Rise Of The Gaming Smartphones! 🎮 Top 5 Android Gaming Phones

When it comes to gaming on your smartphone, everything works well for the first 10 minutes before we run into some serious throttling of CPU performance thanks to too much heat.

Inside the Red Magic 8 Pro, we get the same 20,000RPM RGB fan that offers active cooling for those buttery-smooth sustained high gaming frame rates.

This year though, Red Magic has upgraded their under-display graphene layer and liquid cooling system for -16 degrees overall cooler temps.

The 10-point cooling system combined with the much more energy-efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is a worthwhile upgrade for serious gamers.

There’s been a small upgrade to Red Magic’s Dedicated gaming chip this year.

The Red Core 2 dedicated gaming chip makes sure your audio & haptic feedback has no delay or lag by offloading these functions away from the main Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip.

There’s no change to the Haptic Shoulder triggers from last year. They still work amazingly though, so no complaints.

It keeps the 520Hz touch sampling speed coupled with haptic vibration feedback for a more immersive gaming experience.

There’s been a few small tweaks to Red Magic’s Gaming Overlay software but nothing major.

You still have instant access game-enhancing features like:

• Fan Speeds
• RGB Lights
• Clock speeds
• Screen Recording
• Screenshots
• Stopwatch overlays
• MOBA respawn countdowns

There are also trigger button control customisation and button combo options.

This year we’re getting a big upgrade when it comes to the display brightness with peak now hitting 1300nits compared to the 7S Pro’s 600nits.

It’s still using a 6.8″ AMOLED panel (with a hidden selfie camera) but with a slightly higher resolution of (2480×1116) and the same 120Hz refresh rate with a 960Hz response.

Touch sampling rate also stays the same at an impressive 960Hz. As does the colour accuracy with a DCI-P3 score of 100%.

Overall, Red Magic has fixed the one concern we had with last years model, the lack of outdoor brightness.

Battery life has also been improved with the dual-cell setup now supporting 6000mAh with, the same as last years, 65w GaN charger also in the box.

It’s also impressive to think that Red Magic has lowered the weight of the Red Magic 8 Pro while increasing the battery size by 20%.

A big upgrade has happened in the connectivity department thanks to the inclusion of WiFi 7. A standard you most likely won’t be able to use for at least the next year says future-proofing to me.

We’re also treated to 5G, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, Type-C 3.1, 3.5mm port for your headphones and a dual-nano SIM Tray.

There’s no storage-card support but with a base story of 256GB’s of super-fast UFS4.0 there’s no need to worry.

If you needed another reason to leave your Nintendo Switch gathering dust, then Red Magic Studio might just be that.

Similar to Samsung’s Dex mode, but focussed entirely on gaming is Red Magic Studio.

Flip the dedicated gaming button on the side of the Red Magic 8 Pro, then connect to any monitor or TV via video-over-type-c.

The phone will auto-detect the monitor or TV and big-screen UI where you can use controllers or mice & keyboard.

The 8 Pro offers the following in TV Mode:

• 1080P up to 165Hz Refresh Rate
• Zero Lag/latency via Type-C

Pretty nifty, and only adds to the phone’s already incredible versatility.

Rather than take away resources from the Snapdragon, the Red Magic 7 series has a dedicated ‘Red Core 1’ gaming chip built-in.

This chip controls the ‘Audio & Haptic Feedback’ separately letting you get the absolute most of out its CPU. The benefit for you… buttery smooth stutter-free gameplay.

What separates the Red Magic phones from the non-gaming competition is its pair of dedicated shoulder buttons. With a 520Hz response frequency and haptic vibration feedback, they’ll give you the edge in any FPS or competitive MOBAs.

The biggest issue with high-end phones is overheating, which causes the CPU to throttle & underclock. This means less performance and slower frame rates for you.

To counteract this, the Red Magic 7 series uses a tiny RGB fan with double air intakes to blow cool air over Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.

Combine this with a vapour chamber, graphite thermal pad and aluminium heat-sink and you won’t be dropping any frames thanks to stable max CPU frequencies.

Red Magic’s custom game software is called Game Space.

You have instant access to the Fan, RGB Lights, Clock speeds, Screen Recording, Screenshots and can even add things like stopwatch overlays for MOBA respawn countdowns.

In the software, you can also map your trigger button controls and well as set up trigger combo actions.

As you’d expect from a gaming phone, the display on the Red Magic 7S is great.

It uses a 6.8″ AMOLED panel (2400×1080) with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 960Hz multi-touch sampling rate. Colour accuracy is also great with a DCI-P3 score of 100%.

Max brightness reaches a consistent 600nits thanks to the superior cooling.

What’s different this year is the hidden under-display selfie camera letting you focus on the gaming without any blind spots.

Battery life is also good with a dual-cell setup of 5000mAh total. You also get a 65w GaN charger in the box.

No WiFi 6E (future proofing), but the WiFi 6 (ax) is fast enough and supports MU-MIMO.

You also get a Dual-SIM setup with 5G, HDMI out, Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC. Making it a great option to play some games on your TV.

Okay, what separated a gaming phone from a regular flagship is those dedicated shoulder buttons.

Black Shark use the same magnetic pop-up design as the Shark 4 Pro from last year.

There are two little slide buttons on the top side of the phone which release two magnetic trigger buttons.

