The Best Gaming Phones Right Now

RedMagic has shown a perennial knack for delivering gaming show astatine class-leading levels, and the RedMagic 11 Pro takes the torch from the 10 Pro and carries it further still. This procreation not lone benefits from the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC for the astir almighty telephone hardware we’ve seen yet, but it doubles down connected making the astir of that hardware by throwing its signature aerial cooling strategy astatine it alongside a caller liquid-cooling loop. The results are phenomenal, with the champion benchmark scores we’ve seen and sustained show successful games without breaking a sweat.

Where astir phones volition spot their show rapidly descend nether a dense load, the RedMagic 11 Pro proved susceptible of sustaining higher speeds for longer. Benchmarks were 1 of the lone things that could truly springiness the telephone a workout, arsenic it ne'er seemed to get arsenic blistery oregon trim speeds arsenic overmuch portion playing existent games.

Performance is lone 1 consideration, though. Thankfully, RedMagic doesn’t travel up lacking successful different cardinal areas. The phone’s show is excellent. It provides a spacious canvas to presumption games, offering them vivid and punchy colour and opposition acknowledgment to its agleam OLED panel. RedMagic besides uses an efficaciously invisible selfie camera that hides underneath the show truthful that you get a genuinely uninterrupted display. By adding enarthrosis buttons onto the borderline of the chassis, you besides get amended power successful your games.

The cameras permission plentifulness to beryllium desired, but that’s a emblematic trade-off you’ll find connected immoderate gaming phone. On the agleam side, the RedMagic 11 Pro isn’t really asking for a large premium to present specified exceptional gaming bonafides. The telephone has a starting terms of $749, undercutting conscionable astir thing other you mightiness beryllium considering for competitory show levels.

RedMagic whitethorn instrumentality the barroom for performance, but erstwhile it comes to wide appeal, the OnePlus 15 is simply a acold much well-rounded phone. Thankfully, it inactive has the show gamers require, packing successful the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. It doesn’t rather support up with RedMagic, but it’s not trailing acold down astir of the time, and it leapt up of each different telephone we’d tested prior. That velocity translates wonderfully into games, wherever the telephone readily handles the astir demanding Android games without overmuch fuss.

OnePlus lacks the astir absurd cooling hardware of the RedMagic 11 Pro, but it has a decent capable solution that avoids excessively overmuch vigor buildup during regular usage and gaming — though benchmarks tin enactment it implicit the top. It makes up for that omission by being an fantabulous telephone all-around.

The OnePlus 15 includes a superb OLED show that runs astatine 165Hz for other creaseless visuals. It includes a monolithic artillery for multi-day artillery life. The triple-camera strategy connected the rear hasn’t improved connected the OnePlus 13 meaningfully, but it’s inactive a worthy setup that tin vie admirably with Google and Samsung phones. Network connectivity and semipermanent bundle enactment are besides connected the high-end for Android devices, if not rather matching Google, Samsung, oregon Apple. Overall, there’s not a batch the OnePlus 15 does poorly, and the gaming show it delivers connected apical of that well-rounded acquisition makes it a large prime for those who privation a slayer telephone with the enactment to game.

Mobile gaming calls for a mates of things: utmost show and a large display. Where iPhones are concerned, the iPhone 17 Pro Max delivers the champion Apple has to connection successful some categories. Offering a monolithic (for smartphones) 6.9-inch display, the 17 Pro Max benefits from 120Hz ProMotion smoothness, ample sharpness, and a vivid OLED sheet truthful agleam that our reviewer flashbanged herself with it.

Performance is besides its beardown point. The A19 Pro spot successful the iPhone 17 Pro Max packs six CPU cores and six GPU cores, which marque for tiny show upticks implicit the earlier iPhone 16 Pro Max but volition beryllium a overmuch much sizeable boost for anyone coming from older models. The iPhone 17 Pro Max is inactive lagging somewhat down immoderate of the Android telephone options moving the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC successful multi-core show and 3DMark benchmarks (like the RedMagic 10 Pro and OnePlus 13 included above) and that spread is apt to widen further erstwhile the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 lands successful phones successful precocious 2025. But that’s not capable to clasp the iPhone 17 Pro Max backmost arsenic a large enactment for gaming, arsenic plentifulness of developers optimize their games for iPhone, and the show connected platform present holds up good successful adjacent the astir demanding games.

In our testing, vigor was inactive an issue, arsenic it is for astir phones, but the iPhone 17 Pro Max inactive managed it good enough. In 3DMark’s Steel Nomad Light accent test, the telephone rapidly lowered its show aft 1 run, but past mostly sustained for the remaining 19 runs. That’s reasonably emblematic behaviour from a telephone that doesn’t person progressive cooling (a rarity) oregon simply throttles its show from the start. Crucially, the phone’s extended aluminum framework and vapor enclosure bash a bully occupation of spreading heat, truthful adjacent though the telephone gets lukewarm portion gaming, our reviewer didn’t find it having immoderate superior hotspots.

What helps marque the iPhone 17 Pro Max much worthwhile is that connected apical of its credentials for gaming, it’s besides a almighty instrumentality successful different respects. It’s built sturdy, it has a large acceptable of cameras, and it should get the aforesaid benignant of semipermanent enactment that has been a standout diagnostic of iPhones for galore years.

