Real innovation in gaming phones

asrar_kash November 3, 2025

0 1 3 minutes read

Every new iPhone or Android device that hits US shores is indistinguishable from the next. Phones have become so familiar and boring that we honestly look at the more expensive “Tri-Fort” devices the next frontier of mobile. But what pleases me more than any The Fold iPhone is the next slate of gaming phones. Right now, those seem to limit what’s possible with our pocket computers.

On Monday, redmagic finally released the details of its RedMagic 11 Pro gaming phone. The main defining feature is its use of liquid cooling – a technology that often sees PCSTOP PCs. Most of today’s phones use heat transfer through pipes and, in more expensive devices, a vapor chamber to distribute heat evenly over a large surface area. Liquid cooling, instead, uses a micropump to swirl fluid around the base of the phone, then moves it to a fan that blows away the heat.

Two years ago, OnePlus showed off a concept phone with the same technology, and it’s finally here—in a device you can buy. Along with its R4 Thermal Management Chip, the RedMagic 11 Pro will sport the new Qualcomm Snapdragon ELTITE Gen 5 Chip. When writing the chip myself with a phone looking closely at the juice specs, I noticed that the device started to get dirty most of the time, which worried me that the chip was overheating and limiting the performance during a long session. RedMagic promises its semiconductors enable perfect performance, even outside temperatures ranging from 40 degrees Celsius (or -40 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit).

We haven’t seen RedMagic’s latest creations, so we can’t say how effective its liquid cooling solution will be compared to what will eventually arrive in the next Samsung Galaxy device. At least, it sports a 144hz screen, so it should be able to present your games in their best light. Redmagic’s phone is coming to the United States, though not without a carrier. You’ll need to pony up $750 for the base model; $850 nets a transparent glass back to show you the active liquid cooling.

Gaming phones add more buttons

Rogue Phone 9 Pro Snapdragon 1 — The Asus ROG Phone 9 includes some interesting visual touches that make it look different. © Kyle Barr / GizModo

And you’ll want that version, because it’s the most unique one, outside of the high-g “gamer” association, like the anime lights that come with the ASUS RELEASE 9 phone. That device also uses a large external fan to keep its thermals in check. This solution includes additional shoulder buttons for additional screen control. Although the internal cooling is very good, it is clear that in the looks department, the gaming phones are still ready to throw things on the wall and see what sticks.

Take Ayaneo, a company that makes boutique, retro, handheld gaming devices and mini PCs. The company announced that it was making its first smartphone under its “retro remake” brand, inspired by 1990s Tech. The device appears to have a bumper button on both ends of the left side. Ayaneo can try to position the phone as a different boy’s game or as something that can involve the many retro citizens available on Android.

The next ‘next phone’ of OnePlus improves on the Qualcomm gaming chip

Apple’s Exclusive A18 Pro and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Both promise sporty performance. THAT means that in real life it is muddled by hardware limitations. OnePlus 15 It’s not billed as a gaming phone, although it will include a 165HZ signal so titles can run at a faster clip. OnePlus 16 uses the latest High-End SourtCom Chip, but at the time of release, the company said it plans to pack in a special “Op Gaming” area that OnePlus promises will reduce power consumption and increase game performance.

What is more interesting is that we may finally be able to find a generation of frameworks on mobile devices. OnePlus brings that closer to reality with its hyperrendering GPU Pipeline.

The company said that this will make it more efficient and open up interesting possibilities for game frame levels. That includes a specific type of frame generation, sometimes called frame splitting, which inserts AI-generated frames between frames interpreted by the chip itself. Nvidia uses this technology in Geforce RTX RTX 50-Series GPUS to stick up to 4x more frames between dedicated frames. While it has little impact on a full-fledged gaming PC, the technology can be very impressive on a small, cheap device like a phone.

Arm, the company behind many of the modern architectures of the chip, has promised that the possibility of AI increases to push better frame rates, so in the high-level space, we see everything killed by game technology harder than before. The only problem is that the lack of a large release makes these devices prone enough that anyone is not made to be addicted Honkai Star Rail thinking. At this point, companies are just proving that there are ways to innovate in the mobile space. With enough pressure, maybe gamers can see a new day for Samsung, Google, or Apple that won’t be writing tears.