Have you ever been deep into a lengthy mobile gaming session when your iPhone 13 has got so hot you wished you could strap a literal fan to the back to prevent it from overheating? Well, your (very specific) prayers have been answered in the form of the Razer Cooler Chroma.
This mobile accessory sticks a seven-blade fan to the back of your iPhone via MagSafe in an effort to prevent it from getting too hot and experiencing performance issues due to overheating. We can confirm this isn't an out-of-season April Fools joke.
It's a bizarre accessory, given in our iPhone 13 gaming experience we've not encountered any huge rises in temperature, likely thanks to the power and efficiency of the A15 Bionic chip.
Furthermore, while the MagSafe magnets are used to fix the fan on to a compatible iPhone, the Razer Cooler Chroma needs constant power via a USB-C cable connection to a power outlet, which sort of blunts the whole mobile aspect of mobile gaming.
Owners of an older model of iPhone or an Android device haven’t been left out in the cold, as Razer offers an even more garish model that attaches via two fairly intrusive-looking plastic clamps. No matter which version you opt for, the Razer Cooler Chroma will set you back $60, and unsurprisingly both sports controllable RGB lighting — they are Razer products after all.
While there’s a certain novelty to this mobile accessory, we’re less convinced that it’s in any way necessary. While performance drops due to overheating can be a problem when mobile gaming, especially on less powerful devices, how much a fan strapped to the outside of your phone will remedy the situation is unclear.
The permanently tethered requirement also seriously diminishes the usefulness of the Razer Cooler Chroma. Not to mention the inconvenience of having a comparably sizeable fan strapped to the back of your mobile device is likely to lead to a pretty uncomfortable gaming experience overall.
To paraphrase the words of Jurassic Park's Dr Ian Malcolm: “Razer were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
