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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. Today's video is about gaming phones and whether or
00:08not you should get one, because every company's approach to their gaming phone is a little
00:12bit different. And in front of me are three gaming phones. The Razer Phone 2, the ROG
00:17phone from Asus, as well as Xiaomi's Black Shark 2. All three of these phones came out
00:21in the fall of this year. They're all kind of like the new gaming phone in town. If you're
00:25interested in getting a gaming phone, one of these is probably on your radar. There
00:30are other companies, lesser known companies that make gaming phones, but if you're going
00:33to pick one out, I'd recommend looking at one of these three. So we're going to go through
00:37these phones and talk about things I like about them, things I don't like about them,
00:40as well as whether or not you should get a gaming phone at all. So first up, the specs
00:44on these phones are different, but the SOC is the same. They're all running the Snapdragon
00:48845, so powerful hardware with big screens, but they're also heavy and not super cheap.
00:53The cheapest one here is the one from Xiaomi, but it's still going to be like $550, $600.
00:57Now the thing that separates the premium phones here are their screens. They're running faster
01:01screens and that was originally the real differentiating factor for a gaming phone. Like originally
01:06last year when gaming phones came out, they were the high refresh screens. And the benefit
01:10of a high refresh screen is actually quite difficult to convey in a video, especially
01:13one being shot at 24 frames per second. If you see them in real life, they look very
01:17smooth. Anyone who's picked up a Razer phone and played with that 120Hz screen notices
01:21it right away. If you're wondering, the 120Hz screen on the Razer phone does look a bit
01:26smoother than the 90Hz on the Asus phone, but not every game supports a high refresh
01:30screen. There's a lot of popular games out there that are capped at 60 or even 30 frames
01:34per second. The brightest screen of this bunch is the Asus ROG phone. It's an AMOLED display,
01:40looks really clean, really bright, and it's noticeably brighter than the screen on the
01:43Razer phone 2. Now this is an improved screen. Last year, the Razer phone 1 had a noticeably
01:47dim screen. It's brighter this year, but it's still not as bright as I'd want it to
01:51be. The other thing is that the Razer phone 2 screen is once again certified for Netflix
01:56HDR. Thing is, it's not as awesome as it may seem. Netflix HDR content looks really dim
02:02on the Razer phone 2 screen, especially in a brightly lit environment. The visual detail
02:06from this HDR mode is better, for sure. Like, I can see the details in the bright areas
02:11much clearer on the Razer phone, but the overall image is really dark. Like, you need a really
02:16bright screen to take advantage of HDR content. That's just the nature of HDR, and the Razer
02:20phone doesn't have a super bright screen. The Asus screen is brighter, and although
02:25it's not HDR certified, I think most people would prefer the image on that phone over
02:29the Razer phone, even if some of the light detail is blown out or crushed on that phone,
02:33just because it's a brighter screen to look at. The Black Shark 2 screen feels more generic
02:37to me. It's a regular 60Hz panel, but it still looks good. Now, the design on these phones
02:42are all quite different. I personally like the design on the ROG phone the best. It looks
02:46the most unique to me. Like, I like the way that the lines are etched into the glass,
02:49and the copper accents on the back are nice. The Razer phone looks more boxy. It's got
02:53the whole Nexbit design going on still. The glass back definitely gives it a more premium
02:57feel and look compared to last year's Razer phone, but it's still a pretty boxy phone.
03:02The Black Shark 2 looks the most uninspired to me. Not that it's an ugly phone or anything,
03:06it's just more generic looking, and just not as iconic as the other two phones. Even though
03:11these are all gaming phones, the only phone with a built-in headphone jack is the ROG
03:15one. I'll be honest, to me, any kind of gaming device, especially a gaming phone, should
03:20have a headphone jack. Like, a gaming anything should have a headphone jack in 2018, but
03:25for whatever reason, these two phones, the Razer Phone 2 and the Black Shark 2, both
03:28need dongles, but that's just the way things are in 2018. Now, in terms of the design ergonomics,
03:33none of these phones are super comfortable. I find that the Razer phone is actually the
03:36least comfortable of the three in terms of long-term gameplay. The corners of the phone
03:41kind of dig into your hand after a while. The other two also aren't super amazing. Like,
03:45compared to a Nintendo Switch or, like, a Game Boy Advance, those things are built for
03:48your hands perfectly. These are phones, right? So they have to be thin. They're never gonna
03:52be super comfortable in your hands. I would say that the Black Shark 2 has the edge over
03:56the other two, but it's still not amazing.
