Factors to Consider When Buying a Mobile Phone for Gaming

Mobile has become the most important platform for the gaming industry in terms of revenues, with smartphones and mobile devices contributing over half of its income each year. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there’s an army of mobile gamers out there, many of whom want to experience the highest-quality experience even when gaming on a pocket-sized device.

While many people will just tell you to buy the latest iPhone model to be sure that you’re getting a mobile that can offer top-tier gaming, it’s often not that simple. Brands have noted the rise of mobile gaming and are now making gaming-centric devices for the masses. Here, we run through ways to get by on a budget as well as the very best phones for key factors in mobile gaming.

Great gaming on a budget

If you’re looking to get a gaming smartphone purely to play games, you’ll often find that you’re paying several times what you would for console gaming hardware and, for the highest-end devices, about as much as a PC. The additional functionality and commonplace freemium business model for games is what makes the smartphone a popular gaming platform. Still, for a leading experience, there’s a fair price to pay.

However, one area that can be seen as a place where you could save money is the processor. An integral part of console and PC gaming, in mobile gaming, a mid-range processor is often enough because developers build their games to be as accessible as possible on mobile, suiting the environment of the platform. This means that you don’t necessarily need the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU to play the best mobile games.

This is most apparent in mobile casino gaming. Not only are games being made with a mobile-first mentality, but now, platforms have been updated to create Canadian mobile casinos and explain how they are the ideal way to play the games. Always available over the mobile internet, casino apps allow for an even more streamlined way to play slots, poker, and live casino games, with the platform handling most of the processing power so the mobile doesn’t have to do so.

Best mobiles for gaming

The three baseline factors that you want to hit to a high degree to ensure that you’ll have a top-class experience when mobile gaming are having a large screen, long battery life, and a strong processor. You need a big screen, as detailed by Samsung, to both make for easier viewing and give you more visual space while using the touch-screen controls. Battery life, naturally, needs to be as long as possible to maximize immersion, and the processor will help to run the more demanding games to a high level.

For a hefty battery and hours upon hours of potential play, the Asus ROG Phone 5 both ranks as the Techradar top pick for a gaming phone and boasts a massive 6,000mAh battery. Of course, landing the top spot wasn’t solely down to the battery. The Asus device also boasts up to 16GB RAM, a 6.78-inch screen – which isn’t far from the biggest of the top gaming phones – and the Snapdragon 888, which is still a top-ten processor in the mobile space.

For one of the largest screen sizes at an affordable price with a top-class processor, you can turn to the bulky 6.8-inch Nubia Red Magic 7. Its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is among the best processors on the market, and the third-best for Android devices. Further powering the Nubia smartphone as a sound gaming pick is its 20:9 aspect ratio, 165Hz display, and relatively low price point. That said, the battery leaves a bit to be desired.

Finally, for as much gaming clout as you could ask for on Android, the OnePlus 10 Pro has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU with 8GB or 12GB RAM. It also comes with up to 256GB storage, a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, and up to 12 hours of battery life. Perhaps the only mobile device that can best the OnePlus model is Apple’s super-premium iPhone 13 Pro Max. Its CPU, the A15 Bionic, is the consensus best processor out there, but it does have relatively restricted RAM of 6GB.

If you want to enjoy the very best mobile gaming experience, seek models with a big screen, lots of battery life, and a mighty CPU.