wraggster
February 21st, 2014, 00:26
http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/adam/d5b76d2506ae0acb70ad63f1403f6fb0/android-gaming-lead.jpg (http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/20/which-android-phones-win-at-gaming/)A simple kind of happiness reigns in the world of mobile gaming. The app stores are brimming over with four-star ratings; popular titles are making billions of dollars (http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/22/apple-ios-7-downloaded-over-200-million-times-in-5-days/) for their creators; and folks on the morning commute seem generally content with what they're playing -- sometimes destroying rows of fruit, sometimes rows of candy (http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/31/apple-bombarded-with-candy-themed-games-in-trademark-protest/). Few of us expect or demand anything deeper on a tablet or smartphone, and surely none of us would be crazy enough to choose our next handset based solely on a criterion as narrow as 3D gaming performance. Right?
Well, yes and no. Things certainly get more complicated when you look at the cutting edge -- especially on Android. The industry is pushing the boundaries of what a mobile game can be (https://www.engadget.com/2014/01/05/unreal-engine-4-nvidia-k1/), what a mobile processor can do (http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/31/qualcomm-snapdragon-805/) and what an Android-based gaming device can look like (http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/09/huawei-tron-android-gaming/). And as ambitions escalate, so do the risks. The old nemesis of fragmentation means that certain titles may stutter, or cause excessive battery drain, or fail to run at all, so that those glowing reviews turn into one-star complaints and customers go back to playing it safe.
The industry is pushing the boundaries of what a mobile game can beThat's why we reckon it's a good time to take stock -- to measure how well some current and older Android devices handle a sample of graphically demanding games. We've got cold, hard numbers to show you, which should help to pinpoint the most future-proofed products. We also have a secondary aim, which is to set a benchmark against which we can judge the next wave of hardware, soon to be announced at Mobile World Congress (http://www.engadget.com/tag/mwc2014). Indeed, it's already becoming clear that, from a gaming perspective, smartphones don't always progress in the manner or at the rate that we might expect.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/20/which-android-phones-win-at-gaming/
Well, yes and no. Things certainly get more complicated when you look at the cutting edge -- especially on Android. The industry is pushing the boundaries of what a mobile game can be (https://www.engadget.com/2014/01/05/unreal-engine-4-nvidia-k1/), what a mobile processor can do (http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/31/qualcomm-snapdragon-805/) and what an Android-based gaming device can look like (http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/09/huawei-tron-android-gaming/). And as ambitions escalate, so do the risks. The old nemesis of fragmentation means that certain titles may stutter, or cause excessive battery drain, or fail to run at all, so that those glowing reviews turn into one-star complaints and customers go back to playing it safe.
The industry is pushing the boundaries of what a mobile game can beThat's why we reckon it's a good time to take stock -- to measure how well some current and older Android devices handle a sample of graphically demanding games. We've got cold, hard numbers to show you, which should help to pinpoint the most future-proofed products. We also have a secondary aim, which is to set a benchmark against which we can judge the next wave of hardware, soon to be announced at Mobile World Congress (http://www.engadget.com/tag/mwc2014). Indeed, it's already becoming clear that, from a gaming perspective, smartphones don't always progress in the manner or at the rate that we might expect.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/20/which-android-phones-win-at-gaming/