03:58Okay, lighting. All three of these phones have light-up logos on the back that you can
04:03control through software to change their colors and stuff, and we've seen light-up logos on
04:07gaming peripherals and laptops and stuff like that. They've finally made their way into
04:11phones, and it's something that's actually a little bit different on phones than gaming
04:15peripherals. So I've said this before in many of my videos, lighting on laptops and peripherals
04:19and stuff like that, you play with it, you enjoy it, it's fun and it's cool, but that
04:23novelty wears off pretty quickly. For whatever reason, on phones, I like it a lot more than
04:29I thought I would. There's something about customizing your phone to showcase a particular
04:32color that feels fresh right now, in 2018. It makes your phone stick out a little bit
04:37differently from all the other phones out there, like having a blue logo is something
04:41that I personally like. It just makes your phone look different. And for me, because
04:45my phone is a very personal object to me, it's just nice to be able to have that customizability.
04:50The Razer and the ROG lighting look the best to me. I feel like the ROG phone has more
04:54surface area for that light to kind of shine through, so it's like the most prominent.
04:59The Black Shark 2 also has lighting on the side, so you can make this thing go bonkers,
05:02but it's almost too much at this point.
05:04Okay, so the speakers on all three of these phones are front-facing, so there's a reduced
05:08chance that you'll be covering the speakers while you're playing games, which is a good
05:11thing. They're all loud, but in terms of sound quality, I'd say the Asus is the best, the
05:15Razer phone is a close second, and then, I guess, more distant third is the Black Shark 2.
05:20Alright, performance. All three of these phones are strong performers. With the Snapdragon
05:24845, the Asus phone is running supposedly binned chips, which means that they're cherry-picking
05:29chips that can run at a higher clock speed. These are supposed to boost up to 2.96 GHz
05:33instead of 2.8, and when you run some benchmarks, there's a difference, but I don't think it's
05:38significant, and when you're playing games, I really couldn't tell the difference between
05:41them. They're all very strong performers in mobile games.
05:44They also have identical battery sizes, all 4,000 mAh. The Black Shark 2 actually runs
05:49through battery life the quickest when I'm playing games. I'm not sure if it's a software
05:52thing because this is a pre-release version of this phone.
05:55The cameras. Just a quick note on them, none of these have amazing cameras. I would say
05:58that the Razer Phone 2 is probably the best of the bunch. It looks sharpest to me compared
06:02to the others here, and the low-light is better than the Asus phone. Compared to Pixel
06:07devices and iPhones, these cameras just aren't nearly as good.
06:10Alright, one of the last things I want to talk about are one of the most unique features
06:13on the Asus phone. It's the air triggers. So, if you're unfamiliar with what they are,
06:17they have sensors built into the frame of the phone that detect when you press it. So
06:20basically, on a console, you have like your L2, R2, L1, R1 buttons, and it simulates that
06:26on a phone without there actually being a button there. It's just a sensor built into
06:29the frame. Now, the idea of this on paper is awesome. When I first heard about it and
06:33tested it out in Taiwan, I thought it was pretty cool, but now that I've used this for
06:36a while, there are limitations to this technology. For one, there's a little bit of lag. When
06:42you press it, there's a delay as to when it triggers, and if you bind it to something
06:45that's really important, like shooting for example, you don't want there to be a delay.
