Best Gaming Phone 2024: Hit high scores with our favourite picks

If you want a proper gaming phone with all RGBs and high-end performance without the associated cost, then the £579/$649 RedMagic 9S Pro is our top recommendation. Unlike most phones on this list, RedMagic isn’t afraid to show off its gaming identity, with a motherboard pattern on the rear and customisable bright lighting. 

There are a number of excellent gaming features here that set this phone apart from Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy. Most notably, the RedMagic has integrated touch triggers, allowing you to use the rim of the phone as makeshift triggers rather than having to slap on a controller accessory. 

This is also one of the most powerful gaming phones ever tested with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Leading Version, going toe-to-toe with the excellent Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition despite its cheaper price. This means you’ll be able to play any mobile game with ease, with a huge battery ensuring you can keep gaming for hours. 

The RedMagic 9S Pro does come with compromises beyond gaming. There’s no support for wireless charging, and the camera pales in comparison to other phones at this price point. But if gaming on the go is your priority, and you want a flashy design to show off, then there’s no better choice.

Reviewer: Luke Baker
Full Review: RedMagic 9S Pro review

When it comes to pure performance, our money is on Asus’ top-end ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition. The highlight of the phone is undoubtedly the inclusion of the incredibly powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite alongside 24GB of RAM, offering massive year-on-year gains in the CPU and GPU department and, importantly, good enough cooling to sustain that top-end performance for longer than any of the competition, gaming-focused or not.

In fact, you’ll even get a dedicated cooler in the box with the 9 Pro Edition, helping keep your phone cool to the touch and offering improved audio performance with a built-in subwoofer. It’s a nice touch rarely seen in the gaming phone market.

Like the RedMagic 9S Pro, this phone is brimming with gaming features such as the AirTriggers, key mapping and Macros. The software is excellent too, enabling you to make tweaks on the fly, even in the middle of an intense match, and Asus is a rarity in that it gives you the choice between a clean ZenUI and a gaming-focused UI. 

Elsewhere, Asus has doubled down on making this phone not look or feel like a gamer phone. It has a pretty simplistic look compared to the likes of RedMagic, albeit with an improved AniMe panel that can display text, graphics, and even elements like battery life when the phone is screen down.

Despite a renewed focus on camera tech, the rear cameras still can’t compete with efforts from Apple and Samsung. But if you’re happy to make that sacrifice in the name of gaming performance, then this is a great, albeit premium, option.

Reviewer: Luke Baker
Full Review: Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition review

If you’re looking to game on an iPhone, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is the perfect smartphone for the job.

It offers the largest OLED screen of the current iPhone range at an increased 6.9 inches compared to its 6.7-inch predecessor alongside vanishingly slim bezels to deliver a more immersive gaming experience. The 120Hz ProMotion tech also lends itself particularly well to gaming, allowing you to hit the 120fps mark in supported titles for better response time and buttery-smooth graphics.

That’s backed up by Apple’s 3nm A18 Pro chipset that delivered some of the best benchmark scores we’ve seen from any phone yet, making the iPhone 16 Pro Max able to handle even demanding AAA games without much of a fuss.

Plus, with console-level games like Resident Evil 4 Remake, Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed Mirage available on the App Store, along with an ever-changing library of games via Apple Arcade, there are plenty of games to take advantage of the iPhone’s raw power.

Battery life has also seen a significant uptick this year with the iPhone able to get lighter users through a full two days of use before needing a charge. You won’t quite reach those lofty heights when gaming, but it’ll sustain a multi-hour gaming session with ease.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter
Full Review: Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max Review

If you want a flagship smartphone that boasts excellent gaming performance as just one of its many accomplishments, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is the smartphone to go for.

It can easily deliver great performance using the exclusive Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, with benchmarks not too far from what you’ll see from the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, while not skimping on the rest of the smartphone experience.

That means you get a truly high-end 6.82-inch Super AMOLED 2X display with a 120Hz refresh rate, LTPO tech, a maximum brightness of 2500nits and a pixel-packed QHD+ resolution. It’s arguably one of the best screens around, gaming phone or not, made even better by the inclusion of an S Pen for note-taking and doodling. There’s also a whopping 5000mAh cell that could go all day and then some in testing, making it an ideal option for long gameplay sessions.

You won’t get some purist gaming enhancements, such as shoulder trigger buttons, but you will get some advantages that other gaming phones may miss out on. That includes a guaranteed seven years of OS upgrades, a brilliant camera system with a suite of lenses that includes a primary 200MP sensor and, of course, all the benefits of the GenAI-powered Galaxy AI too.

If you’re looking for a top-end Android device that can handle games without breaking a sweat and much more to boot, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is an easy recommendation.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter
Full Review: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review

Most gaming phones cost upwards of £1000/$1000 outright, which may well feel excessive considering that’s even more expensive than a PS5 and Xbox Series X. The Poco X6 Pro is an outstanding solution to this problem, offering incredible performance and a slew of gaming features at a very reasonable price. 

Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 8300-Ultra, it’s one of the fastest chips you can find at this price point. Our testing showed the phone is capable of running the likes of Genshin Impact at 60fps, ensuring a smooth performance while keeping temperatures reasonable. 

It also has a few gaming-focused features to improve the experience, including software that will automatically optimise performance for gaming workloads, and a 120Hz refresh rate to keep on-screen motion smooth on that lovely 6.67-inch AMOLED panel. 

Of course, bagging this phone at a cheaper price than the competition does come with compromises. The performance isn’t quite as good as the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, while the ultrawide and macro cameras will likely disappoint photographers. There’s also a lot of bloatware and in-app adverts that cheapen the experience. Nevertheless, those flaws are easy to forgive when you’re getting such an excellent gaming experience at a budget-friendly price.

Reviewer: Luke Baker
Full Review: Poco X6 Pro review

If you want something totally different for your gaming experience, look no further than the foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. The foldable nature of the book-style smartphone means you’ve got access to a large, high-res 7.6-inch 120Hz AMOLED display when you want to play games on a big screen while still folding down to a size resembling a standard smartphone.

It’s not just the sheer size of the foldable display that makes the Z Fold 5 the best foldable for gaming either; it’s also the most powerful you’ll find right now, sporting Qualcomm’s custom Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, just like the S24 Ultra. It’s more than capable of powering high-end AAA gaming experiences with high-level graphics and consistent gameplay even over longer periods of use, with a built-in vapour chamber for added cooling.

Elsewhere, a 4,400mAh battery should be enough to get you through even demanding gaming sessions, a triple rear camera setup offers more versatility than a regular gaming phone and it has a whopping seven years of battery life to look forward to.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter
Full Review: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review