You don't need a flagship to enjoy mobile games

There's a myth that mobile gaming needs the latest expensive phone. In reality, most of the games we love run perfectly well on mid-range hardware that's a couple of years old.

The trick is knowing what to expect. A three-year-old phone might not hold 60 frames per second in a heavy 3D game, but it'll happily run cozy sims, puzzles, arcade titles, and lighter adventures without breaking a sweat.

Keep your storage from filling up, close background apps before a session, and lean on those in-game graphics settings. That combination keeps older phones surprisingly capable.

We deliberately test on ordinary devices for this reason. If we only played on top-tier hardware, our reviews would be useless to most people reading them.