Top 10 Best Budget Gaming Phones under $300
Mobile gaming has seen explosive growth in its popularity over the past decade. High-quality gaming phones can be quite pricey, with the top of the range costing $800 and above. Luckily, You can get a lot of phones for a modest price these days, and to prove it, we've rounded up a list of the best Android phones under $300 for your consideration.
This Xiaomi phone boasts a 4500mAh battery along with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 chipset ensuring an amazing gaming performance. It delivers a pretty smooth performance without any lags or snags. It comes with a 6GB RAM, a 128GB internal storage option, and a 6.53 inches large screen. You can expand the internal storage using a microSD card to a maximum of 256GB. It comes with Android 9 OS, which means you’d be getting support for a lot more games than lower versions of the OS. It has a LiquidCool vapor chamber which helps to maintain the temperature of the device even when gaming for lengthy periods. The 12nm MediaTek Helio G90T handles gaming well. Sure, the phone is a little larger than we’d like, which may put off some users. Considering the screen quality, main camera specs and battery life, Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro could be one of the best phones at its price
The Moto G9 Plus is an affordable mobile made for the phone enthusiast. A giant 6.8 inch screen makes the Moto G9 Plus an obvious choice for gamers, but it also needs a good graphics chipset. It doesn’t suffer from any significant lag or any irritating pauses when you call up the keyboard. However, you get 30 FPS rather than the 60 FPS mode available on high-end phones. It is powered by the octa-core, 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G and 4GB RAM. Along with a generous 128GB of internal storage, the phone keeps up with the Joneses with a quadruple-camera array. It has a 5000mAh battery, which has become the norm for large phones, but this one outperforms many with the same capacity stats. Unless you’re suspicious of big handsets or really love your beautified selfies, it’s really a phone with no drawbacks for the price.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 is based on the Exynos 9611 platform. The base variant has 6GB of RAM but you can get it with 8GB as well if you’d like things to be a bit more snappy. There’s no faulting the device’s 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display which is excellent. The intelligent use of the Infinity-O display has enabled Samsung to trim the bezels, which allows for a more immersive gaming experience. The Galaxy comes with Android 10 out of the box with Samsung’s One UI 2. It also comes preloaded with Samsung’s productivity apps, but you can delete most of them if they get overwhelming. It also has a Game Booster mode that helps with speeding your games up. With a fairly large 4,000mAh battery, the device is fully capable of powering the countless hours you’ll spend playing games like PUBG and Call of Duty and that too at their highest graphics settings.
The Note 9 Pro comes with a Snapdragon 720G chipset, which comes as a combination of two Kryo 465 Gold cores and six Kryo 465 Silver cores. On the graphics side of things, the device comes with an Adreno 618 GPU. The Note 9 Pro has a 6GB RAM, a 128GB internal storage with a memory expansion option of up to 512GB. It boasts a 6.67-inch display that operates seamlessly even for the most demanding games. All parts of the screen are very effective and the response is as sharp as possible. With graphics turned to the maximum, you won't notice any stutters and lags. The Note 9 Pro also comes with a 5020mAh battery, which proved to be one of the standout features of this device for gamers. The phone can run for around 17 hours on long, heavy usage. However, one of the main shortcomings of this device is that it doesn’t charge fast.
The Realme XT is the top choice among budget gaming phones. It features a 8GB RAM, 128 GB internal storage option. With it's 6.4 inches large AMOLED screen and a Snapdragon 712 chipset, you can run the latest games with ease, no heating and no lagging. It charges extremely fast while you are gaming, which is something you don’t find on many smartphones out there. However, you may notice occasional frame drops and slight warming up around the camera area after a few hours of nonstop intense gaming. Its 4000mAh battery can carry for around 15 hours of gaming, streaming Netflix shows and listening to music non-stop. When you’re not actively using the device, it seems to have good standby times as the battery hardly dips even if you keep it away for a whole day. Overall, the Realme XT remains one of the best options for games that have a high performance and graphics demand.
