Intel Is Cancelling Its Vaunt Smart Glasses

Written by Brooks Canavesi on . Posted in IoT, Technology trends

In April, Intel has announced its plans to shut down the New Devices Group (NDG), which marks the end of its Vaunt smart glasses, which the company demonstrated in February.

The Vaunt smart glasses were part of Intel’s broader effort to diversify its product offering and expand to other markets. The New Devices Group (NDG), which was formed in 2013 to make fitness trackers and smart glasses, was hit with a major layoff in 2016. Back then, Intel denied that the company was stepping back from wearables, but Intel’s struggle to gain a foothold in the wearables market was evident.

Now, after an investment of several hundred million dollars by Intel, the company is no longer denying that its foray into the wearables market hasn’t panned out as expected.

“Intel is continuously working on new technologies and experiences. Not all of these develop into a product we choose to take to market. The Superlight [an internal name for Vaunt] project is a great example where Intel developed truly differentiated, consumer augmented reality glasses. We are going to take a disciplined approach as we keep inventing and exploring new technologies, which will sometimes require tough choices when market dynamics don’t support further investment,” an Intel spokesperson told CNBC in an email.

The end of the Vaunt smart glasses isn’t exactly a surprise. “Intel has a reputation for showing off ideas that never turn into real products. It comes up with a cool concept, proves out the technology, then hopes to convince others to take that idea and turn it into a real product,” wrote Verge executive editor Dieter Bohn in February.

Intel’s intention with the Vaunt smart glasses was to make them as discreet as possible. In a sense, they were supposed to be the answer to the tsunami of privacy worries that had swept the industry after the launch of the Google Glass. Even from a close distance, the Vaunt smart glasses looked just like any regular pair of prescription glasses with a plastic frame: no visible display, no chunky battery, no touch controls, and, most importantly, no camera.

Instead, the Vaunt smart glasses featured a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), which is a semiconductor-based laser diode that emits a highly efficient optical beam vertically from its top surface. Intel used this very low-power laser to project a red, monochrome image with a resolution of 400 x 150 pixels onto a holographic reflector, which then reflected it directly onto the retina.

“We use a holographic grading embedded into the lens to reflect the correct wavelengths back to your eye. The image is called retinal projection, so the image is actually ‘painted’ into the back of your retina,” said Jerry Bautista, the lead for the team building wearable devices at Intel’s NDG. “We had to integrate very, very power-efficient light sources, MEMS devices for actually painting an image.”

Thanks to their innovative display technology and discreet looks, the Vaunt smart glasses were in a good position to become the first commercially successful smart glasses, and Intel even had a solid vision how to sell them to consumers.

”There’s something on the order of 2.5 billion people that require corrective lenses,” said Jerry Bautista. “They get their glasses from somewhere. Sixty percent of them come from eye care providers. … We would say these glasses belong in those kinds of channels. People are going to buy them like they buy their glasses today.”

Clearly, that plan didn’t pan out as intended, and Intel isn’t the only company in wearables that’s struggling to meet its goals. The wearable market would have actually shrunken in the fourth quarter of this year if it weren’t for Apple, whose shipments grew by 58 percent to 8 million devices, up from 5.1 million a year earlier, according to research firm International Data Corp. Fitbit’s shipments declined by 17 percent to 5.4 million in the quarter, and Xiaomi’s shipments fell by 5 percent to 4.9 million in the same quarter.

Despite the current state of the wearables market, the global wearables sales revenue is still projected to exceed 40 billion by 2021, compared to a little over 30 billion in 2018. According to a report in the FT, Amazon is working on building a pair of smart glasses to house its Alexa voice assistant, Google is focusing on helping professionals in manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare be more productive with its Glass Enterprise Edition, and Microsoft has demonstrated a number of real-world applications of its HoloLens headset. HoloLens however still carries a large price tag per unit and is painful to wear for over an hour which creates a barrier for industrial / enterprise applications.

