The camera of the Razer Phone will receive “fancy add on [sic] features” with future updates, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Min-Liang Tan said on Twitter earlier today. According to Mr. Tan, the San Francisco, California-based gaming firm was committed to getting the basic camera capabilities right before focusing on other aspects of the imaging experience provided by its first smartphone ever. While the Singaporean didn’t elaborate on the matter, his comments were made in response to some criticism about the default camera app of the Razer Phone being relatively barebones. Given that context, it’s likely that Razer will eventually introduce support for more shooting modes and possibly some augmented reality additions like stickers, though it’s currently unclear how long will the company take to start ennobling its mobile imaging tool.
While the Razer Phone is largely focused on gaming, it was built to appeal to a wide variety of consumers, including those who care about mobile photography. The handset hence comes with a dual-camera setup entailing two 12-megapixel sensors, the main one of which is situated behind a 25mm lens with an aperture of f/1.8. The supporting sensor backs a telephoto lens with an f/2.6 aperture and 2x optical zoom, with the system itself boasting support for phase detection autofocus and being accompanied by a dual-LED flash. Mr. Tan’s Tuesday comments also suggested that Razer will look into highlighting games capable of taking full advantage of the handset’s 5.7-inch LCD panel with a 120MHz refresh rate, the highest one in the mobile industry to date. It’s still unclear how the company plans to go about doing that, though its initial list shouldn’t be too long until more developers start supporting the Razer Phone’s unique hardware.
Following its announcement earlier this month, the Razer Phone is now set to be officially released on Friday, November 17th. The handset will be priced at approximately $700, depending on the market, and is offering Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835, 8GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal flash memory expandable by up to 256GB via a microSD card slot. The Razer Phone will attempt to position itself as more than just a niche Android phone but faces stiff competition from numerous other OEMs this holiday season.