While Apple did motorboat the caller iPhone 16e successful 2025 with budget-minded consumers successful consideration, it didn’t supply arsenic affordable a caller exemplary arsenic it had with earlier iPhone SE devices. The $599 iPhone 16e has immoderate advantages though. This caller exemplary runs connected the A18 spot that powers the iPhone 16, and that’s a superior portion of hardware. Unfortunately, the iPhone 16e gets a trimmed-down GPU with 4 cores alternatively of 5. Fortunately, the A18 has show to spare, truthful I don’t spot that holding the iPhone 16e backmost from being a coagulated gaming telephone for adjacent demanding titles. Even though I haven’t had a accidental to trial the iPhone 16e yet, I deliberation it’s harmless to accidental it’ll inactive rip done mundane cognition and games alike, and my workfellow implicit astatine PCMag saw fantabulous show from the telephone successful his review.

While it's a shame the iPhone 16e couldn’t get a $429 terms tag similar the anterior iPhone SE, it doesn’t marque the aforesaid sacrifices that telephone did. The iPhone 16e gets a much modern plan successful enactment with what Apple’s been pushing since arsenic aboriginal arsenic the iPhone 12. The champion portion of this upgrade for gamers is the overmuch greater surface size. The iPhone 16e has a 6.1-inch show without the beefy bezels of the iPhone SE. That’s much existent property to spot games and usage your thumbs for controls. Plus, the show is an OLED panel, which provides amended representation prime and contrast. The iPhone 16e besides starts with much basal retention astatine 128GB, which is immense compared to the 64GB Apple provided successful the anterior iPhone SE.

All of that sets up the iPhone 16e nicely for gamers. But I’ll caveat that it whitethorn not beryllium the cleanable prime for folks who conscionable privation a value-focused iPhone. It whitethorn beryllium the cheapest Apple offers astatine the moment, but it does sacrifice rather a bit. For instance, you won’t get entree to mmWave oregon UWB 5G networking, which tends to connection the fastest speeds. That deficiency of mmWave besides means precise instrumentality tracking for items similar AirTags won’t work. The iPhone 16e besides lacks MagSafe support, truthful you’ll person to either spell without it oregon trust connected a lawsuit to alteration compatibility with MagSafe accessories. The camera strategy is besides alternatively constricted with conscionable 1 sensor. I’d urge the iPhone 14 for astir people, but the updated spot successful the iPhone 16e volition marque much consciousness for gamers who tin forgo the other mentioned here.

Sometimes you conscionable privation much surface to spot each the glory of your favourite games, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 that I reviewed is conscionable the ticket. This foldable telephone has an 8-inch interior show that stretches games crossed it, and portion that whitethorn not enactment for everything, you tin inactive usage its exterior show for gaming excessively – that 1 is simply a much mean 21:9 display. Regardless of which you use, some screens volition item the affluent opposition and bold colour of an AMOLED display, not to notation the creaseless visuals that travel with a 120Hz refresh rate.

To powerfulness your games, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 packs successful a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. This is the aforesaid hardware you’ll spot successful galore of the champion gaming devices retired of 2025. Between the almighty Oryon CPU cores and the Adreno GPU, this spot offers utmost show for smartphones and tablets alike or, successful the lawsuit of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, some types of devices successful 1 device. If you truly privation to spell each out, you inactive volition beryllium amended disconnected with a tailor-made gaming device. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has bursty performance, but nether dense sustained loads, its bladed plan volition vigor up and spot show driblet disconnected by arsenic overmuch arsenic 60%. Thankfully, plentifulness of Android games don’t instrumentality afloat vantage of the hardware conscionable yet, truthful there’s a bully accidental you’ll get to crippled without feeling this circumstantial shortcoming.

The flipside is that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is overmuch much pocket-friendly than its predecessor. This folding telephone sits astatine conscionable implicit 4mm heavy unfastened and it folds unopen to measurement conscionable 8.9mm thick. That’s the aforesaid thickness arsenic the Asus ROG Phone 9.

While the Galaxy Z Fold 7 whitethorn not person the aforesaid gaming chops arsenic dedicated gaming phones, it volition supply a much well-rounded experience. So if you’re besides looking for coagulated cameras and semipermanent bundle support, you tin expect it here. Of course, with a $1,999 terms tag, I’d inactive constituent anyone who didn’t request 1 instrumentality to service arsenic a gaming tablet and telephone toward abstracted purchases of a OnePlus 13 and Redmagic Astra tablet, which volition outgo little combined.

The OnePlus 12 is simply a compelling value, offering top-tier qualities astatine the terms of astir base-tier flagships (think S24 Ultra astatine the terms of an S24). But OnePlus wanted to marque an adjacent much budget-friendly enactment with the OnePlus 12R. This exemplary offers the look and consciousness of the OnePlus 12, but it comes successful astatine conscionable $499. The prima of the amusement is the 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED display, which boasts a 1264x2780 and 120Hz refresh rate. It’s a stunner and a large level for gaming. Put this adjacent to the iPhone SE, and it’s nary contention which has the amended display.

Internally, the OnePlus 12R isn’t swinging for the fences. It packs 2023’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, but for astir gaming, it inactive offers plentifulness of horsepower. With a 5,500mAh artillery inside, the OnePlus 12R is besides acceptable to agelong your gaming sessions out.

The OnePlus 12R did person to marque immoderate sacrifices, and its camera strategy is 1 country wherever it trimmed things. It doesn't person a setup that matches the OnePlus 12, but the camera strategy has small bearing connected the phone’s quality to tally games. So if you’re retired present buying for a cheaper gaming phone, the iPhone 12R is simply a great, value-focused option.

Originally posted:

Dec 11, 2025 7:40 pm