Gaming hardware company Razer has been making Razer Kishi game controllers for Android phones and small tablets for a few years. Today, the company presents its own Android tablet designed to work with Razer’s new Kishi Pro detachable controllers.
The Razer edge is an Android tame tablet with a 6.8-inch, 2400 x 1800 pixel 144Hz AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon G3X Gen 1 processor. It is expected to ship in January 2023 and will be available in two versions: there is a model Wi-Fi only priced at $400 and a 5G model that will be available exclusively from Verizon, which will announce pricing separately.
When Verizon released the first teaser of the Razer Edge 5G in September, it wasn’t clear we were considering a tablet with detachable controllers. So it seemed safe to assume that the device would be similar to the hardware development kit Qualcomm and Razer introduced last year.
But instead, it looks like the new Razer Edge is more of a spiritual successor to the original Razer Edge, a 10-inch Windows gaming tablet with detachable controllers that launched in 2013 but was discontinued the following year.
The device will also likely draw obvious comparisons to the Nintendo Switch, another tablet with detachable controllers. But whereas Nintendo’s tablet is a console running Nintendo’s proprietary software, the new Razer Edge is a device that ships with Android 12 software. It should be able to run thousands of Android games without breaking a sweat, but Razer notes that It also supports game streaming platforms like Xbox cloud gaming, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and Amazon Luna.
And while you could theoretically slamming a Razer Kishi v2 gaming controller on any decent Android phone for a similar gaming experience, Razer says there are few things that set its new mobile gaming system apart:
- The Razer Edge features active cooling for better sustained performance. There are a handful of phones designed for gamers that have fans and/or liquid cooling, but most mainstream phones are passively cooled.
- Razer has equipped the phone with a display that supports 60Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz refresh rates. It also has a touch sampling rate of 288Hz.
- The new Razer Kishi Pro controller also introduces new haptic feedback features along with support for 3.5mm audio pass-through.
Razer says the Kishi Pro controller also has “smooth analog triggers” and microswitch buttons. And while the Edge tablet is also compatible with the Razer Kishi v2 controller if you wanted to use it for some reason. But the company doesn’t plan to sell the tablet as a standalone device at launch: the only way to buy it will be to buy a tablet + Kishi Pro controller bundle.
Other Razer Edge features include a webcam, WiFi 6E support, and 5G ultra-wideband support (if you opt for the Verizon model).
Razer does not commit to regular operating system or security updates, but the company says it plans to offer over-the-air software updates to bring improvements and new features to its own Razer Edge software experience.
| Razer Edge / Edge 5G Specifications | |
| Display | 6.8 inches 2400 x 1080 pixels AMOLED 144Hz |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 |
| RAM | 8 GB LPDDR5 |
| Storage | 128 GB |
| Battery | 5000mAh |
| Connectivity | WiFi 6E Bluetooth 5.2 5G model: mmWave and sub-6GHz |
| Ports | 1x USB Type-C 1 microSD card reader 1 SIM card slot |
| audio | 2 speakers 2 x digital microphones 1 x 3.5mm audio jack (in Razer Kishi v2 controller) |
| Software | Android 12 |
| Dimensions | 253×87×13.88mm |
| lester | 262 grams |
| Price/availability | $399/Jan (Wi-Fi model) $??? / January (Verizon 5G) |