There is a whole new generation of mobile gamers that prioritise the convenience of carrying a smartphone while still being able to play triple-A titles like Genshin Impact, Fortnite and League of Legends as well as their console counterparts.
But with so many new devices flooding the Malaysian market today, a gamer needs to understand what components they will want when looking for a new device. Not all phones are made equal, and to get the best performance out of your games, you are going to have to look for a flagship, top-of-the-line device that has it all.
A Hybrid Solution
Having a phone that doubles as a regular phone and a gaming phone is the ideal solution for gamers. Not only will it have all the features that you require on a day-to-day basis, but it also features lots of power under that hood.
Of course, there are gaming-centric phones that might look too over the top and scream “THIS IS A GAMER’S PHONE”. Though, you might not want that when you are in a meeting with clients trying to close a serious business deal.
Sometimes, having something understated is a good thing when you require a daily driver. But, knowing that you can engage in a deathmatch on your commute back home is what truly makes a flagship device awesome. With so many unassuming phones in the market, what are the pieces of technology that make them powerful enough for a gamer?
realme has gotten us to investigate a few components and features you should look out for when choosing your next gaming smartphone. We advise you to compare it against their recently released realme GT 2 Pro and see how they stack up in terms of gaming.
Table of Contents
Processor
A good processor will get you by most games, but a great processor gives you an edge in all the games. Because of rapid changes in the industry, you’ll need to find a device that has the latest processor, at the very least. These are usually only reserved for high-end flagship devices and dedicated gaming phones, but even those devices might use current-generation processors.
Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the very one you can find in the realme GT2 Pro, currently sits at the top of the mobile processor mountain, beating out Samsung’s Exynos 2200 which is used in their flagship models. The new Snapdragon is built using a smaller 4nm process with an 8-core processor running at 3.0GHz, plus all the latest bells and whistles.
This means that the new processor can run the latest games at the highest possible settings smoothly while keeping battery consumption at a minimum.
Even when you are not gaming, running day-to-day apps such as web browsing or playing movies require a powerful processor for the optimum experience. If you are swapping between apps quickly (who doesn’t?), a fast processor ensures that the switch will be smooth without lag.
If you are a “pro” user, you probably edit videos using apps like Adobe Premiere Rush. This is where a powerful processor will make sure that your work is processed and rendered as quickly as possible. The last thing you would want is a high-end device that can’t even render the simplest home movies.
Older flagships featuring the Snapdragon 888, like last year’s Asus ROG Phone 5, would still perform admirably today. But with how fast technology evolves, would you still want to pay premium dollar for last year’s flagships?
Cooling System
You’ve probably noticed that after a gaming session that’s slightly longer than usual, your phone starts to heat up. This means that your processor is working hard.
To avoid the heat from going too high and damaging your phone, modern processors are built to “throttle” their power when overheated. This means that it will intentionally slow down itself to protect its circuits from burning. A phone with bad cooling would mean that while your phone can do better, it will only do it for a short burst of time. As a result, you get bad performance anyway in addition to not getting your money’s worth.
Of course, you can opt for external “gaming” cooling fans but it’s bulky, heavy, and just a pain to carry around. Yuck.
This is where modern solutions would be perfect for gamers. Such a solution includes using a combination of a wide heat dissipation surface and a form of liquid cooling such as realme’s Stainless Steel Vapor Cooling Max, which you can find in the realme GT 2 Pro.
Display – Refresh Rate
Displays are the result of a phone’s components. Why get a powerful processor if it is going to be displayed on a low resolution, horrible looking screen?
A good smartphone display should be highly responsive, can reproduce colour accurately, and is sufficiently bright so that content is still visible when you’re outside with lots of sunlight. For gamers, the refresh rate is even more important, as it has been proven that high refresh rates help you perform better in games.
For the uninitiated, screens show “movement” by showing a slight variation of the picture very, very quickly. Refresh rate is how fast the screen changes the image within a second and is very important when playing racing games and FPS. This is because having higher refresh rates will give you the impression that the “movement” is smoother, hence making your controls feel much more responsive.
Also, ever noticed how your older phones seem to stutter or have jerky movements when you swipe your screen left-to-right or while scrolling through Twitter? That’s because it is running a lower refresh rate display which causes that roughness. You would want something that can handle a refresh rate of at least 120Hz in a high-end flagship device.
