Razer launched the Razer Prio, the first in a new line of ultra-portable controllers: a pocket-sized USB-C gamepad that folds to roughly the size of a credit card and plugs straight into an iPhone or Android handset, with no pairing and no separate battery to charge.
Folded, the Razer Prio measures 107 by 67 by 23 mm and weighs 101 g. A twist-to-open hinge extends it into a full-sized layout that fits phones up to seven inches, including the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, according to Razer. The company pitches it for short gaps in the day, commutes and waiting rooms, where carrying a rigid controller is impractical.
The more substantive change sits under the thumbsticks. The Razer Prio uses capacitive analog sticks that read movement without physical wiper contacts, which the company says reduces the drift that develops on worn controllers and is a first for one of its gamepads. Contactless sensing should in principle wear more slowly, though whether it holds up will take months of daily use to judge.
The marketing leans on latency, under the tagline "turns delay into play." Razer says the wired USB-C link responds faster than a wireless pad, but it has not published a millisecond figure, and other makers of wired phone controllers make similar claims. The real-world gap depends on the phone, the game, and whether play is local or streamed from the cloud.
The Razer Prio supports iOS 18 and Android 14 or later for local play and for streaming through Xbox Cloud Gaming, Steam Link, PS Remote Play, and Razer's own PC Remote Play, and a dedicated button opens the Razer Cortex Mobile launcher. Razer lists it at $99.99 on its US product page. The folding hinge and stated case compatibility, rather than the button layout, are what separate it from Razer's existing Kishi clamp controllers.
Razer covers the Razer Prio with a warranty of up to one year. Whether a folding gamepad survives pocket carry better than a rigid clamp over that period is the open question the spec sheet cannot answer.
