There’s no getting away from it, for several years the gaming handheld market was entirely the Nintendo Switch and nothing else of notoriety really. That has changed over the last two or three years, with competitors popping up all over the place, from the well-liked Steam Deck to the Razer Edge, and more besides.
The question of quality for the Nintendo Switch is not under question, but it was undoubtedly aimed at a younger demographic, with Nintendo games being predominantly aimed at children. That isn’t something that can be said of the Steam Deck, or the Razer Edge.
We were lucky enough to get our hands on the Razer Edge at Gamescom 2023, and after a few months of extensive use and ‘testing’, we have some thoughts.
Not Just for Children, this is a Handheld for All Ages (and all Gamers)
Gaming as a hobby is no longer the sign of a ‘loser’ or someone with no social skills. Instead, gaming is for everyone, of all ages and backgrounds nowadays. From four-year-olds using it to learn, to elderly grandparents who play Skyrim for hours on end, there’s much less of a stigma to it, and as such, there has been a huge hole in the handheld market for a few years. That’s now getting filled.
The Razer Edge is a handheld with two functionalities. Let us get that out of the way. In fact, it’s technically two products in one. Similar to the Android Backbone, the Kishi V2 Pro – controller portion – can be removed and used with other products, be it your Android tablet, smartphone, or something else.
This then leaves you with the screen – the Edge itself – to use as you wish. Now you can use other gaming controllers on it, for example, the aforementioned Android Backbone, but truthfully, this would be a waste, as the Kishi V2 Pro is hands down one of the best gaming controllers I’ve ever used with a handheld. More commonly, when it wasn’t for gaming purposes I found myself using it for reading books, comics or even streaming a little. It’s a fully functioning Android tablet after all.
The Razer Edge comes with an integrated game launcher that’ll make using it on various systems a doddle. Whether you want to boot up Starfield on the Xbox Cloud, or Elden Ring via PlayStation Remote Play, it’s a few clicks and you’re there, and playing within seconds. It’s also as easy to set up when getting it out of the box as it is to launch a game, with the whole thing taking minutes at best to get going, and the Snapdragon operating system keeps it all running smoothly.
And talking of smoothness, the 6.8-inch display runs brilliantly thanks to the 6GB of RAM, and the AMOLED 2400 x 1080P display gives you your favorite games in some incredible crispness. There’s no screen tearing, lagging, or any other common complaints that’ll disturb your gaming sessions. Even the most reactive and quicker of games will look good with the 144Hz refresh rate – which also comes in handy for video streaming and rapid tab switching through general use.
Hardware-wise, the only complaint to have is that the external storage is inexplicably restricted to a FAT32 storage setting, meaning regardless of the size of your SD card – the Edge supports up to 2TB – the files on the card can’t exceed 4GB in size. In today’s day and age of huge games and even bigger file sizes, this almost makes external storage redundant, gaming-wise.
The Razer Edge Handheld Does Something Others Don’t (or Can’t)
Being able to boot up games from multiple systems is a great feature supported by most third-party hardware developers these days, and thankfully as I’ve already mentioned, the Razer Edge follows suit. Emulation is on the cards as well, meaning you relive your glory days of some of your oldest gaming memories, but newer ones on the more recent systems are currently out of reach, at least for now. That said, the Razer Edge does something no other handheld can – at least for now.
Many games were never designed with portability in mind, and older games/mobile games don’t even have controller support. Now this is a real issue, as nobody wants to be obscuring their screens, unable to see the action unfolding before them, because they’re also having to use the touchscreen to control what’s going on.
Post not foundRazer saw an open goal here, as they’ve implemented a virtual controller to the Razer Edge, that allows us to map on-screen buttons to the physical buttons of the Kishi V2 Pro, and it genuinely couldn’t be easier. If you’re launching a game without controller support, a little popup at the bottom will allow you to take those buttons on screen, and allocate them to a button on the controller within seconds. This means different consoles, old games, mobile games and many more can now be played with little effort, and ultimately means you’ll spend your time appreciating what’s going on in front of you.
All-in-all, the Razer Edge is a fantastic piece of kit, with one of the better gaming controllers and displays available, with multiple systems supported, and the Android operating system allowing for customization you just don’t get with others. The virtual controller also allows gamers to map buttons and controls for games that don’t have them. So whether it’s PUBG or an old PS2 game you want to play on the move, a couple of moments and you’ll be able to use physical buttons, not touchscreen support.
The price point in today’s handheld gaming market feels right for what’s on offer, and ultimately feels good value, but the FAT32 restriction could prove to hold the handheld back unless the long-promised exFAT update eventually arrives.
8/10
The Razer Edge was supplied to FandomWire for review by Razer.
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