The Mi Mix 3 is a fantastic device with the best hardware available. It is a full-screen display phone without a notch. This amazing 6.39-inches phone is more built for mobile gaming because it runs on the Android v10 operating system and is powered by the Snapdragon 845 with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage, which is enough for every user. It even has a wireless charging pad in the box. You will surely enjoy a higher framerate while playing even the most resource-heavy games like PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty, all with lower heat production and power consumption. You don’t need be disappointed by the Mi Mix 3’s 3200 mAh battery. Even if on paper it’s smaller than many of its peers, it’s a strong performer, returning easily a day’s worth of heavy use. The phone has plenty of volume too, though the external speaker is disappointing.
Poco X3 Pro is the latest device from Xiaomi’s global brand Poco. The Poco X3 Pro gets some great hardware upgrades for a slight bump in price. This mobile gaming phone will exceed your desired mobile gaming experience. It has 6GB of RAM and runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G processor. It enables you to play hard mobile games like PUBG and Call of Duty while keeping the performance stable and hitting frame rates between the 60 fps to 110fps or higher. The IPS LCD display also features a 120 Hz refresh rate. This translates to a smoother, fluid smartphone experience. It also has a 5160 mAh battery with a Quick and fast charge for all-day gameplay. Poco’s Game Turbo app is also quite useful and lets you adjust the touch responses. The size of this phone is 6.18 inches, and that will give you a satisfying view when you are playing mobile games.
With other expensive offerings in the market, the Samsung Galaxy A52 is a good and practical choice for gaming. It features a 8GB RAM, a 256GB internal storage with a memory expansion option of up to 512GB. It comes with a 120 Hz super amoled display. The processor here is Snapdragon 720G, which is an efficient mid-range chip based on an 8nm fabrication process. The phone’s frame makes it optimal for prolonged usage, the heat generated from gaming is negligible at worst, and the touchscreen is responsive and feels great when you’re furiously tapping in rhythm games. Speaking of game sounds, the phone’s stereo speakers are pretty loud at max volume. The phone’s 4500mAh battery, although not sounding huge on paper, works really well here and can easily get around 7 Hours doing short gaming sessions and switching between apps. Unless you really want your gacha games to run at 120fps, this particular Samsung mainline phone favours value for money.
Iphone 8 was released in 2017 by Apple and since then, it is still a good option for a smooth user experience, including the gaming experience. Running the iPhone 8 is the A11 Bionic which is Apple’s fastest processor yet. Using the best settings for graphics and sensitivity is important for a game like PUBG Mobile. The regular and the Plus versions of the iPhone 8 come with 2GB and 3GB of RAM, respectively. This is hardly an issue, since excellent iOS optimization ensures superb performance, despite the relatively small amount of RAM. It has a six-core processor with two high-power and four low-power cores that churns through all tasks with ease. It's battery life is a little lower than other iPhones. It is also more power-efficient due to the more advanced 10nm manufacturing process. The 4 year old Iphone 8 gives a good price performance option and is still a powerful choice in 2021, especially for gaming purposes.
The LG G8 ThinQ is an incredible phone when it comes to gaming. It uses Qualcomm's latest and greatest Snapdragon 855 processor, which means it delivers a pretty smooth gaming performance without any lags or snags. Besides, it comes with 6GB of RAM, Adreno 650 GPU and an Octa-core CPU. It's 6.1-inch QHD+ display is crisp and clear and is large enough to provide a great view for watching videos and playing games. Plus, it's bright with strong viewing angles. The design on this phone is cased in gorilla glass on both its front and back. Holding the LG G8 ThinQ one handed for gaming is also easy to do since its in the mid range size of 6.1 inches. The phone itself is also quite loud with newly enhanced speakers. It is powered by a 3500 mAh non-removable lithium polymer battery and can provide around 11 hours of standard usage of the phone. It is easily one of the cheapest flagship phones on the market and has an excellent price-value ratio, so it is worth considering for sure.
