With powerful processors, oodles of RAM and high refresh rate displays, gaming phones revolutionize your experience. Some models, like the Asus ROG Phone, even come equipped with special features tailored explicitly towards gamers, such as trigger buttons and enhanced cooling for optimal gaming sessions.
Sony Xperia 1 V offers flagship performance at midrange prices. Its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and up to 12GB of RAM outshone phones twice its cost.
Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro
The Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro stands out among gaming phones as an impressive combination of hardware and features, from its stylish design, powerful performance, top-of-the-line display and excellent battery life to fast charging, extra active fan cooling, usable cameras and IP68 water and dust resistance. Furthermore, there are handy extras like its programmable LED lighting system and ability to pair wireless headsets for low latency personal audio gaming sessions.
This year, Asus revamped their Phone to make it more elegant and less overtly “gamer.” The device now sports slimmer bezels, an oval-shaped punch-hole selfie camera, and a metal back – features usually associated with more modern smartphones but a refreshing change from some older gaming phones of yesteryear. There are still subtle gaming elements here, such as bold “Gamer” text decals on near-invisible glossy decals on its body and its programmable LED lighting system on the rear – yet plenty of subtle “gamer” touches – like bold “Gamer” text decals on near-invisible shiny decals on its rear.
Asus has included their innovative AeroActive Cooler X fan with this model to reduce thermal resistance and enhance performance, which has helped improve our results in our CPU and GPU benchmark tests. While the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip powering this phone is highly powerful, its multi-core Geekbench test results were eclipsed by Apple A17 Pro and Nubia Red Magic 9 Pro phones in terms of Geekbench multicore benchmark testing; it quickly overtook Red Magic 9 Pro when performing GPU-intensive tests via GFXBench tests however.
ROG Phone’s 6.78-inch AMOLED display is one of the finest on the market, boasting an astounding 165Hz touch sampling rate and big, bright, accurate colours that help provide fast button presses and responsive gaming experiences. Furthermore, its built-in ambient light sensor helps automatically adjust brightness according to your environment, helping reduce screen fatigue significantly.
Asus’ ZenUI user interface, which I find more straightforward and efficient than many of the bloated smartphone user interfaces I encounter today, runs smoothly on Android 14. If you prefer more gaming-focused interfaces, you can switch them on through settings easily.
OnePlus 12
Last month, value-oriented Android smartphone OEM OnePlus released its 12th flagship phone: the OnePlus 12. True to tradition, it offered high-end features and impressive performance at a highly reasonable price point.
As is typical for modern smartphones, the OnePlus 12 features an impressive display and powerful processor. Crafted with standard smartphone materials and featuring a thin yet light build that fits comfortably in your hand without feeling bulky, its textured rear prevents it from slipping from your grip. At the same time, its camera bump and slightly rounded edges enable easy landscape mode usage.
In terms of specs, the OnePlus 12 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile processor with AI, AR/VR capabilities and gaming features. This new chip runs faster than its predecessor and offers significant enhancements, including increased gaming and machine learning performance. Benchmark tests show it is performing admirably against competing Galaxy and iPhone phones and even beating some tests with ease.
The OnePlus 12 is an ideal device for gaming enthusiasts due to its smooth and fast performance. Capable of running at 60 frames per second on maxed-out settings without experiencing lag or stutter, the device also excelled on recent 3DMark graphics tests – finishing ahead of Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max devices.
OnePlus has long been known for producing top-tier cameras, and the OnePlus 12 is no different. Boasting two sensors–including one 50MP primary camera with wide-angle, telephoto and zoom lenses–plus portrait mode with adjustable blur and optical image stabilization, it boasts one of the finest cameras ever produced by any phone manufacturer.
The OnePlus 12 is an exceptional gaming phone, but it may only be suitable for some. Although more costly than its peers, the device offers faster processor performance and longer battery life than many unapologetic flagship phones. Unfortunately, however, it lacks software/security updates, so opting for either Pixel or Samsung Galaxy may be better.
Sony Xperia 1 V
If you’re in search of a premium smartphone explicitly designed to bring out the gamer in you, then look no further than the Sony Xperia 1 V. Boasting stunning visuals and impressive audio, as well as features tailored towards hardcore gamers – the Sony Xperia 1 V stands out as being one of only a few smartphones to support native 4K HDR playback!
The Sony Xperia 1 V’s camera systems are among the finest on the market, but that’s only scratching the surface of this phone’s capabilities. Boasting an enormous 6.5-inch OLED screen that exploits a cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio to produce a 3840×1644 pixel count, creating an ergonomic tall, narrow handset suitable for viewing widescreen media such as movies or YouTube videos without becoming cumbersome to hold in one hand.
Sony’s Xperia 1 V stands out among current flagship phones by still featuring an audio jack – and not just to sell headphones! This phone boasts excellent front-facing stereo speakers that support Dolby Atmos as well as numerous audio technologies and formats – such as Sony Music Pro’s Voice Record feature, which enables studio-quality vocal recording capabilities with its built-in mic.
The Sony Xperia 1V stands out among high-end smartphones by providing a variable refresh rate on its screen. You can choose from 60Hz or 120Hz refresh rates; 120Hz refresh rates are great for gaming as they reduce screen tearing while maintaining battery life. Unfortunately, however, this smartphone doesn’t feature more advanced LTPO technologies, which automatically adapt their refresh rates according to usage patterns and preferences.
Although the Xperia 1 V is an excellent gaming phone, its video-watching abilities may need to improve. While its pixel density is admirable, its colours need to live up to expectations, and brightness levels need to provide optimal viewing experiences.
Concerns include the fact that the Xperia 1 V only promises two years of Android updates and three years of security patches compared to four or five years available on other phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S10 or OnePlus 6. Furthermore, there’s no dedicated gaming mode; instead, it comes equipped with a Game Booster to assist in keeping performance under control.
Motorola Edge Plus (2023)
Motorola’s Edge Plus (2023) is its finest phone in years. Boasting premium performance, an eye-catching design, and IP68 certification (as opposed to last year’s IP52 rating), as well as running Android 13 with an intuitive user interface – and yet affordable pricing – The phone stands out amongst its competition as it genuinely delivers everything a user could ask for in one package.
With all this functionality for less than $800, Motorola’s Affirm offers plenty to offer–but it could be better. Most notably, it isn’t sold by any of the three major US carriers and, therefore, doesn’t come with lucrative freebie offers that typically encourage people to upgrade. Instead, purchasing must take place directly through Motorola or third-party sellers such as Affirm.
Motorola will only guarantee future updates for three years of complete OS upgrades and four twice-monthly security patches compared to Samsung’s five-year guarantee. That still gives prospective owners plenty of peace of mind, though.
Even with its outdated software, the Edge Plus excels on our benchmark tests. Its Geekbench 5 score stands up well against its premium smartphone peers, and it quickly loads web pages and runs multiple applications without stuttering.
Edge Plus cameras are also quite impressive; while not as high-grade as those found on Pixel 8, they do an admirable job taking portrait mode photos and rendering 3D game graphics. Furthermore, it comes equipped with an impressive slow-motion feature capable of recording videos at 960fps.
Edge Plus stands out with its massive battery, easily lasting through an entire day of heavy usage. Plus, with both fast 68W wired charging and 15W wireless charging available, you can power up in mere minutes.