Phone carries a lot of the Robin's DNA, but none of the cloud-blue coloring.

Inside, though, the Razer Phone's everything a Blade owner could want. Snapdragon 835 processor, one of the best in the biz. A whopping 8 gigs of RAM. A huge 4,000mAh battery. Best of all, a 5.72-inch, Quad HD IGZO LCD (I swear those acronyms all mean something) screen, with 120Hz capabilities. The display can ramp up its framerate when you're scrolling or playing a game, and crank all the way back down when you're just reading or watching a movie. The tech behind the display sounds like the iPad's ProMotion display, and seems to work just as well. I've never scrolled so smoothly on an Android phone, and a quick demo of Riptide GP: Renegade, one of my fave mobile games ever, felt and looked incredible. Its looks may disguise its intentions, but the Razer Phone exists for gaming.

Razer

The spec list just keeps on going. Two 12-megapixel cameras in the back. A 24-bit digital audio converter included in the box. Stereo front-facing speakers, with Dolby Atmos built in. It only ships with Android Nougat, but at least comes with Nova Launcher, one of the best and most customizable Android launchers out there. And Razer says Oreo is coming soon.