Razer Edge
- Audio
- 2-way speakers with 2 digital microphones / THX Spatial Audio (b🍸ase model) // 2-way speakers with 2 digital microphones / Verizon Adaptative Sound (5G model) 🍨
- 4K Capability
- N/A
The Razer Edge is a h🙈andheld tablet-like console🍬 designed for Android and cloud-based gaming.
Handheld consoles are exploding in popularity right now. Between the Steam Deck, Logitech’s streaming device the G Cloud, the ultra-affordable Abxylute, and the just-announced Asus ROG Ally, we’re now in a new era of portable consoles and streaming-focused devices. The most unique device in this burgeoning category is the Razer Edge, an Android gaming handheld with a removable controller. Part phablet, part cloud device, and part high-powered gaming machine, the Razer Edge aspires to be the ultimate ‘do everything’ portable device. While it makes some compromises along the way, it's still the easiest handheld to recommend for anyone looking to get more from their mobile.
At first glance the Razer Edge just looks like a large cell phone. There are two models: a wifi-only device, and a Verizon Exclusive 5G version, but you can't use it to make calls or send texts. Otherwise, it has all the functionality of an Android phone, albeit slightly bigger than most at 6.8". It'sthicker too, which is the first clue that there's more to it than it seems.
So much of what makes the Edge impressive is happening under the hood. It's the first device to feature the Snapdragon G3X chipset, a mobile processor with active cooling, built for gaming. Compared to my Pixel 6, the Edge plays high-demand Android games for much longer, on higher settings, without becoming a fireball.
I don't think you could get the Edge to overheat if you tried - and I did try. In Black Desert Mobile, I set the graphics to the highest settings - the one that warns you it will cause overheating - and played for hours. After 90 minutes the left side of the screen felt slightly warm to the touch, but that's as hot as it got. If you're playing with the sound off you'll be able to hear the internal fans working, but it's much quieter than both the Switch and the Steam Deck.
Mobile games are built to run on most phones, so overheating isn't a huge problem in general. For MMOs like Black Desert, MOBAs like Wild Rift, or open world RPGs like Genshin Impact, the Edge can make a huge difference. Lower temperatures mean more stable performance and longer battery lives too, so there's a lot of benefits to having a high performance device like this.
The included controller is the Razer Kishi V2, which I reviewed separately last year. I still think it's the best mobile controller out there, and I still think the ergonomics could be a lot better, but it’s had a few updates since then that benefit the Edge. With Virtual Controller mode, you can assign controller inputs to on screen buttons, which allows you to play Android games that don't have native controller support.
It works great and the button mapping is simple and intuitive, but the feature is pretty limited. It only really works with games that have on screen buttons, since it can’t emulate tapping and dragging, which is one of the most common inputs in mobile games. I tried to use the virtual controller with Pokemon Unite, and while it works great for moving around and auto attacking, any moves that require you to hold th🔴e button down and aim - which is pretty much all of them - won’t work. There’s no way to tell the controller that you want to hold down a button and aim with the stick at the same time, so 𝓡mobile MOBAs still aren’t going to be controller compatible. Luckily you can just pop the Edge out of the Kishi controller and hold it like a phone, which is a big advantage that other handheld gaming devices don’t have.
By nature of being both an Android mobile device and a handheld gaming console, the Edge does make some compromises. The aspect ratio is mobile-standard 20:9, which is great for Android games - and necessary for Kishi compatibility - but not great for anything else. While streaming games on Geforce Now, Game Pass, or PlayStation Remote Play - which is flawless thanks to the Edge’s Wi-Fi 6E support - you lose a lot of screen real estate, since pretty much every game is natively in 16:9. Through Steam Link you have more control over your resolution settings, but 20:9 is still a weirdly long aspect ratio that games just aren’t designed for. It gets even weirder when emulating older 4:3 games. Not only are you losing more than two-thirds of the screen, but if the game has widescreen cutscenes, they’re going to go down to the size of a postage stamp. Most emulators will let you stretch the image to fill the screen, but I wouldn&rsqu🔜o;t recommend it.
That said, emulation is probably the best use case for the♚ Edge. Android is already an incredible platform for emulation, and the Edge’s hardware is capable of running retro games flawlessly. I tested some games with notoriously bad performance in emulation, like Super Mario Sunshine, and they all maintained high frame rates and consistent performance. You can emulate every Nintendo console and handheld up to the Wii, every Sega console, as well as the PlayStation, PS2, PSP, and arcade games. My testing wasn’t exhaustive, but Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep are both flawless, so I have to assume you can emulate pretty much anything on this thing.
Between high-performance Android gaming with and without a controller, flawless cloud streaming, and the full breadth of what emulation has to offer, The Razer Edge sets itself far apart from every other handheld. The downsides, like the non-standard aspect ratio and cramped controller, haven’t stopped me from using it daily to stream Game Pass and get reacquainted with classic games. Razer has moved on from the Razer phone, but the Edge just proves that it was ahead of its time. I would gladly replace my phone with a device like this, a𒁃nd as streaming and Android games become more and more sophisticated, the Razer Edge is only going to get better.