It seems then that Intel’s failure simply indicates that smart glasses are not yet ready to leave the confines of factories, offices, and our homes. “The field of view, the quality of the display itself, it’s not there yet. We [Apple] don’t give a rat’s about being first. We want to be the best, and give people a great experience. But now anything you would see on the market any time soon would not be something any of us would be satisfied with. Nor do I think the vast majority of people would be satisfied,” said Apple’s CEO Tim Cook last year.

Focusing too much on the technology, this is something that Intel failed to see until the company could no longer afford to ignore the reality.  Unfortunately, it appears we are still a few years out from that killer HUD that marries consumer price points, wearability, and functionality.

The Future is 5G

Written by Brooks Canavesi on . Posted in IoT, Mobile App Development, Technology trends

The very first mobile telephone call was made in 1973 by a senior engineer working for Motorola. A lot has changed since then, and we now use mobile phones for a lot more than making phones. In fact, mobile phones no longer even have a monopoly on mobile communication.

Today, we rely on a number of different cellular- and internet-connected devices (Internet of Things – IoT) to stay productive, and we’re rapidly moving toward a connected future where nearly every electronic device wirelessly sends and receives information to offer various smart features / insights.

As our needs and personal electronic devices change, the infrastructure we rely on needs to change as well. A new generation of cellular technology is introduced to the world approximately every 10 years, with the current generation, 4G, having been first commercially deployed in 2009. The time is right for the next generation of cellular technology to come and replace 4G, and we already know what it will offer.

BLUF:

1.    Horsepower – How does 10Gbps – 20Gbps sound? That is 100x faster than LTE and 10x faster than the fastest home internet connection today from a fiber provider like Verizon FiOS. Conservative estimates show expected latency to be 1/4th of LTE at 5ms from 20ms.

2.    No Cables Required – Cable companies are in trouble and will be scrambling to have a cellular presence, which can be seen with Comcast Xfinity Mobile. If you live in a major metropolitan market and are building a new home in 2019+, forget about installing coax cable.

3.    Telco Data Dwarfs Google’s – If a majority of phone, home entertainment, and IoT device internet access is funneled through 5G networks, the wireless providers of 5G will have more data access than any single technology vendor such as Facebook, Google or Apple.

4.    2020 – target for most major markets, rural areas should not hold their breath as the infrastructure priorities will continue to be major metro regions initially.

What Is 5G?

The chances are that you’ve already heard of 5G. Major carriers including Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint are testing 5G in cities around the country, and chipmakers like Qualcomm and Intel are working hard developing 5G hardware to bring the fifth generation of cellular networking to consumers worldwide.

But despite all the buzz around 5G, there’s actually no official “5G” yet. Instead, there are several definitions of 5G, each of which includes slightly different specifications.

Arguably the most common definition of 5G is the 3GPP Release 15. 3GPP is the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, a collaboration between groups of telecommunications standards association. Apart from the 3GPP Release 15, there’s also the more rigorous ITU IMT-2020 definition from the International Telecommunication Union, a specialized agency of the United Nations that is responsible for issues that concern information and communication technologies.

“If anyone tells you they know the details of what 5G will deliver, walk the other way,” noted former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. “Our proposal is the final piece in the spectrum trifecta of low-band, mid-band and high-band airwaves that will open up unprecedented amounts of spectrum, speed the rollout of new-generation wireless networks and redefine network connectivity for years to come. I’m confident these actions will lead to a cornucopia of unanticipated innovative uses and generate 10s of billions of dollars in economic activity.”

Even though hardware manufacturers, regulatory bodies, and governments have yet to paint a clear picture of what 5G is, we already have a pretty clear idea about what some of its most important components will be. But before we take a closer look at them, it’s helpful to first walk through the evolution of cellular technology and consider how each impacted the mobile landscape.

How We Got Here?

1G

The first generation of mobile networks was introduced in the 1980s and allowed for wireless voice calls. This was the time of the Motorola DynaTAC series of cellular telephones, which took around 10 hours to charge, lasted only for 30 minutes of talk, and featured a tiny LED display that consumed as much battery power as entire smartphones do today. During the reign of 1G, the only people that could afford mobile phones were one-percenters as the Motorola DynaTAC, and many other phones, cost thousands of dollars.

