The votes are in, and the entire team has determined the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate was indeedour favorite Android gaming phoneof the year. It was also the most expensive, retailing for $1400. Of course, I’m not shy abouthow much I like the phone in my review, as it offers a culmination of Asus’s gaming experience, resulting in a device clearly tuned for playingthe best mobile games, from its front-facing speakers, dual USB-C charging ports, to the unobstructed high framerate screen (no pinhole cameras to be found). Sure, you’ll have to pony up a sizeable chunk of change to get such a polished device made for gaming, but for anyone who takes video games seriously, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate truly is the best of the best smartphones made for gaming we’ve seen this year.
The Asus Rog Phone 7 Ultimate is AP’s gaming phone of the year
Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate
The Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate brings together the best ideas from previous models, resulting in not only the best gaming phone of the year but also the best gaming phone we’ve seen to date. This is all thanks to excellent build quality, competent purpose-built software, and killer hardware that can chew through the most demanding mobile games.
We may be on the cusp of new and improved gaming phones coming in 2024, but the truth is the 2023 models are more than competent to power through even the most demanding games likeGenshin Impact. Sounless Android starts getting more games that can push its current hardwareto the limits, what is the best gaming phone in 2023 will easily see you through 2024 and beyond with performance to spare.
And boy, does the ROG 7 Ultimate have performance to spare. With 512GB storage, you can rest assured you’ll rarely have to clear room for a new game install. And thanks to the 16GB RAM included, you can run multiple apps and games without breaking a sweat, which sure comes in handy when you want to record gameplay natively while running demanding games. This is ultimately where ROG shines the most: its software.
Now I know what you are thinking: I can’t be talking about Asus and quality software in the same breath, yet that’s exactly what I’m doing. By and large, Android isn’t known for high-end gaming, so tools to troubleshoot or maximize game performance are at a minimum. Asus fills this gap with its own tools built into the ROG Phone, known as Armoury Crate. Not only can you use it as a game launcher to hide your collection from the drawer, but you can alsoset a widget that displays all of your game’s statsin-game (like your framerate and the percentages of CPU/GPU use) and, of course, switch modes that tune how the phone performs on a per-game basis. These are all things that should feel familiar to anyone who has tuned a gaming PC before, which is exactly where Asus’s strengths lay, all adding up to what is the best gaming phone of the year.
The RedMagic 8S Pro competes against the Asus Rog Phone 7 Ultimate at half the price
Then again, if price is a big factor and you feel the ROG Phone is too expensive, you’re able to certainly find a much more affordable option with ourrunner-up for best gaming phone of 2023, the RedMagic 8S Pro. It offers specs similar to the ROG Phone but at less than half the price, starting at $650. The caveat is Nubia doesn’t offer as much support as Asus, and you can certainly expect a few bugs in the software, but at the end of the day, you won’t find a cheaper way to jump into a powerful gaming phone that offers the excellent specs and performance of the Redmagic 8S Pro.
RedMagic 8S Pro
The RedMagic 8S Pro packs the latest hardware, from a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to its 12GB RAM, which is precisely how it powers through even the most demanding Android games. It also packs a 6000mAh battery to ensure your gaming sessions last. And you can get all this starting at $650, half of what competing phones retail for.
