The three main factors to consider are screen (particularly size, resolution and refresh rate), battery life, and processing power. Beyond that, look to extra features that might be useful when gaming, such as triggers or fans, and look to the library of available games, as it differs between Android and iOS.
The best gaming phones are specifically tailored to gamers. Ideally, when buying a gaming phone, you need fast performance, a large, sharp screen with a high refresh rate, good battery life, and features tailor-made for gaming.
So, while some of the best phones, such as the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, might do a great job tackling mobile games, you're better off getting a dedicated gaming phone for a better gaming experience. That's especially true if you spend more of your free time gaming and you want that distinctive gamer aesthetic.
A dedicated device tends to boast better cooling, as well as hardware adaptations like shoulder triggers and even detachable physical controls. Phones like the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro offer all these features, for example, which is why it tops our list of the best gaming phones.
Having tested more than our share of phones, we've ranked all the best gaming phones, prioritizing those that are specifically designed with gaming in mind, followed by more general smartphones that come with enough power to give you a smooth and immersive gaming experience. Take a look at the best gaming phones below.
Asus has risen to supremacy as purveyor of the market's best gaming phones; built on a combination of cutting-edge hardware, intelligent software, and eye-catching designs and accessory ecosystems, all tailor-made for mobile gamers.
Previously, the recipe was always, more power, more battery life, more screen, more cooling, just more, but with the ROG Phone 8 series, the company has changed the course of its established gaming phone line by asking the question "what should a gaming phone be beyond good at gaming?"
It would appear that the ROG Phone 8 Pro is less about gaming and more about everything else, but it hasn't lost what made its predecessors so great, it just broadens the ROG Phone series' appeal to a broader audience than ever before.
Nubia's line of Red Magic gaming phones have always focused on delivering the latest hardware and the best available performance at an impressively competitive price. The latest Red Magic 9 Pro is no exception to this approach, while also being the first of the brand's devices to serve up Qualcomm's latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset at its heart.
The dedicated gaming mode switch, integrated RGB fan for active cooling, 520Hz touch response rate display and capacitive shoulder buttons all help reinforce the 9 Pro's gaming credentials, which paired with that top-tier silicon truly deliver.
As the name might suggest, it's unapologetic in its intent to deliver the best mobile gaming hardware and software experience out there, and while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset running the show is no longer the latest and greatest, it still has more than enough power to push pixels around better than almost anything else currently on the market.
If you'd rather a phone that's great for gaming, but one that isn't necessarily marketed as a gaming phone (and thus offers a more balanced overall experience), then the options below might be more suitable than those we've already covered here.
Samsung's latest Ultra is, for the most part, an iterative refinement on its predecessor, however, one of the most notable upgrades from the performance doled out by its tuned Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 'for Galaxy' chipset paired to a vapor chamber that's twice the size of the one found in 2023's Galaxy S23 Ultra, for superior cooling.
More than just an iterative upgrade on its predecessor, the iPhone 15 Pro Max brings in improved cameras, a 5x telephoto lens, a new Action Button, a titanium design, and most importantly for gaming, the new A17 Pro chip.
With that slice of silicon the 15 Pro Max is more powerful than ever, delivering hardware-accelerated ray tracing for more realistic lighting in games, and the ability to run console ports of big games like Resident Evil: Village and Death Stranding on a smartphone.
OnePlus has often placed an emphasis on performance with its phones, and that's certainly true of its latest flagship, the OnePlus 12. The same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset as you'll find in the likes of the ROG Phone 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, along with a massive dual vapor chamber, huge battery and impressive 100W fast charging (80W if you're in the US), make this a fast, capable phone for gaming.
OnePlus skips the latest trend of AI features and instead focuses on its performance-optimizing Trinity Engine, to keep the processor, memory and storage all operating in tip-top shape for as long as possible. HyperTouch and some other tools are on hand to enhance gaming responsiveness specifically and in more general use cases this also possesses one of the company's best cameras yet.
When you're choosing a gaming phone, you need to think about which games you like to play. If your games benefit from extra controls, you might consider a phone with shoulder buttons. If you often play on the go and need amazing battery life and fast charging, look for a phone with a big battery and high wattage charging. If you're looking for a serious gaming powerhouse with the fastest display and coolest look for gamers, that's going to be the top phone on our list. Whatever you want in a gaming phone, we have a pick for all of your priorities.
Alex joined as TechRadar's Senior Phones Editor in June 2022, but brings over a decade's worth of experience to the role, with an expertise in smartphones, tablets and wearables. He's covered keynotes hosted by the biggest brands and attended the launches for some of the most influential mobile products of the last few years. His experience was amassed at some of the most reputable consumer technology publications out there, including GSMArena, TechAdvisor and Trusted Reviews.","contributorText":"With contributions from","contributors":["name":"Philip Berne","role":"US Mobiles Editor","link":"href":"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/author\/philip-berne"]}), " -0-9/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Alex Walker-ToddSocial Links NavigationSenior Phones EditorAlex joined as TechRadar's Senior Phones Editor in June 2022, but brings over a decade's worth of experience to the role, with an expertise in smartphones, tablets and wearables. He's covered keynotes hosted by the biggest brands and attended the launches for some of the most influential mobile products of the last few years. His experience was amassed at some of the most reputable consumer technology publications out there, including GSMArena, TechAdvisor and Trusted Reviews.
I just wanted to share my excitement about the Windows subsystem for Android with Google that I recently installed on my Lenovo Legion Go gaming device. This thing is a game changer (pun intended)!
The installation process was surprisingly smooth, and the performance has been flawless so far. I can now run all my favorite Android apps requiring google, and games alongside my Windows apps and games.
I can't recommend the Windows subsystem for Android with GOOGLE enough, especially if you're a gamer like me who wants the best of all worlds. It's a total game changer, and I'm loving every minute of it!
Hi John Lorelia ,
I tried it out, and as an Idea I find it really great, but the Google Play apps and games you can install through it seem to be VERY limited... Isn't there a way to also download and install other apps like using the apk-files directly for example?
I tried to verify that WSA runs 64bit Android apps, but it wasn't easy to determine - I think it does. Therefore, for the Legion Go, you would want an APK package file of the x86-64 variant or a Universal variant (Universal variant APKs are large in size because they contain builds for all Android platforms: x86; x86-64; ARM v7 32bit; and ARM v8 64bit). I'd assume most high-end games are built with the Android NDK (Native Development Kit) which allows a developer to program in C/C++ compiled to the hardware instead of Java or Kotlin that use the ART runtime. I'd also assume developers using the NDK most likely target the ARM architecture, not Intel x86, which is why Android high-end game titles are probably lacking for most Windows devices using the x86 / x86-64 architecture (unsure how emulated ARM / ARM64 games would run). Google recommends that all developers offer Universal builds, but I'm not sure how many developers actually do.
Also, there is a new package format, XAPK. Google takes a developer's uploaded Play Store app and creates a build specific to your device when you download it... to reduce app storage space. XAPK files only run on specific devices and can't be copied and installed onto other model Android devices. Package files using the older APK file format are easier to work with manually (if I remember, I believe they're actually just renamed ZIP archive files).
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