2G

With the introduction of 2G, mobile networks shifted from fully analog systems to digital ones. 2G networks were commercially launched on the GSM standard in 1991 and offered encryption, much higher signal penetration, and data services for mobile, including SMS and MMS. Cellular data was enabled by GPRS, which offers a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 50 Kbps, and EDGE, which offers a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 1 Mbps.

3G

The third generation of wireless mobile telecommunications technology offered even faster data rate than 2G, which allowed it to find application in wireless voice telephony, mobile Internet access, fixed wireless Internet access, video calls, and mobile TV. It was based on the IMT-2000 standards and first made available in Japan in 1998. By June 2007, which is when the first iPhone was released, the 200 millionth 3G subscriber had been connected to the network.

4G

The requirements for the 4G standard were specified by the International Telecommunications Union-Radio communications sector (ITU-R) in March 2008, and it offered maximum data transfer speeds of 1 Gbps for low mobility communication, such as pedestrians and stationary users. However, most mobile users hadn’t been able to enjoy truly fast data transfer speeds until the arrival of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology and the launch of LTE services by carriers many years later. Even today, there are entire regions where 4G coverage is non-existent, and it’s highly likely that the rollout of 5G will follow a similar pattern.

Features of 5G Networks

The members of ITU have agreed on 5G performance requirements for 5G, calling for a minimum of 20 Gbps downlink and 10 Gbps uplink per mobile base stations. “The IMT-2020 standard is set to be the global communication network for the coming decades and is on track to be in place by 2020. The next step is to agree on what will be the detailed specifications for IMT-2020, a standard that will underpin the next generations of mobile broadband and IoT connectivity,” said François Rancy, Director of ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau. ITU’s draft report also specifies extremely low latency of 5 ms, which is a significant improvement compared to 4G LTE’s 20 ms. High data transfers speeds and low latency are essential not only for mobile content consumption but also for emerging applications such as driverless cars. Beyond these foundational improvements, 5G also includes a suite of new technologies, including small cells, millimeter waves, massive MIMO, and beamforming, just to name those that are most likely to make it to consumers.

Small Cells

5G relies on high frequencies with low wavelengths that have difficulty penetrating solid objects. To ensure strong signal in densely populated areas, carriers will deploy many portable miniature base stations that require minimal power to operate to form a dense network that acts as a relay team. “This radically different network structure should provide more targeted and efficient use of spectrum. Having more stations means the frequencies that one station uses to connect with devices in one area can be reused by another station in a different area to serve another customer. There is a problem, though—the sheer number of small cells required to build a 5G network may make it hard to set up in rural areas,” explains IEEE Spectrum.

Millimeter Waves

If you’ve ever tried to set up a WiFi network in a large apartment building, you probably know how crammed the WiFi frequency spectrum is. The situation is similarly grim in the radio frequency spectrum, which is why 5G is experimenting with broadcasting on millimeter waves. Millimeter waves are broadcast at frequencies between 30 and 300 gigahertz, allowing for massive amounts of data to be transmitted without any interference issues. But millimeter waves have one huge drawback: they can’t easily travel through obstacles. That’s why they’re a good fit for massive MIMO.

Massive MIMO

Base stations today support only up to eight transmitters and four receivers. 5G cell towers of the future will support about a hundred ports, increasing the capacity of mobile networks by a factor of 22 or greater. The name of this technology is massive MIMO, and it’s the next evolutionary step from MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output), a method for multiplying the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmit and receive antennas to exploit multipath propagation.

Beamforming

According to IEEE Spectrum, “Beamforming can help massive MIMO arrays make more efficient use of the spectrum around them.” This technology can be found in today’s high-end Wi-Fi routers, and it identifies the most efficient data-delivery route to a particular user, allowing engineers to achieve the high throughput and low latency required for 5G even when there are obstacles in the way.

When is 5G coming?

5G technology debuted at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, where it was used by Samsung and Intel to stream live VR coverage of sporting events. As exciting as such early demonstration of the next-gen mobile technology may be, regular mobile users will have to wait at least a few more years before they’ll be able to enjoy 5G connectivity. Intel, Qualcomm, and Samsung have all announced chipsets with 5G support, but carriers will set the pace of 5G adoption. Densely populated metropolitan areas will be covered first, while rural places may have to get by with 4G or even 3G for several more years.

