Dedicated gaming smartphones are completely transforming the mobile gaming experience. With exceptionally powerful processors, generous RAM and high-quality displays with fast refresh rates, these devices deliver impressive performance for your favorite games. With the rising popularity of cloud gaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, smaller screens are becoming big business, leading to abundant options of gaming phones for demanding app enthusiasts.
The multitude of choices makes it difficult to determine exactly what you need from your smartphone, and how much you should pay for a gaming-specific device. Fortunately, as gaming phones evolve, prices of leading models are dropping slightly. This means there are now options for every budget, and we’re highlighting the most recommended ones here.
Our team of experts presents the best gaming phones currently on the market, along with the best prices. We’ve relied on our hands-on experience with the newest models to ensure you get a comprehensive overview of the field before making that critical decision. Of course, you won’t get the performance of a gaming laptop, or even the best gaming tablets – but for a pocket-sized gaming experience, these are the models we recommend.
Best Overall Gaming Phone: Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro
The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro is the latest model in the company’s leading gaming phone series. Equipped with ultra-fast processing technology, generous storage capacity, and a large amount of RAM (not to mention the 185Hz refresh rate display for smooth visuals), this is the gaming phone that can’t be beaten in 2025.
Flip over the stunning AMOLED display and you’ll discover a fairly understated design. It’s a 6.78-inch device with a smooth finish (our review unit came in a darker black color), with just a hint of red suggesting it’s more than just a regular flagship. That is, until you start playing with its AniMe Vision settings. Here, a small collection of LEDs comes to life, offering a similar back panel display as in the preceding Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro. That’s not the only thing that carried over to the ROG Phone 9 Pro from its predecessor – unfortunately, the USB-C port at the bottom of the device is still off-center, which can make finding a compatible mobile controller challenging.
However, what’s inside is what really matters, and with a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, up to 24GB RAM, and a 5,500mAh battery, the ROG Phone 9 Pro offers plenty of power to handle intensive mobile games and streaming. You can now also play games directly on the AniMe screen on the back panel, which is a cool gimmick for this year’s model. You still get the brand’s Air Trigger controls, a set of touch-capacitive bumper buttons that make games like Call of Duty Mobile much easier to control.
The ROG Phone 9 Pro also comes with Armory Crate software, which has sipped from the same AI tea as almost every other new gaming device. AI is used here to cancel unwanted audio from your chat, translate text, and automatically record key in-game moments as they happen. Beyond all that, you still get the core Asus experience, with Armory Crate serving as a hub for all your installed games and offering different performance modes and overlays.
With all that at its disposal, the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro confidently outperformed both the previous 8 Pro and the RedMagic 9S Pro in benchmark testing. We weren’t surprised considering the power on offer, but you’ll struggle to really push these components with most common mobile experiences today. The battery kept us going for about five and a half hours of intensive gaming – a significant improvement compared to cheaper models.
Best Value Gaming Phone: RedMagic 9S Pro
Although very similar to its predecessor, the RedMagic 9S Pro is the best value-for-money gaming phone on the market today. While it’s only a minor update compared to the processing power of the previous 9 Pro model, you get an amazing price-to-performance ratio with impressive in-game results. If you’re looking for an Android gaming phone that won’t break the bank but still offers an upgrade over a mainstream device, this is where you should be looking.
In line with other industry trends, the 9S Pro is more relaxed in its aesthetics than previous models. A flat-sided block with a particularly slim silhouette, it only hints at its gaming origins at first glance. Of course, things become more obvious once the RGB fan starts whirring to life, but from the outside this could be any mainstream flagship.
This means it’s a device that looks good and feels comfortable in the hand, even if we did wish for a slightly more curved back during landscape play and speakers that wouldn’t be covered when held horizontally.
Of course, you still get all those gaming phone-specific features. The 9S Pro offers two capacitive touch pads along the top that can read inputs at 560Hz, while the dedicated game launcher provides quick access to all your apps and can display system information and performance controls with an in-game overlay.
Considering the money you’re spending, the display is something else. Super crisp AMOLED will look good on any phone, but the screen ratio here is fantastic considering its lower price point, and everything still looks polished despite the lower 120Hz refresh rate compared to Asus.
Best Budget Gaming Phone: Samsung Galaxy A50
Buying a cheaper gaming phone doesn’t mean limiting yourself to match-three puzzlers or going with an unknown brand. The Samsung Galaxy A50 costs a small fraction of its more glamorous siblings like the S20 or Note series, but it’s still an excellent phone and a good deal if you want to spend less but get a phone that won’t disappoint you.
We tested it for gaming against some very expensive phones and almost had to have a conversation with it to explain that it needed to stop embarrassing the big boys. Call of Duty Mobile on high settings for graphics and frame rate? Why not? True, it wasn’t as smooth or detailed as your $1000/£1000 flagship phones, but at less than a third of the price, the A50 is much better than it should be.
As an everyday phone, the Samsung Galaxy A50 has a very good camera, with only night pictures tending to lose detail if there are too many artificial light sources. Surprisingly for a phone at this price, it has a dual-SIM slot, making it useful if you have separate work/home SIMs or if you pick up a cheap data card when traveling abroad.
Best Controls on a Gaming Phone: Black Shark 5 Pro
Balancing the top spot for best gaming phone is a complex business. Yes, the device needs to be one of the most powerful models on the market, but it also needs to be accessible. The price-to-performance ratio of the Black Shark 5 Pro is excellent. It’s certainly not a cheap device, but there’s no sense of inflated costs here. Additionally, for a device to truly be considered the best gaming phone overall, it needs to function as well as a regular smartphone as it does as a gaming machine. This is where the Black Shark 5 Pro’s camera comes into play.
From the excellent performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip to the split storage system, Xiaomi has positioned the Black Shark 5 Pro as an all-around powerhouse.
It’s rare to find a gaming phone offering top-tier specs and performance while still carrying a decent set of lenses in its corner. We were particularly impressed by the shots we were able to take with it. Yes, you are making some smartphone sacrifices – the lack of wireless charging being the biggest one – but this is still an everyday device with the battery to back it up.
Load up some games and you’ll see the Black Shark 5 Pro shine. Everything is smooth and crisp on that gorgeous OLED display, with physical pop-up trigger buttons to keep all your movements precise and snappy. Few phones offer these physical clickers these days, with most preferring the slimmer touch-capacitive buttons along the top. However, we were particularly grateful for these small additions, which created a much more engaging experience overall.
Add to all that a design and feel that brings the Black Shark line more into the everyday smartphone market territory, and you’ve got a secret weapon in your pocket. This is a dream phone without climbing the price charts.
