We see new smartphone launches every week but very few of them offer a premium experience and unthrottled performance. There are many factors that make a smartphone ideal such as the processor, display, camera, battery, and the software. However, if you are looking for a specific use case such as gaming then you can neglect aspects like the camera to an extent if there are smartphones that offer extreme levels of gaming performance.
Mobile Gaming is an industry that has gained immense popularity in recent times with the advent of battle royale games such as PUBG. These games have gained increased popularity and there are now many smartphones that target a niche audience, gamers. An ideal gaming smartphone has a good combination of processor, RAM, display, Audio, Battery, and Software. While these features are difficult to perfect in many smartphones, more companies are pushing these to the limits in an attempt to offer the best experience.
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Ingredients for The Dream Configuration for Smartphone:
System on Chip (Processor + GPU)
The processor is the most important part of a smartphone and especially when it comes to gaming. When we say processor here, we are referring to the SoC or System on Chip which includes the GPU and other processing units along with the Central Processing Unit. The highest performing SoC in the market right now is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset which is powered by a fast, prime core at 2.84 GHz and three other ARM Cortex-A77 performance cores with clock speed up to 2.42 GHz.
There are four additional ARM Cortex-A55 cores in the SoC with clock speeds of 1.8Ghz. The Snapdragon 865 is based on one of the most modern and advanced 7nm manufacturing processes which results in extremely efficient processors with high performance and lower power consumption. The SoC also comes with an extremely capable Adreno 650 GPU which shows a 20% improvement in performance even from the immediately previous generation.
RAM and Storage
Another important aspect of the smartphone that impacts the overall performance is the RAM capacity and the storage type. While we are slowly starting to see devices like the S20 Ultra by Samsung that come with as much as 12GB of RAM, it is overkill in most cases. Most modern smartphones run smoothly with just 8 or 12GB of RAM and this is generally more than enough for gaming as well.
For good overall performance, it is better to have a smartphone with a 12GB LPDDR5 RAM module. Storage modules vary across the smartphones, while the capacity of storage is a personal choice based on the requirements, it is a good thing to always look for UFS 3.0 storage devices or better on your smartphones. There’s a newer UFS 3.1 storage but that is still not widely available on smartphones and only iQOO 3 has that in India.
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Display
The display is another major aspect that affects the gaming experience, while the Display by itself might not affect the performance it certainly adds to a better visual experience. Some of the things you need to consider while getting a smartphone are refresh rate, input lag, touch refresh rate, contrast, brightness, and more. The refresh rate is the number of times the display updates the content in a second. For example, a display that has a 120Hz refresh rate updates the display 120 times in just one second. This means that your eye can see more details in a second and get more updated content.
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The touch response rate is the number of times that the display panel takes input from the touch sensor, most new gaming-oriented smartphones support 240Hz touch response and this immensely adds to a good gaming experience. Other aspects like the contrast and brightness help enhance the visual experience. Devices with AMOLED display offer the best contrast and color reproduction, brightness levels of at least 500 nits is recommended for a decent gaming experience. Modern smartphones, especially the flagships come with as high as 1000 nits or more in peak brightness.
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Audio
It is important to have a good audio experience while playing games. The choice of speakers or headset is personal, but it is recommended to have both the options to the best levels for a good gaming experience. Some modern gaming-oriented smartphones come with stereo front-facing speakers that offer the best experience. These stereo speakers offer more details and allow you to track the position of your enemy in more detail. If you are planning to use a headset jack look for a device with a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack for convenience, if you use Bluetooth then make sure the device supports Bluetooth 5.0 for reduced latency.
Thermals
Thermals are perhaps yet another extremely important aspect that is commonly ignored by most buyers. Thermals are extremely important as two devices with the same overall internals might perform differently if they have different thermals overall. The device with better thermal tolerance will perform better than the other. Most modern smartphones now come with liquid cooling using a copper heat pipe and a liquid metal that is highly temperature-sensitive. Some new smartphones are also including extremely small fans to send more air to cool the device. A device with lower thermal temperature allows the processor to give peak performance and get the best out of it.
Software
The software on a smartphone is very important. While most smartphones are now optimized to offer a good gaming experience, some smartphones come with a dedicated gaming mode. Make sure the smartphone you buy has a dedicated gaming mode with features such as recording, throttling, do not disturb mode, and more. These features help enhance the gaming experience and allow you to focus on gaming without having to worry about anything else.
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Battery
The battery life is an important aspect if you are looking for a gaming smartphone, both the battery life and the charging speeds make an impact on the gaming experience as you can remain untethered to the charging cord for longer if the above two aspects are tuned correctly. If you are looking for a gaming smartphone it is a must to have at least 4,000mAh battery capacity, we recommend 5,000mAh or above for the best experience. In terms of the charging, at least 25W fast charging will increase the convenience, having an ultra-fast 45W charging solution will be a cherry on the cake in terms of experience.