They feel great, they’re responsive and use a micro-switch design (on or off).

A nice touch is that you can customise any functions to these physical buttons. So you can be aiming down your scope in COD Mobile, or use it as a shutter button for the camera. The choice is yours.

A nice touch is you can can customise any functions to these buttons. So you can be zooming down your scope in COD Mobile, or use it as a shutter button for the camera. The choice is yours.

While it’s not going to match the Red Magic 7S Pro’s mini RGB fan for cooling, what’s impressive is that it’s not far behind.

The ‘Anti-Gravity’ Dual VC Liquid cooling chamber does a damn good job of keeping the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 cool.

Scoring an incredible 3DMark Stability score of 96% means you’re not going to be dropping frames after the first 10 minutes like on the Samsung S22 Ultra.

There are 3 options for the RAM configuration with 8GB getting you the best bang for your buck. 12GB & a whopping 18GB are also available.

The Black Shark brand is also known for its line of gaming accessories.

This year we’re treated to an optional magnetic cooling fan which can cool off your long gaming sessions. In our testing in the UK, there’s not much need for this, although if you live in a hotter climate, it’s worth looking into.

The Black Shark 5 Pro uses JOY UI13 which is very similar to the MIUI13 we see in Xiaomi phones but jazzed up to be a little more gamer-y.

Similar to Game Genie on the ROG Phone 6, Shark Space has a pull-down HUD that lets you access your common gaming functions.

You can also launch the Shark Space app, which works like a game launcher but with all the extra game-specific toggles and hacks. You can also customise the stereo speakers audio profiles for each game.

You can set up specific game profiles, configure the magnetic button’s sensitivity & functions, view your FPS, set up macros, clean the RAM and switch to Ludicrous mode when you need to squeeze out those extra frames.

We’re getting a 6.7″ OLED 144Hz display that’s HDR10+ certified with DC Dimming (Anti-flicker) tech.

What makes this display special though, is its dual-zone pressure sensitive display.

The display is split into two, with each side having 7 levels of pressure sensitivity. You can then use to inbuilt software to add actions to these pressure touches, pretty cool.

Touch-sampling is set at 720Hz, and the phone uses dual ambient light sensors for optimal brightness in all settings.

While we love the bright and innovative display, we’re hoping that BlackShark will add in a variable refresh-rate on the Black Shark 6’s display.

Let’s talk batteries.

The Black Shark 5 Pro uses a 4650mAh dual-cell (2 separate batteries) design so it can charge up faster while generating less heat.

And this makes more sense when you consider that this gaming phone is capable of 120w fast charging with the included charger.

That’s a full charge in 15 minutes!

Making it the fastest charging gaming phone ever built.

If you’re worried about battery degradation, then you shouldn’t be as it’s rated for more than 1200 cycles and uses a bypass power supply when plugged in and gaming.

We get WiFi 6 with 2x MIMO support, Bluetooth 5.0 and aptX support.

The phone uses a Dual-SIM slot for 2x 5G Nano SIMs. It only supports single SIM 5G.

We also get a 3.5mm audio jack, if you want to plug in physical headphones.

To sum up, here’s three benefits that could justify the extra price tag on the ROG Phone 6 for you.

1. The Samsung Display is best-in-class for a gaming phone.
2. The camera system uses a Sony 50MP IMX766 Sensor.
3. The available accessories are top-notch.

The ROG Phone 6 uses ultrasonic tech for its shoulder button.

Using the ROG Phone software you can customise the buttons with tap, slide, split, swipe and hold actions. Pinning these actions to any on-screen areas of a game.

Through the gaming software, you can also now perform actions using the phone’s inbuilt gyroscope.

While you do get used to the finger positioning fast, it’s no substitute for physical buttons like on the Black Shark 5 Pro.

Asus is calling it their ‘GameCool 6 Thermal System‘, so let’s see what we’ve got under the hood.

The ROG Phone 6 uses a Boron Nitride Thermal Compound, coupled with a larger vapour chamber and graphite sheet than last year.

And there’s also the optional Aeroactive Cooler 6 which claims a max temp drop of 25°C and adds an extra 4 physical buttons to the phone.

Revamped for a more cohesive look and feel this year, the Armoury crate software lets you customise everything from game-specific performance profiles to floating browser windows.

We also get Asus’s Game Genie HUD which lets toggle all your game-related settings on the fly. Record videos, turn off notifications, set refresh rate and customise the air triggers are all a swipe away.

The Samsung-made 6.78″ HDR (2448×1080) display is glorious reaching 800nits sustained brightness in our testing.

It’s using the same AMOLED tech we see in the Galaxy phones but with the added bonus of a 165Hz variable refresh rate and 720Hz touch sampling rate.

Protecting the huge display is Corning’s latest Gorilla Glass Victus.

This is also where you’ll find the under-display fingerprint reader.

Two 3000mAh batteries (6000mAh total) with 65w charging are nothing to be sniffed at, giving you a full charge in 40 minutes.

We also get bypass power to keep the phone cool while plugged in and gaming.

Connectivity is where the ROG phone 6 shines, and adds more justification to its price tag.

It has a dual-slot SIM tray for 2x 5G nano-SIM supported in dual-standby.

It also used the latest WiFi 6E with 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.2 and also supports low-latency audio with aptX Adaptive & aptX Lossless modes.