Buying Gaming Phone Guide | 8 Things You Were Never Told (2024 Edition)

We see many guides on buying a gaming phone, however, none of them even mention some crucial specs including the touch sampling rate, OS/UI optimization, and cooling system. So, here we are with this gaming phone guide to help you understand the technologies used in gaming phones and make a better buying decision.

Important Notice: We will try our best to update this guide with the recent advancements in mobile gaming. As of now, this guide is suitable for buying gaming phones in 2024.

Update 08/10/2024: We have updated the guide to the latest phones available this year.

For What Gaming Audience This Guide Is Suitable

This gaming phone guide is suitable for people who play either competitive games or super high graphics games including:

1. Genshin Impact
2. COD Mobile
3. PUBG Mobile
4. Fortnite
5. Grid Autosport
6. Asphalt 9: Legends
7. Battle Prime
8. Apex Legends Mobile
9. Real Racing 3
10. Shadowgun Legends

And other high-graphics competitive gaming.

Warning: This guide is not for users who just want to buy a gaming phone to play Subway Surfers or Talking Tom.

Is iPhone Good For Gaming?

iPhones are gradually coming close to dedicated gaming phones. They have better SoC and better stability under high load. However, in comparison to Android, we still don’t see a better touch sampling rate, and iOS is still not optimized for competitive gaming.

Even in 2024, with the new iOS 18 introducing gaming mode, it’s quite basic compared to Android ones such as Redmagic. Even though newer iPhones are way more stable in FPS than the new Android phones, games rarely freeze. The new iPad series has Apple’s M4 SoC which surpasses any phone whether it be Android or iPhone. But gaming on a tablet is not a cup of tea for everyone.

For light to high-end gaming: Recommended

For competitive gaming: Not recommended

Buying Gaming Phone Guide – Gaming Phone Checklist 2024

Gaming Phone Guide – What to look for when buying a gaming phone?

These specs must be considered when buying a gaming phone:

1. SoC/Processor

The core of a gaming phone is its processor. That is why we have mentioned it at no.1 in this gaming phone guide. High-end processors whether they are from Qualcomm, MediaTek, Exynos, or Kirin are the foundation of solid gameplay.

This year lot of improvement can be seen including a 4nm process for flagship SoCs, improved ray tracing, and

Our recommendation on gaming SoC:

When it comes to gaming Qualcomm and MediaTek are the top leaders. Just look for their flagship SoCs of the current year, for example, Snapdragon 8 Gen3 from Qualcomm and Dimensity 9300 are the flagship SoCs of both manufacturers, respectively, this year. Meanwhile, the GPU performance of that SoC must also be validated. For example, the Snapdragon 8 Gen3’s Adreno 750 is better than the Dimensity 9000’s Immortalis-G720. So, a Snapdragon 8 Gen3 phone may perform better when it comes to gaming than a Dimensity 9300 phone.

• CPU: MTK 9300 >
• Stability: SD 8 Gen3 > MTK 9300
• GPU: SD 8 Gen3 > MTK 9300
• Overall: SD 8 Gen3 > MTK 9300

MediaTek flagship SoCs are considered great for value. You will find a Dimensity 9300 gaming phone slightly cheaper than a Snapdragon 8 Gen3 phone. Moreover, recently, with the 120fps gaming officially provided by a few developers (PUBG Mobile), both SoCs have it unlocked and supported by the developers. Though usually the 120fps update first comes on Snapdragon 8 Gen3.

2. Screen Refresh Rate

“A smooth gameplay with additional frames gives you an upper hand against a player, though the player must have lower FPS than you”.

This was considered to be an essential aspect of PC gaming, however, with mobile games like PUBG Mobile and COD Mobile, we are seeing this in the mobile gaming industry as well. The only way to get higher FPS even if your SoC supports it is to get a higher refresh rate display. The standard smartphone display has increased to 90Hz now. Yet, for demanding games, only the flagship SoCs can run most games at 90fps and above.

