It’s been six years since the Nintendo Switch launched, and the handheld market is clamoring for a successor. While great games are still being made for the platform, recent buggy releases like Pokémon: Scarlet and Pokémon Violet show that the power of the system, which uses SoC architecture originally designed for even older Nvidia Shield hardware, is starting to lag behind the imaginations of developers and the desires of gamers. Especially egregious is the Switch’s weakness, as a dedicated gaming handheld, compared to the phones that many of us carry in our pockets every day. Enter devices like the Razer Edge.Nintendo’s foot-dragging and the advent of cloud gaming, smartphone controllers, easy portable emulation, and viable Linux and Android based gaming software means the handheld market is booming right now as it tries to fill the desire for something new. The Razer Edge’s unique approach is that it’s much more similar to your phone than the competition. It centers on a Snapdragon G3X Gen 1-powered removable tablet, uses a detachable controller, has a phone-like aspect ratio, and even has a front-facing selfie cam. This gives it some multipurpose usability as an e-reader or browser, but also runs the risk of making the handheld feel redundant next to your phone, or compromised as a dedicated device.
The Razer Edge costs as much as a Steam Deck, but you can probably get the same experience with your phone and a controller.
The Razer Edge costs as much as a Steam Deck, but you can probably get the same experience with your phone and a controller.
For that reason, and one more we’ll touch on in a moment, it’s hard to find where the Edge fits into the larger handheld race we’re seeing right now. The big contender here is the Steam Deck, which uses modern PC hardware and users’ existing Steam libraries to scratch the itch for a “Switch Pro.” Starting at $400, its competitive pricing and ability to play most titles, including AAA games, emulated games, and games hosted on the cloud, makes it hard to ignore. The Steam Deck is admittedly a bit heavy and unwieldy for some users, so much less powerful devices like the Anbernic RG35XX have flourished alongside it.Handhelds like the Razer Edge and the Logitech G Cloud are trying to capture the middle ground, aiming to be more powerful Switches while not quite having the built-in power of the Deck. Instead, they’re beefier than dedicated retro emulator consoles like the Anbernic, but primarily sell themselves on providing a more lightweight AAA experience than the Steam Deck by solely using the cloud for AAA titles. When we reviewed the G Cloud, hoping it would fill the middle ground niche it’s clearly targeted towards, we were unimpressed by its power to price ratio, and urged most readers to buy a Steam Deck instead for just $50 more. The Razer Edge hopes to succeed where the G Cloud failed by being smaller and coming with a slightly more powerful chip and an even more high resolution (on paper) screen.At $400, though, the Edge costs even more than the G Cloud–as much as the base model Steam Deck, in fact. This instantly kills it as a middle ground device and is what makes it hard to place. By aping the form factor and 5G capabilities of a gaming smartphone like Asus’ ROG phone line, Razer’s handheld still almost makes a case for itself in a different niche than the Deck. It’s much more compact and lightweight than the Deck and even the G Cloud, while being less than half the price of the most recent ROG phone. But it still can’t do everything the Steam Deck can, isn’t quite as comfortable as the G Cloud, and is weaker than many recent phones, which means it’s probably a redundant device for most gamers, and not worth the cost unless you really care about active cooling.
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The design is, aside from its price, likely to be the single most controversial aspect of the Razer Edge. Even though it’s marketed as a dedicated gaming device, what you actually get in the box is a small tablet akin to an iPad Mini, and a special version of Razer’s clamp-on smartphone controller, the Razer Kishi V2.
In some ways, the tablet form factor makes the Edge more usable, since it lets you separate the tablet to use as a reader or internet browser when you’re not gaming. It’s a premium feeling tablet, too, with active cooling on the back, a microSD card slot, and a 1080p camera on the front. A lack of rear cameras allows it to keep its price down in comparison to a phone. But because it is a separate device from its controller, it also lacks the delight of just doing one thing very well, and introduces the same kind of comfort and portability issues you might have on a phone... which you would theoretically be buying the Edge to escape.
