3 of the most powerful gaming smartphones on the market in 2026

Although gaming phone choices have dwindled in recent years, especially with Asus’ decision to shutter the ROG Phone division, models like RedMagic continue to meet the needs of gaming enthusiasts. Even smartphones that don’t explicitly target gamers are known for providing a good experience, thanks to increasingly powerful processors, well-thought-out cooling mechanisms, and beautiful screens. Sure, you won’t find some of the more specialized features or hardware found on dedicated gaming phones, but it does have the advantage of well-balanced overall performance and a subtle design.

So if you’re in the market for a new gaming phone, you have a decent selection to choose from. If budget gaming phones aren’t for you and you need the absolute best performance, we’ve rounded up three of the most powerful phones for gaming. While selecting these smartphones, we considered their real-world gaming performance, various gaming-related features, and availability in the US.

If you’re part of the Apple ecosystem or prefer iOS, Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro models are perfect for gaming, thanks to their powerful A19 Pro chip, which houses a six-core CPU and six-core GPU, paired with 12GB of RAM. But more importantly, Apple has included a vapor cooling chamber which, combined with the aluminum chassis, helps prevent the iPhones from overheating during your gaming sessions. However, you will notice some throttling after a certain point during your long, heavy gaming sessions as the iPhone inevitably starts to heat up.

In benchmarks such as 3DMark Solar Bay and 3DMark Wildlife Extreme, which target important capacities for gaming, the iPhone 17 Pro models score around 12,000 and 6,000 respectively, with the Pro Max variant generally performing slightly better. These are some of the best scores you’ll get on any phone. Both iPhones are also reliable under long-term loads and reach almost 60fps at maximum graphics settings in Genshin Impact.

Another positive point of the iPhone 17 Pro models is the extensive accessory ecosystem that gives you access to high-quality third-party controllers to connect to your iPhone. Even on the software front, the iPhone 17 Pro models have a few features for gamers, including the Apple Arcade subscription service, the Games app for easy access to all things gaming, and the various game streaming apps you can download from the App Store. You also get a beautiful OLED display that supports up to 120Hz refresh rate and HDR. The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max start at $1,100 and $1,200 respectively and come in multiple colors and storage variants.

The RedMagic 11S Pro is the only gaming-focused smartphone you can officially buy in the United States. This is a minor refresh to the company’s previously launched RedMagic 11 Pro, and one of the changes is the improved liquid cooling system, which is supposed to help the phone deliver its peak performance for longer. As we found in our RedMagic 11S Pro review, it works pretty well. The only downside we noticed was the audible fan noise.

Another upgrade to the phone is a higher-performance version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, which certainly helps keep things running smoothly and delivers excellent performance. The phone managed to score around 8,100 in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test and over 14,500 in the 3DMark Solar Bay test. It also shines in actual gameplay, reaching an average FPS of almost 60 in Genshin Impact at the highest settings.

In other important features for gamers, the phone has built-in capacitive shoulder triggers, a hardware toggle to trigger gaming mode, and a 144Hz display with a 3,000Hz touch sampling rate. It also houses a massive 7,500mAh battery with support for 80W fast wired and wireless charging and runs Android 16 with RedMagic OS 11.5 on top, which includes tons of features to satisfy gamers’ needs, including Game Space, which lets you change everything from CPU and GPU profiles to shoulder trigger mapping. However, the software is not as advanced as that of iPhone or Samsung phones. Another downside of the phone is its poor camera performance. You will have to shell out $949 for its single 16GB memory variant in the US.

For people who prefer Android but want gaming and a regular smartphone experience to be top-notch, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is a good option. It packs a specially optimized version of the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor with up to 16GB of RAM and a 6.9-inch LTPO OLED display with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The phone also includes a vapor chamber with a graphite heatsink to keep the temperature under control during long gaming sessions and other intensive workloads.

It performs quite well in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark Solar Bay and 3DMark Wild Life Extreme, with scores of almost 12,000 and around 7,100, respectively. However, the phone starts to slow down after about five minutes of peak performance. Still, for most of your games, you’re unlikely to be disappointed, as it’s capable of handling an average FPS of around 52 in Genshin Impact on the highest settings.

A nice feature of the phone is its ability to bypass charging to power the phone directly from the wall adapter. This helps keep the overall temperature of the phone low as the battery heats up while charging. There is also Game Mode, which lets you tweak different aspects for a better gaming experience. Other highlights include Android 16 with One UI, a 5,000mAh battery with 65W wired charging, and a quad rear camera setup. You also get support for S-Pen and Privacy Display mode. All this for a starting price of $1,300.

While researching the most powerful gaming smartphones, we focused on high-end offerings from Apple and Android manufacturers as well as all the dedicated gaming phones on the market. We consulted our own experience as well as reviews from other experts to refine our recommendations based on synthetic benchmarks, gaming performance, and game-specific features. We’ve also limited our selection to phones officially sold in the United States.