Conclusion

“These next-generation networks and standards will need to solve a more complex challenge of combining communications and computing together. With 5G, we’ll see computing capabilities getting fused with communications everywhere, so trillions of things like wearable devices don’t have to worry about computing power because network can do any processing needed,” Keddy told Quartz in an interview ahead of the 2017 Mobile World Congress. The next-generation mobile technology is taking shape, promising to support billions of connected devices. From smart cities to driverless cars to augmented and virtual reality to the internet of things, 5G use cases are numerous and its impact on the world as we know it will be profound. Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. This article expresses my own opinions not those of my company. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it.

In-Display Fingerprint Sensors Are Here

Written by Brooks Canavesi on . Posted in IoT, Mobile App Development, Technology trends

At CES 2018, which took place January 9–12 in Las Vegas, Chinese technology company Vivo unveiled the first smartphone with an in-display fingerprint sensor: the Vivo X20 Plus UD, a result of a collaboration between Vivo and California-based developer of touchpads and sensors Synaptics.

Brief History of In-Display Fingerprint Sensors

In-display fingerprint sensors have been in the making for many years. Synaptics first debuted a fingerprint sensor capable of scanning through display glass, the Natural ID FS9100, in late 2016, and many have expected the sensor to appear in a smartphone from Apple or Samsung in 2017. Synaptics VP of marketing Anthony Gioeli said in a press release, “Synaptics’ FS9100 family of fingerprint sensors represent a new breed of optical fingerprint sensor technology that is designed to meet the needs of mobile devices, including the ability to image through thick 2.5D glass. In addition to opening the door to new industrial design options, it enables OEMs to provide highly durable, button-free cover glass and more easily provide water-resistant products while eliminating low yield glass processing.” But contrary to the expectations of many, in September 2017, Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi said in an interview that the Apple sees Face ID as the future of biometric authentication and wants to move away from Touch ID and other possible forms of fingerprint-based authentication. Because the Samsung Galaxy S8, which was released in April 2017, also featured a camera-based authentication mechanism, an iris scanner, it seemed for a while that the time of fingerprint sensors has passed. That changed in December 2017 with Synaptics’ announcement which stated that the company had begun mass production with a top five OEM of its new Clear ID FS9500 family of optical in-display fingerprint sensors. “Designed for smartphones with infinity displays, Synaptics’ Clear ID in-display fingerprint sensors magically activate in the display only when needed. Clear ID is faster than alternative biometrics such as 3D facial, highly-secure with SentryPoint technology, and very convenient with one-touch/one-step biometric authentication directly in the touchscreen display area of smartphones.” While Synaptics did not specify which smartphone manufacturers they were working with, the most likely suspects were Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei, and we now know that Vivo was definitely among them. Vivo X20 Plus UD Apart from its innovative fingerprint reader, the Vivo X20 Plus UD is not radically different from other high-end Android smartphones. It features a 6.43-inch 2160 x 1080 18:9 OLED display, which is a prerequisite for the FS9500 optical in-display fingerprint sensor to work. The smartphone also has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor with 4 GB of RAM, dual 12-megapixel cameras, and a 3,905mAh battery. The Vivo X20 Plus UD is currently available only for the Chinese market. From the user’s perspective, the in-display fingerprint sensor that’s completely hidden underneath the OLED display works just like a regular capacitive fingerprint sensor. “The mechanics of setting up your fingerprint on the phone and then using it to unlock the device and do things like authenticate payments are the same as with a traditional fingerprint sensor,” commented Vlad Savov for The Verge. “The only difference I experienced was that the Vivo handset was slower — both to learn the contours of my fingerprint and to unlock once I put my thumb on the on-screen fingerprint prompt—but not so much as to be problematic.”

How In-Display Fingerprint Sensors work?