While dedicated gaming phones like the aforementioned Asus ROG Phone 5 have a refresh rate of up to 144Hz, the differences are hardly noticeable once you hit anything above 120Hz. Of course, the trade-off is that you’ll take a hit in battery life using a fast-refresh rate display.
To overcome this, many devices employ variable refresh rates that adjust it automatically, so you’ll always get the best performance vs battery life in your apps.
Display – Touch Sampling Rate
Displaying content fast would not help if your input is not being transmitted to your phone quickly enough. This is a prevalent issue when playing console games on TVs that are not optimised for gaming. This issue is called “input lag”, and it’s no stranger on phones.
By measuring the “touch sampling rate” (meaning how often the display tries to read your input), your game reads your controls faster and applies them to the game. Driving simulators, FPSs, and MOBAs all require split-second decisions. A lag of even a fraction of a second is a literal matter of life and death.
Snipers in games such as Call of Duty Mobile would need precision controls as every little movement your finger makes is crucial in locking onto your target. MOBAs would require multiple inputs as you juggle between your attacks and special powers, all while making sure you can scroll around your map as effectively as possible. All require a fast touch sampling rate.
Like refresh rates, a high touch sampling rate comes at the cost of battery life. While some phones may advertise rates up to 1000Hz, most gamers agree that touch sampling rates of 300Hz are more than enough even for professional gamers.
Display – Resolution
Like both refresh rates and touch sampling rates, you don’t want a resolution that is too low (720p). But, having one that is way too high, say 4K and beyond, is plain pointless.
Most games are designed for 1080p screens, but modern games like Genshin Impact do support higher resolutions. We would recommend QHD (or 1440p) screens as we think it’s the most optimal for crisp and detailed images. Higher resolutions like 4K come at a massive performance cost (meaning your games will run slower and battery die faster) but does not give you significant improvements on visual fidelity.
While there aren’t many apps or games that take advantage of HDR, having a device that is rated for HDR10+ or similar will get you some futureproofing in your device when more apps adopt the standard.
Camera
Of course, having all that hardware is impressive enough on its own for a gaming device. But as an everyday person, smartphones also need all the extra features and quality-of-life improvements to make it a true flagship worth spending your hard-earned money on.
One of the most talked-about features of flagship phones, sometimes even more than the processing power, is the camera. We wouldn’t dwell too much into the topic, but we can safely say that while the 50MP camera may seem like it does not live up to some flagships with 100MP, it can perform admiringly well when coupled with a good sensor.
Battery
Another consideration you need to make is battery life. After all, it would be pointless if you have a great phone but dies after two PUBG rounds. Fortunately, not only does the realme GT2 Pro come with a 5000MAh battery, but the fact that it uses an efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 means you can squeeze even more game time compared to other flagships.
Connectivity
In this hyper-connected world where Wi-Fi is available almost everywhere, you may not think much about connectivity. Although, I bet you will immediately notice when your internet connection is not performing up to par.
A good, future-ready phone should support 5G and the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard for maximum speed, especially when gaming.
Everything Else
While having the best components don’t always make it the best device for gaming, it certainly helps. It is when you get a combination of all these factors and decide what device is right for you.
If you’re buying a device for gaming, you should prioritise performance since that’s the factor that makes your purchase worthwhile. When you start to look at all the different available models, you’ll soon realize that not all high-end flagships are created equal.
Prioritise raw gaming performance? That might come at the cost of the phone looking like a spaceship and heating up faster since it will be running at max speeds all the time. Others might prioritise looks and design, but will have to make do with either current-generation technology and/or even reduced capacity to keep it cool and small. From the few points that we have compared today, it seems that the realme GT 2 Pro is a solid choice.
This is a bit more subjective, but we genuinely like the overall design of the phone. Designed by world-renowned industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa, its sleek design is both sustainable and good looking.
So, if you’re a gamer who’s looking for a device that has the latest and greatest tech components while looking sleek, make sure to consider the realme GT 2 Pro as your next best option. Needless to say, it is a gaming device that is greater than what you see.
We also got hands-on with the GT 2 Pro - check out our review!
[This post is made in collaboration with realme Malaysia.]