REVIEW: I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never been a fan of gaming phones.

Thanks to their garish designs, I’ve always found it embarrassing to pull a gaming phone out of my pocket in public, while camera quality is overlooked in favor of increased performance power.

And did I mention they’re ridiculously expensive? The new Asus ROG Phone 6 costs £899, while the ROG Phone 6 Pro is even more expensive at £1099 – you can buy two PS5 consoles for that much money.

But despite my reservations about gaming phones, there’s no doubt that they serve a clear purpose. ROG Phone 6 Pro delivers fast gaming performance and features a high 165Hz refresh rate for smooth, responsive visuals that make it easy to snipe a target in a game.

Sure, the Nintendo Switch OLED and Steam Deck are fierce competitors as mobile gaming hardware, but they’re both limited to a 60Hz panel. That means they’re not quite capable of competing with gaming phones in the competitive multiplayer space.

This is highlighted by the huge eSports scene in mobile games, especially with PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile. You certainly won’t see any serious competitors showing up with a Steam Deck instead of a smartphone.

But this key advantage for gaming phones may soon be gone thanks to Nvidia’s GeForce Now platform. GeForce Now is a subscription service that lets you play a huge selection of PC games via the cloud – that means it doesn’t matter how powerful your hardware is, even if you want to play CyberPunk in 4K.

Of course, GeForce Now isn’t new, as it started rolling out to Android phones as early as 2019. And since GeForce Now was initially locked to a 60Hz frame rate, the service still couldn’t compete with the experience that a phone game provides.

But that’s about to change as Nvidia has confirmed (via The Verge) that it has started rolling out 120Hz support for Android smartphones. Provided you have a fast enough internet connection, that means you only need a smartphone with a 120Hz refresh rate (like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus) to get similar or even better performance. , to those of a gaming phone.

You could argue that gaming phones let you play games while you’re on the go, while using GeForce Now makes you dependent on an internet connection. However, some of the most popular mobile games – such as Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact – already require an internet connection to play.

There’s a huge downside though, as to play games at 120fps you’ll need to subscribe to Nvidia’s most expensive plan which costs an astronomical £17.99 per month (or £89.99 every six months).

That sounds incredibly expensive, but it would take over six years for those subscription fees to reach the cost of a high-end gaming phone like the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro. And yes, you’d still need to buy another 120Hz phone, but you can pick up the Realme X50 5G for under £150.

Subscribing to GeForce Now would also negate the need for a high-end gaming PC, allowing you to play games on multiple devices regardless of specs. If you enjoy playing games on both mobile and PC, you’re arguably getting good value for money.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think GeForce Now is for everyone because it needs such a fast internet connection and only works with a select group of games. But I think it’s a better value option than buying a gaming phone.

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Ctrl + Alt + Del is our weekly IT-focused opinion column where we dig deep into the world of computers, laptops, components, peripherals and more. Find it on Trusted Reviews every Saturday afternoon.