Unlike capacitive fingerprint sensors, which generate an image of the ridges and valleys that make up a fingerprint using electrical current, optical fingerprint sensors, like the FS9500 optical in-display fingerprint sensor from Synaptics, use light to capture an image of a fingerprint. The captured image is then analyzed by an advanced artificial intelligence fingerprint recognition algorithm trained to recognize over 300 distinctive characteristics of fingerprints. In a press release from December 12, 2017, Synaptics boasts that the FS9500 sensor comes with several unique and highly secure authentication features, including Quantum Matcher for adaptive fingerprint template matching and authentication, PurePrint to distinguish between spoofs and actual fingers, and SecureLink to combine support for TLS protocol with ECC authentication and AES encryption.

Expect Smartphones with In-Display Fingerprint Sensors

“Consumers prefer fingerprint authentication on the front of the phone, and with the industry quickly shifting to bezel-free OLED infinity displays, the natural placement of the fingerprint sensor is in the display itself,” said Kevin Barber, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile Division, Synaptics. Even though the Samsung Galaxy S9 won’t likely feature an in-display fingerprint sensor, a patent filed by the company was recently spotted by TechTastic, showing a handset with a fingerprint scanner built into the display. This means that the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, or some other future smartphone from Samsung, will likely come with an in-display fingerprint sensor, and other smartphone manufacturers are going to follow suit.

The Emerging Category of Invisible Devices

Written by Brooks Canavesi on . Posted in IoT, Technology trends

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), 102.4 million wearable devices were shipped in 2016, and the wearable market is expected to double by 2021. But one wouldn’t have guessed that the popularity of wearables is on the rise after attending the 2017 GSMA Mobile World Congress, which is a combination of the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry and a conference featuring prominent executives representing mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors, and content owners from across the world.

The winner of the Best Wearable category at MWC 2017 was the Huawei Watch 2, which is a sporty smartwatch aimed predominantly at men.  While excellent in many ways, the Huawei Watch 2 isn’t exactly a groundbreaking departure from all other bulky sports smartwatches, which have been dominating the wearable world for the past few years.

The Huawei Watch 2 feels like a wearable piece of technology first and a watch second. Even people who are used to wearing a watch all the time might find it difficult to get used to the extra weight or the daily charging, not to mention the complicated synchronization with other devices. That might explain why fewer consumers use their wearables daily over time, as stated in a report from PwC. Wearables simply still feel too unnatural to become habitual or part of our daily routines.

“I don’t know about you, but when I’m adorning myself with wearable technology, I like it to feel natural. By that, I mean seamlessly integrated, so instead of being conscious that I’m wearing tech, I ideally want to reap the added bonus that it brings while not wearing any additional item: invisible, perhaps,” summarizes the problem Forbes contributor Lee Bell.

Thankfully, it seems that the wearable industry has recognized the need for seamlessly integrated wearables because a new category of smart gadgets is emerging, and the name of this category is “invisibles.”

As the name suggests, invisibles are so well-integrated that the users are not even aware of them unless they are actively taking advantage of the features they provide. Even though most invisibles that are currently available still focus mainly on the fitness market, there have already been several releases of invisible wearables that do other things besides heart rate monitoring.

Under Armour Gemini 3 RE Smart Shoes

The Under Armour Gemini 3 RE are smart shoes with a built-in motion sensor that tracks, analyzes, and stores virtually every running metric, synchronizing wirelessly with the UA MapMyRun smartphone application. The shoes can take advantage of a smartphone’s GPS sensor for even more comprehensive tracking, but they can also work on their own. Besides being packed with advanced electronic components, the Under Armour Gemini 3 RE also feature the innovative UA SpeedForm construction molds to the foot for a precision fit and the Threadborne midfoot panel for distinct style and enhanced ventilation. The shoes are available for $119.99 in two colors through Under Armour’s official website.

Nokia Steel HR

Most modern smartwatches have one thing in common: they don’t look like traditional watches. They either fall into the same category of fitness-oriented products as the aforementioned Huawei Watch 2, or they go for the elegantly futuristic look of the Apple Watch. The Nokia Steel HR smartwatch is different, though. Featuring a traditional watch movement along with a small LCD display, the Steel HR shows all the information you might expect a smartwatch to show, including heart rate, number of steps, distance, calories burned, and alarm time, but without the annoying need for daily charging. The watch is also water resistant up to 50 meters and comes with a stylish black watchband that makes it look just as good when worn with jeans as it does with dress pants.

