Gaming on your phone is more popular than ever before, here's why
- 1. Better battery life
- 2. Special features
- 3. Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Warzone
- 4. Better performance
- 5. Excellent screen resolution
(Image credit: EA)
If you’ve considered buying a gaming phone but have hesitated, we’re here to help you make an informed decision. Some of the best PC and console games are now also available on mobile phones, with more companies looking to make the leap to mobile in the near future. The best gaming phones can be just as powerful as handheld consoles and will give you far better performance than a tablet.
So, if you like gaming on the go but also want to be able to take pictures, make phone calls, check your Instagram, and respond to a group text, you’ll want a gaming phone. If you have the fund and have thought about entering the mobile gaming space, here are five reasons why buying a gaming phone is a great idea.
1. Better battery life
Gaming phones need powerful batteries to ensure users can play games without getting stuck with a dead phone all the time. You’ll rarely find a gaming phone without a beefy battery, and even though some standard smartphones can have an impressive battery life, they won’t have the same performance when it comes to gaming. You’ll want to ensure any gaming phone you consider has a high-capacity battery (around 4,500mAH to start).
2. Special features
Gaming phones almost always have a lovely suite of extra features that you’ll never find on a standard smartphone. Gaming phones often have shoulder triggers to give players an experience that feels similar to a Nintendo Switch or Steam deck, and these triggers can almost always be customized. Gaming phones also have improved vibration to give you that controller or handheld console feel, better cooling mechanics so that the phone doesn’t overheat, and a ton of modes that you can customize to suit your needs.
3. Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Warzone
Right now you can play top battle royale games like Fortnite and Apex Legends on mobile, and Activision is currently working on a mobile version of Call of Duty: Warzone. All three battle royales offer hours upon hours of fun, and developers have been working hard to make sure these big, beefy games translate well to mobile phones. Imagine you’re on a road trip, sitting shotgun, shotgunning an enemy in the face in Apex Legends – and your phone isn’t dropping frame rates or lagging at all. You can’t get a mobile multiplayer experience like that without a dedicated gaming phone.
4. Better performance
Your gaming phone will blow any other phone (and even tablet) out of the water when it comes to performance. A dedicated gaming phone can run games like Crysis and PUBG without blowing up – that’s because it has a litany of expensive and impressive hardware tucked away inside it. Gaming phones will have more RAM than a traditional smartphone, a powerful CPU/GPU, and impressive screen setups. With more RAM available, that means even your bog-standard apps will run better than they would on a regular phone, and you’ll see loading times drop across the board, no matter what you’re doing on your phone.
5. Excellent screen resolution
Nothing beats the screen on a gaming phone. With a better refresh rate, which determines how often your screen displays an image per second, you’ll get a more smooth gaming experience. Gaming phones will usually have 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rates, and the higher the better, as it’ll reduce screen tearing and less visual latency. If you’re going to be playing highly competitive shooters on your phone, you’ll want to ensure there’s no visual lag that could put you at a disadvantage.
Alyssa Mercante
Alyssa Mercante is an editor and features writer at GamesRadar based out of Brooklyn, NY. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters’s degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.