Our recommendation on Screen Refresh Rate:

At the moment (October 2024), we have a 165Hz refresh rate as the smartphone’s highest refresh rate which is found in an AMOLED display from ROG Phone 8 Pro. For the LCD display, we also have 144Hz as the highest. Choosing an AMOLED or IPS LCD display is your personal opinion. AMOLED has better contrast, deep blacks, and almost 2x and 3x brightness than LCD. They are suitable for games with dark backgrounds. IPS LCD is much cheaper, has better-viewing angles, and has no screen burns (yes, this issue still exists in AMOLED).

Just remember that now we have most games with 120fps unlocked. So as a minimum requirement, get the display with at least 120Hz refresh rate.

Here’s a video doing a comparison of 60Hz vs 120Hz vs 144Hz vs 240Hz refresh rate:

3. Touch Response Time / Sampling Rate

So, you have a 165Hz refresh rate display and Snapdragon 8 Gen3 SoC, but your screen’s touch sampling rate is low. More Hz in touch sampling rate means faster touch responses. You certainly don’t want to lose even if you and your competitor pressed the button at the exact time. This is why you must get a phone with a higher or the highest touch sampling rate. That is why we have touch response time as the third important thing in this gaming phone guide.

Our recommendation on Touch Response Time / Sampling Rate:

The standard phones now come with a 480Hz touch sampling rate. So, get a phone around the 480Hz touch sampling rate or higher. The higher the better. As of now, the Nubia Red Magic series has the highest touch sampling rate of 960Hz. I think this is the industry limit since it’s been the same for 2 years now.

4. Cooling System

High-performance processors are utilized the most when it comes to mobile gaming. The performance generates such heat that a phone’s temperature can shoot up to 50 to 60 degrees Celsius. At high temperatures, the processor performances start to decrease and that is the reason why you see mid or end-game choppy gameplay. Hot weather regions also make phones sizzle much quicker than the cold region. The solution to this is a cooling system. Most gaming phones come with a cooling system these days.

Our recommendation for the Cooling System:

The level of the cooling system depends on the SoC being used. Snapdragon 8 Gen3’s heat generation has been improved thanks to the deca-core design retained from the predecessor. Meanwhile, Dimensity 9300 also doesn’t generate much heat, however, because of the octa-core design and higher raw CPU performance, the heat generation is much higher than Gen3 SoC, resulting in less stability.

The starters come with composite graphene or some metal pipes to distribute the heat uniformly, while the premium ones have a dedicated centrifugal cooling fan with different speeds, VC liquid cooling plate, and even an aerodynamic thermodynamic aviation aluminum middle frame.

Dedicated gaming phones such as ROG Phone 8 series will offer a clip-on cooler as well.

5. Game Booster

This one isn’t hardware-based but rather software-based in this buying gaming phone guide. Each OEM Android UI has a special game booster when in simple phones. That game booster is too simple with either memory clearing or some notification settings. Gaming phone’s game booster in almost every manufacturer is unique. They have many advanced features like touch-screen pressure calibration, contrast and brightness options, voice changer, high-performance mode, RGB lightning effects controls, and vibration intensity.

Our recommendation on Game Booster:

When it comes to buying a gaming phone look at its game booster, game boosters of JoyUI (Blackshark), Magic OS (Nubia Red Magic), ROG UI (Asus ROG Phone), HyperOS (Xiaomi/Poco/Redmi), and even One UI (Samsung). Game boosters of Vivo, OPPO, Techno, and Realme are too basic.HarmonyOS (Huawei) is the best option for one of the best and most stable game boosters and OS optimization. iOS 18 does have gaming mode now but still, it’s basic.

6. Battery

Coming at no.6 in our gaming phone guide is the battery. Avid gamers are used to longer gaming sessions. These power processors, display, and high fps games require too much battery juice. You simply don’t want your phone to run out of power while playing a game or get a choppy gaming experience when the battery falls to critical levels. Even playing while charging the phone is quite troublesome.