JBL UA Sport Wireless Heart Rate Headphones

Under Armour have teamed up with audio experts JBL to produce a pair of wireless fitness-oriented headphones with a built-in heart rate monitoring functionality. Thanks to the ability of the JBL UA Sport headphones to monitor heart rate, users can receive updates for things like pace, distance, and heart-rate zones without looking at the display of a smartphone or smartwatch, which can be distracting and sometimes even impossible when in the zone. The heart rate monitoring functionality aside, the JBL UA Sport headphones offer excellent sound quality, good seal, and maximum comfort for daily listening. The headphones are water and sweat resistant, as fitness headphones should be, and they last up to 5 hours with audio and heart rate enabled on a charge.

Myontec Mbody Connected Shorts

The Myontec Mbody connected shorts boast the most comprehensive and advanced training system available, featuring an array of sensors that capture heart rate, cadence, speed, distance, and other conventional performance. The sensors can also perform muscle overload analysis, determine training readiness based on warm-up monitoring, and analyze for imbalance and injury prevention. The shorts have been designed with the needs of cyclists, duathletes, and triathletes in mind, which is reflected in the use of 3D elastic compression textile by Carvico Revolutional, a leader in the national and international textile market. Unlike conventional sports shorts, the Myontec Mbody can be connected to a smartphone via Bluetooth and paired with the Mbody Live app, which is available for iOS and Android.

Coros LINX Smart Bicycle Helmet

Modern cycling helmets already do many things to make cycling safer and more enjoyable, but they don’t help cyclists maintain a sharp focus on the road ahead. Every year, thousands of cyclists suffer serious and sometimes even fatal injuries because they use a smartphone for GPS navigation and communication. The Coros LINX smart helmet features wireless connectivity, allowing cyclists to wirelessly connect their helmet to their smartphone to listen to their own music, take phone calls, talk to fellow riders, and hear navigation and ride data through the helmet’s open-ear Bone Conduction Technology and a precision wind-resistant microphone. The helmet is available in four colors and two sizes.

Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket

Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket is the first mass-produced article of clothing to feature Jacquard by Google, the first full-scale digital platform created for smart clothing that allows clothing manufacturers to add a new layer of connectivity and interactivity to everything from jackets to shoes to bags. In the case of the Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket, touch-sensitive fabric is woven into the sleeve, and the remaining electronic components are incorporated into the design of the jacket in such a way that the jacket is washable and virtually indistinguishable from ordinary jackets. When paired with a smartphone, the touch-sensitive sleeve makes it possible to control music, navigation, or phone calls.

Conclusion

Together, all the invisible wearables described above demonstrate that consumers are interested in modern technology and its numerous benefits, but want to get them in a form that more seamlessly fits into their daily lives. As companies continue to develop new, more advanced textiles and sensors, we will likely see a boom of invisibles and the emergence of many never-before-seen smart products.

The State of Mobile Gaming and Razer’s New Gaming Phone

Written by Brooks Canavesi on . Posted in Technology trends

The year 2017 came to an end and the number of available app in the Google Play Store climbed to 3.3 million. Not too far behind is Apple’s App Store with 2.2 million available apps. Combined, the global mobile gaming market generated $36.9 billion in revenue in 2016, overtaking the PC gaming market for the first time in history. According to the latest quarterly update by Newzoo, a leading provider of market intelligence covering the global games, e-sports, and mobile markets, mobile gaming will represent just more than half of the total games market by 2020.

A study by PayPal and SuperData revealed that 78 percent of US respondents prefer gaming on smartphones instead of tablets, and recent smash hits such as Niantic’s Pokémon Go, which was downloaded over 100 million times in its first month alone, or Clash Royal, which generates over $2 million in daily revenue from in-app purchases, demonstrate that mobile gamers have a huge appetite for entertaining games and are willing to spend a lot of money on them.

