Do gaming phones really make a difference?

Nowadays, people are not holding phones, but phones are holding people.

One of the main reasons is games. This pandemic has taken gaming to the next level! The global mobile video game market value grew from 35 billion dollars (2019) straight away up to 80 billion dollars! That's 4 times larger than the music industry revenue. Today's youths are crazy about gaming.

According to the reports, there are over 25 million gaming channels on youtube, and there are over 2.8 billion gamers worldwide! Most of my friends and my cousins run gaming channels.

 

If you ask today's kids whether they prefer a flagship phone or a gaming phone? The majority of them are more likely to pick the gaming phone. 

Many smartphone companies manufacture gaming phones. They claim that their phones are "way better" at playing games compared to flagship phones though they both have similar specifications. 

Do we really need a gaming phone?

Not really...

• As mentioned earlier, the flagship and the gaming smartphone almost have the same specs. The CPU and the GPU on the chipset these phones offer are fixed. So, it is impossible to upgrade the GPU or the CPU on the same chipset.

• The performance is 'slightly better' but not 'way better' as the company claims. The aerodynamic design that these gaming smartphones offer can be considered a gimmick. These companies also provide an external cooler to increase performance. Yes, it does reduce the device's temperature, but on the other hand, it pulls the charge from the battery, which in turn leads to less battery life. This is the reason why gaming phone offers 6000 mAh batteries.  

External cooler

• A bigger battery means more space. The camera system cannot be as good as flagship phones as there is less space. The photos and videos from these phones can be compared to budget phones as the quality is not up to the mark.

Massive battery (less space for camera system)
Source: JerryRigEverything

• As these phones are gaming-centric, the software on this phone focuses mainly on gaming but not on other aspects. There are tons of software features like pro gaming mode, colour inversion, etc., which are helpful in gaming but not in daily usage. Most importantly, these phones offer software updates only up to 2 years, whereas the flagship phones offer 4-5 years of software updates. This means that after 2 years, the gaming phone will not support certain apps, and the performance will decrease. 

Physical trigger buttons

• There are unwanted LED lights, pressure sensors, higher-touch sampling rates, high refresh rates, etc., that use up more battery. Refresh rate means the number of times the screen refreshes per second. Gaming phones offer a 144hz refresh rate, whereas most flagship phones offer a 120hz refresh rate. In my opinion, 24hz is not really a big difference.

• These companies also encourage consumers to buy a lot of accessories to improve gaming. But it is not really needed because the game developers developed the game in such a way that it can be played on our phones with additional accessories. That's why it's called "Smartphone Gaming" but not "Console Gaming".  

• Some people say that the speakers are too good on gaming phones... Yes, that's true, but if you are a pro gamer, you will definitely be using a headphone, so what's the use of the phone speaker? :)

So, in conclusion, gaming smartphones are stylish, but it is pretty impractical. Spending a fortune on a phone that offers only 2 years of software update is not a really good idea. If you are a professional gamer who doesn't really care much about software, it might be a choice, but for an average consumer, it's not preferable.