Top 5 Gaming Phones Of 2012

If you like gaming and if you are the kind of person who doesn’t want to miss gaming even on the go, you don’t need to buy a dedicated portable gaming console for gaming. Nowadays, mobile phones are getting so powerful, that they can handle better graphics than last gen dedicated gaming consoles such as PS2 or Nintendo Wii.  Now smartphones are offering multi core processors, high-end GPU and large multi-touch screens. Even big-name game production houses like EA, Activision, Bungie Games and CAPCOM have started releasing games for smartphones such as iPhone, Android and Windows phones. Even Nvidia, which only manufactured GPUs for PCs and laptops, now have a dedicated line-up of processors (SoC) known as ‘Tegra’ for the smartphones. This goes on to show that not only casual but even hard-core gaming can happen on smartphones nowadays.

Did You Missed This : Top 5 Most Anticipated Gadgets of 2012

Here's is our pick for top 5 gaming phones to mull over those who've been chasing a smartphone optimized for gaming and work.

1. Sony Ericsson Xperia Play 
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play did not immediately become popular after launch despite its extensive gaming capabilities and controls, but it has gradually grown strong in the market.

Xperia Play is an officially certified PlayStation device with PSP-like controls including slide out track pads, which are capacitive.

In terms of hardware, Xperia Play features a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with dedicated Adreno 205 graphics engine, which ensures smoother and faster graphics performance — a must for a gaming device. In total, it has 400 MB of internal storage that doubles up as ROM. Besides, 512 MB of RAM has been added to this device as well to keep the performance speedy and zippy.

Although the device now has a smaller (4 inch) screen as compared to most smartphones, its been compensated by the resolution (480 x 854 pixels) and by colour reproduction. Besides, its stereo sound output perfectly complements the gaming experience.

Xperia Play runs on Google Android that has hundreds of free and paid games. Also, Sony Ericsson continually releases free premium games especially for Xperia Play.

For more content users can use PlayStation suite, a dedicated store for PlayStation certified devices. Now, with the ICS update announced, the new age operating system will soon be making its way for the device and will hopefully bring some new and exciting features with it.

Price : RS. 21999

2. Apple iPhone 4S
Although the original iPhone 4 topped many charts across the globe for being the best device across multiple categories, its younger sibling started from where the older generation smartphone left off.

Apple iPhone 4S really pushed hard for promoting games on iOS and smartphones in general. Not only Apple designed a good portable gaming hardware platform , but even promoted portable gaming and tied up with game developers and publishers. Their latest smartphone, iPhone 4S has one of the best screen from current mobile phones with a size of 3.5 inch and pixel density of 326 ppi. All the heavy pixel pushing is processed by the dual-core custom designed A5 processor with SGX543 MP2 GPU which handles every graphically intense game with finesse. Apple claims that this new processor gives up to 7 times the graphics performance than its predecessor, the iPhone 4 but they haven’t compromised on battery life which is still about the same as iPhone 4. iPhone 4S has the best collection of games compared to any other smartphone and the games like Infinity Blade II, Riptide and Nova 3 will blow your mind away with graphics as rich as top gaming consoles.

Price : Starting from RS. 42000

Did You Missed This : Buy Apple iPhone 3GS only for Rs. 9,999

3. Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung portrays the Galaxy Note as something between a tablet and a smartphone. It has by far the biggest screen among smartphones.

Galaxy Note that won’t disappoint the gamers with its jaw droppingly large 5.3 inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The dual core 1.4 GHz Exynos processor is not the best processor but still fast enough to play every game ever made for the Android platform. It has 1 GB RAM along with the internal memory of 16 or 32 GB internal storage space. The phone has a stylus too, an S pen stylus which gives it an edge over the others for writing and sketching purposes. The S-pen has already spurned off some interesting apps and games exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy Note. One such game aims at tickling your imagination while being a little puzzling.

The phone is no less a beast for the regular smartphones games either. Gigantic screen and incredible processing capabilities make playing games on the Samsung Galaxy Note an experience of its own.

With a huge battery backup of 2500 mAh, you can expect to spend long hours gaming on this phone.

Price : RS.  32250 Approx.

4. Nokia X7-00
Nokia has always been the underdog as far as gaming smartphones are concerned. A major disadvantage of a Nokia phone is the lack of applications as compared to those on Android and iOS.

Nokia X7 has clearly overtaken the N8 as far as the gaming legacy goes. Nokia is one of the few device manufacturers that started the gaming culture on mobile phones with its first gaming phone - nGage. And with the X7, it aims at rewriting the story once again.

Nokia X7 with its big 4 inch display makes gaming fun, and with its stereo sound output it adds more realism to games. X7, although it has a slower, 680 MHz processor as compared to most other devices in this list, utilises system resources better than others and never lets you feel the difference.

The display of Nokia X7 might not be the best in the industry but it is good enough for some pocket sized gaming. The 4 inch Amoled (active matrix organic LED) display has 640 x 360 pixel resolution which recreates some nice and vibrant visuals for a memorable gaming experience.

Although there are fewer applications available for Symbian devices as compared to Android, on Symbian you would get some exclusive gaming titles that can only be played on Nokia devices. Also, with Symbian Belle soon making its way to Nokia smartphones, we will surely see some more gaming action for the X7.

Price : RS. 20700

5. Micromax A85 Superfone 
Micromax A85 is also called the Superfone by the company. It's the first dual core smartphone from Micromax — two processing cores besides the usual graphics core.

Similar to the LG Optimus 2X, which is the world's first dual core smartphone, Micromax A85 also features an Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset, which is a true dual core processor with dual core Arm A9 processor running at 1 GHz and a graphics core provided by Nvidia Geforce.

Nvidia has also opened a dedicated store for devices powered with Tegra chipsets and offers exclusive content. Also, since it is an Android device, users will automatically gain access to all the games and applications available from Google Android Market as well.

Micromax A85 also comes with smaller but efficient 8 GB of internal storage and 512 MB of RAM. Although there is no update on the Gingerbread or ICS update we hope for something.

Price : RS. 15200

Summary
These top smartphones offer the best possible gaming experience a hard-core gamer could ask for. Higher processing capabilities, better and larger screen sizes along with highly involved games make for great gaming experience on these smartphones. While Apple would continue to rule the top segment of gamers, there is serious competition from the Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy Note, Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Nokia X7-00. If you have a desire to get quality gaming experience on the go, you may want to choose the one from the above mentioned smartphones. Which phone would you buy?