According to Tapjoy’s report The Changing Face of Mobile Gamers: What Brands Need to Know, mobile gamers are most interested in puzzle games (59 percent), followed by strategy games (38 percent), trivia games (33 percent), and casino/card games (27 percent). Perhaps surprisingly, player-versus-player (15) and sports (11 percent) games are among the least popular categories of mobile games.

The lack of interest in more graphically intense mobile games with complex gameplay mechanics and cinematic storytelling could be, at least in part, attributed to the small number of smartphones created with gaming in mind.

Razer Phone: A Game Changer?

On November 1st, Razer, a company known for its gaming peripherals and computers, announced its grand entry into the smartphone market with the reveal of the Razer Phone, a smartphone created exclusively to satisfy the needs of mobile gamers.

Razer’s announcement didn’t come as a big surprise because, earlier this year, the company acquired fledgling smartphone maker Nextbit, who has given us the Robin, a smartphone that bears a striking resemblance to the Razer Phone.

Made from solid aluminum with a black matte finish, the Razer Phone purposefully goes against the biggest trend of this smartphone generation: bezel-less design. Unlike the iPhone X, the Samsung Galaxy S8, or the already largely forgotten Essential Phone, the Razer Phone sports unusually thick top and bottom bezels, which hide stereo speakers with support for Dolby Atmos for Mobile.

Thanks to the thick bezels, the Razor Phone can be comfortably held in the landscape mode, and the large speakers hidden inside deliver an immersive audio experience with minimal distortion even at higher volume levels. Realizing that one of the biggest attractions of mobile gaming is that it can happen anywhere, Razer didn’t forget about gamers who prefer or are forced to use headphones, including a USB-C audio adapter with a THX-certified 24-bit DAC right in the box.

The Razor Phone is powered by a Snapdragon 835 processor and Adreno 540 GPU, and it features 64 GB of expandable storage and 8 GB of RAM. Such a large amount of RAM allows Razor to use a less aggressive memory management strategy to keep more processes running in the background at the same time, which can significantly reduce the time it takes to switch between apps. The smartphone’s large 4,000 mAh battery promises a full day of intense gaming and extremely quick charging thanks to the support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0+, which includes all the benefits of Quick Charge 4 plus Dual Charge, intelligent thermal balancing, and several additional advanced safety features.

The phone’s 16:9 5.7-inch QHD IPS Sharp IGZO display isn’t the largest mobile display on the market nor the most color-accurate, but it delivers the highest refresh rates of all Android smartphones currently available: up to 120 Hz. “This means, zero lag or stuttering—just fluid, buttery smooth motion content for you to enjoy,” claims Razor.

Because refreshing everything 120 times per second takes its toll on the battery, Razer made the refresh rate adaptive, meaning that it dynamically adjusts itself for the best viewing experience as well as the best battery life. On the home screen, the refresh rate can be as low as 10 Hz, but it can instantly shoot up to 120 Hz when a user enters a game and stay at 120 Hz for as long as needed. Besides relying only on the automatic refresh rate adjustment to prolong the smartphone’s battery life, you can also manually set a frame rate cap of 60, 90, or 120 Hz as well as change the display resolution to 720p, 1080p, or the native QHD.

Even though only a small handful of popular games take advantage of either the front- or the rear-facing camera, the Razor Phone still comes with a decent dual 12 MP camera system: one camera taking wide-angle pictures and the other one being zoomed. The wide-angle camera has f/1.75 aperture, while the telephoto lens offers f/2.6 aperture. The front-facing camera has 8 MP.

The Razor Phone ships with Android 7.1.1 Nougat, and Razer plans to upgrade to Android 8 Oreo in spring 2018.

So far, Razor’s first entry into the smartphone market has been met with unanimously favorable reviews and positive reception from smartphone enthusiasts and mobile gamers alike. If the Razor Phone turns out to be a success, it might inspire other smartphone manufacturers to follow suit and release more smartphones aimed exclusively at mobile gamers, which could even reshape the mobile gaming market itself by increasing the demand for high-fidelity games that can push cutting-edge hardware to its limits.