The most obvious issue here is that using a telescoping controller means having to carry both the tablet and accessory with you, which hurts pocketability and means you’re probably going to have to store the Edge in a bag. In exchange for using a detachable controller rather than a built-in one, you also don’t gain the benefits of always having two wireless controllers with you, like you might on the Switch.
You’re also going to have to align the Kishi and attach it to the tablet every time you want to play. Razer’s got this down to a science by now, but it still takes a small amount of effort and concentration that hurts pick-up-and-playability. It’s still possible to misalign the controller and have the tablet jut out from it at an awkward angle.You could just leave the Kishi constantly attached to the device, but doing so will actually give you a handheld that’s wider than the Nintendo Switch, and the joysticks on the Kishi are likely to rub against a pocket (pants or bag) when stored like this.We do like the Kishi V2 controller, and the Edge’s Kishi has actually been updated to include a headphone jack, which solves what was our biggest issue with the V2 when reviewing it. Its buttons have a clicky, microswitch feel to them, its sticks are responsive, and it has all the controls a proper console counterpart would, and then some. It’s great for transforming a phone into a proper handheld.
However, it’s not the best solution for a device dedicated solely to gaming. Its grips are thinner than those built into the G Cloud, the Steam Deck, or the Ayaneo Geek, and its telescopic arm is in an awkward place to rest your fingers when gaming for more than an hour or so, resulting in a carpal tunnel aggravating claw-like grip. While it’s true that building a controller into the Edge might have made the “tablet” part of the device wider, axing elements like the telescopic arm likely could have lead to a smaller, more ergonomic device overall, with comfier grips and no potential for misalignment with the screen.
There’s also something to be said for the mental effect of just having a gaming device with everything you need built right into it. Phones and tablets are already powerful gaming machines if you attach enough accessories to them. If you’re willing to go that route, there’s arguably no need to buy a handheld specifically for gaming anymore, especially if you don’t care about access to Nintendo’s eShop or PC gaming stores.
What makes gaming handhelds continue to stand out is that they are no or low fuss, simple to use, and usually have everything they need built into them. By opting for a separate controller, the Razer Edge gains the benefits of a phone, but also puts itself in competition with phones and loses out on the charm of feeling like a pure gaming handheld, even if it continues to be marketed as one. Meanwhile, there’s no question as to a device like the Ayn Odin Pro’s or Retroid Pocket 3+’s focus.When viewed through this light, the only thing that’s really gaming about the Edge are its active cooling fan and its lack of rear cameras. It’s easy to see this as a “Razer phone that can’t make calls.”
The Razer Edge’s gaming handheld/phone identity crisis continues to its screen. It’s got a beautifully bright and vivid 6.8-inch, 2,400x1,080 AMOLED display that can hit up to 144Hz. That’s one reason to opt for the Edge over the Steam Deck (7-inch, 1,280x800 IPS at 60Hz) or the Switch (7-inch, 1,280x720 IPS or OLED at 60 Hz). But therein lies the problem. A 2,400x1,080 resolution is bigger on paper than what you’ll get with most of the competition, but those bigger numbers also mean putting up with black bars and, paradoxically, less effective screen space in many titles.That’s because a 2,400x1,080 resolution has a 20:9 aspect ratio, which is very close to the 19.5:9 aspect ratio on phones like the iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy. But most modern console games use a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio (and most retro games use a 4:3 aspect ratio). An aspect ratio that’s bigger than 16:10 won’t be able to show those games in fullscreen.On native Android games or streamed PC games that support an ultrawide resolution, the Razer Edge will grace you with an especially wide field of view, which was probably the intention here. But on everything else, including anything streamed from Xbox Game Pass, prepare to deal with a lot of negative space and a smaller picture than you might expect. That’s not ideal for a device focused on str Source: Gizmodo