06:49It's got to be instant when you line something up, right? You want to be able to see it,
06:52target it, trigger, and it should shoot right away, but that split second of processing
06:56time is annoying. You can bind it to other things that are just less crucial, and it
07:00just gains utility in that sense, but for super important actions, I wouldn't bind it
07:05to the triggers. The other thing I've noticed is that even at the highest sensitivity, it's
07:08not as sensitive as I'd like. I'd like to be able to just graze it, and it should trigger,
07:13but you've got to press a little bit. You have to be very deliberate with your presses
07:15on it, and that kind of takes away from the utility again. It's not a bad thing to have.
07:20It's kind of unobtrusive, and you can't even tell that there's error triggers on this phone.
07:24I think software can fix it and make it quite a bit better, but right now, it's cool, but
07:28not a game changer. Another thing is that the vibration motor on the Asus phone is very
07:33powerful. It's actually one of the strongest motors I've felt on a phone. If you're into
07:36that whole like haptic feedback life, then it'd be great, but it's also for games. Like
07:40if there are games out there that take advantage of vibrations, then yeah, good phone for that.
07:45There's an accessory that this phone comes with. It's like a fan that's designed to keep
07:48the temperatures down. I've used it quite a bit, and I've got to be honest, it feels like
07:52a bit of a gimmick. Not that it doesn't do anything, like when you plug it in, the fan
07:55does blow out air, but it doesn't really seem to make a difference in terms of the performance.
07:59I've tested it on several benchmarks, several stress tests, and I'm just getting the same
08:02kind of performance with or without the fan. So maybe if you're playing for like hours
08:07on this device, then it would make a difference, but for my personal testing, didn't make much
08:12of a difference. The Razer phone has an optional wireless charger, and I really like this wireless
08:16charger. So it has lighting, which can be obnoxious at night. You can turn that off
08:20and stuff, but it has two positions. It's got a flat position, where you can kind of
08:23lie your phone on it flat, and it also has a tilted stand mode, where you can kind of
08:27prop up your phone and watch a show on it while it's charging wirelessly. It's pretty cool.
08:31The Black Shark 2 has this included controller, which you can clip onto the case, and it becomes
08:35a more ergonomic gaming experience. It works through Bluetooth, it's not like an analog
08:39connection, but yeah, I actually like this little accessory. You can get stuff like this
08:43for any phone, but the fact that they include it in the box is nice. So, concluding thoughts.
08:48Are these phones really worth your money? Because these things are not cheap, they're
08:51definitely a premium, just because of the fact that it's a gaming phone. I find that
08:55the Razer phone is the most well-rounded. The 120Hz screen looks awesome in the UI,
08:59and certain games can really make use of that screen. Speakers are rich, the RGB lighting
09:03is cool, and the camera is improved this year, compared to last year's phone. Here's my take
09:07on it. If you never play a game, if you literally never play a single game on this phone, it's
09:12still a great phone overall. I feel like you're just getting a really good user experience
09:16with this phone, and if you play games, it's a bonus. The Asus phone feels more... it feels
09:21more niche to me. It's definitely a gamer-oriented phone. If you don't play games at all, then
09:26I wouldn't recommend this phone, just because there's a bunch of features on this phone,
09:30and the included fan accessory that are obviously geared for gaming performance. But, if you're
09:34a gamer, and you can take advantage of those things, then this is a good phone as well.
09:39Particularly the screen, it's a nice-looking screen. The Black Shark phone... it's the
09:43cheapest of the bunch, and if you're North American, it might be quite difficult to get
09:46this phone. But, with the included accessory, and the way this thing feels in your hand
09:49when you're actually playing games, it's actually a very good option as well. But, I would only
09:54get one of these if camera performance really doesn't matter to you, because for the money
09:57that you would spend on either of these phones, like the $800, $900, or $600, you can get
10:02a smartphone with a way better camera. So, if that matters to you, I would opt out from
10:07a gaming phone. Now, if you're really in love with that RGB backlighting, or the backlit
10:13logos, I mean, let's be honest here, these look really cool, then you gotta go for one
10:17of these phones. Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if
10:21you loved it. See you guys next time.