Our recommendation on Battery:

2024’s industry standard for gaming phones’ battery is 5000mAh. There are gaming phones which have a battery capacity of over 6000mAh. Moreover, fast charging is a must as well to quickly charge and return to action. Consider picking a phone with at least 65W charging. Some gaming phones have reached a stupendous 165W charging speed, charging a phone in under 13 minutes. Insane, isn’t it?

7. RAM and ROM

RAM (memory) and ROM (storage) are also essential not as much as in PC gaming but still, they can’t be ignored. We usually talk about how much capacity of RAM is idle for gaming 6GB, 8GB, 12GB, or even 16GB, and don’t even talk about the RAM technology being used. The same goes for ROM, 64GB/128GB/256GB/215GB/1TB but no mention of the storage technology used. The technology must be the 1^st priority and then the capacity. Both of these allow faster loading of games.

Our recommendation on RAM and ROM:

Select the latest technology being used in RAM and ROM and then talk about capacity. For RAM, we have phones with LPDDR5x and LPDDR5T. Meanwhile, for ROM, we have UFS 4.0. Consider selecting these when buying a gaming phone. As for the capacity, for ROM, if you are using the phone for gaming purposes only, 128GB of internal storage is enough. And if you are using it for multiple things like storing files, video/picture editing, multimedia, and capturing videos/photos, 256GB and 512GB are the options. No need to buy a 1TB storage gaming phone.

As for the RAM, consider an 8GB LPDDR5 or LPDDR5T RAM and above for a gaming phone. I would recommend 12GB RAM as well now since by default almost 3 to 4GB RAM is being used by the Android OS.

When it comes to LPDDR5T (MTK Dimensity 9300) vs LPDDR5X (Snapdragon 8 Gen3), LPDDR5T is 13% faster than LPDDR5X. However, this increase is barely noticeable during gaming.

Also read: LPDDR5 vs LPDDR4x vs LPDDR4

8. Dedicated Buttons, Controllers, Cooling Pads

Some dedicated gaming phones have extra buttons acting as programmable hotkeys which help gamers do quick actions. Even some such as BlackShark offer a Bluetooth gaming pad and cooling pad as an add-on.

Our recommendation on Dedicated Buttons, Gamepad, and Cooling Pads:

This is more of a biased opinion rather than a recommendation. If a gaming phone has extra buttons for gaming or a gamepad, it’s your decision to buy them or not. Think if you are comfortable with them and can improve your gameplay at all. As for cooling pads, they are not needed much now since heat generation has been improved a lot in comparison to the time when a super core was introduced in the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 SoC.

However, for almost every dedicated gaming phone you will see an advanced cooling system and may not need a cooling pad after all. Not having all these extras will not make you perform badly in competitive gaming. In fact, gaming (especially competitive) is more skill-based.

The Best Recommended Hardware For A Gaming Phone in 2024

These are the recommended specs of a 2024 gaming phone:

Display	FHD+ / 2K AMOLED Display with side or no notch
SoC	Snapdragon 8 Gen3 and Dimensity 9300 (best performance) Snapdragon Gen2 and Dimensity 9200 (best for value)
RAM	At least 8GB LPDDR5X/LPDDR5T or above
ROM	At least 128GB UFS 4.0 or above
Cooling System	Yes, at least composite graphene or some metal pipes or cooling plate
Touch response	480Hz to 960Hz
Refresh rate	120Hz to 165Hz
OS/UI	Android 14 with Dedicated Game Booster JoyUI (Blackshark), Magic OS (Nubia Red Magic), ROG UI (Asus ROG Phone), HyperOS (Xiaomi/Poco/Redmi), One UI (Samsung), Harmony/MagicUI (Huawei, Honor)
Battery	5000mAh and above At least 65W fast charging

FAQs

We hope that this gaming phone guide will help you in making the right decision when buying a gaming phone. Still confused? Let us know in the comments.