If you are an avid techy then you would know that the Razer Phone was launched as a gaming smartphone - a first of its kind in 2017. However, back in the year 2003 Nokia had announced the first ever gaming phone i.e the Nokia n - gage where they did partner with n-gage for the device. The 'Gaming phones' recently became a category among smart phones. For those who are wondering about categories in phones do remember that we also have camera phones, selfie phones, camera and music phones (thanks to Oppo and Vivo). No doubt that there are no official categories however within a few months after the Razer Phone went live Xiaomi and ZTE announced their share of "GAMING" phones.
The real question arises - Do we really need a dedicated phone for gaming ?
SMARTPHONES are powered by SOC's which are basically a system on a chip consisting of the processor, GPU, RAM, ROM, modem,etc. all embedded on a single chip. Unlike a PC which contains removable parts or peripherals (RAM, HDD, SSD, GPU) we cannot change or replace anything in a smartphone. The Xiaomi's gaming phone known as the Black Shark comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SOC and 8GB of RAM. Similarly the ZTE Nubia Red Magic comes with Snapdragon 835 SOC and 8GB of RAM. Xiaomi takes the gaming title slightly ahead by including a Cooling pipe to dissipate the heat although it won't be as efficient or even near to those used in dedicated gaming rigs. From the specs it can be seen that even the recently launched or unannounced flagships will/have such specifications like the Samsung Galaxy S9 or even the Google Pixel 2/2 XL, the upcoming OnePlus 6, LG G7, Asus Zenfone 5Z, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S etc. The primary difference would be that of the dedicated Cooling pipe which as stated above is not much effective.
The Razer Gaming smartphone came with a 120Hz refresh rate display which is indeed a one of its kind to provide smooth transitions however we do get the 120Hz display even with the Apple iPad announced last year. The Razer Phone also has THX rated speakers which is the best in its kind however stereo speakers present in many devices including S9 and the Google Pixel 2 series suffice for it. Speaking of software, the Razer Phone makes use of the Nova Prime as a default launcher whereas the Black Shark makes use of the Joy Ui - different from the MIUI. Ultimately even the software is nothing special since OEM's can optimize their devices like include a dedicated gaming launcher which can mute the notifications during gaming or provide options to record screenplay, or screenshot etc. This was available on the Samsung S7/S7 Edge was back in 2016 and was later followed by some OEM's.
Speaking of the battery required, well here both the Razer Phone and the Black Shark come with a 4000 mAh capacity with fast charging however the other flagships come with a 3500 mAh capacity at an average (if we compare the Plus variant of Samsung flagship or the Huawei's Mate series and so on ). Ultimately the basic necessity for an efficient gaming session is a good battery life to provide juice to those internals and the screen which these gaming devices did prove themselves by their default capacity. No doubt, many flagships fall back on their battery life and hence here we can give an edge to them.
Hence if we breakdown the necessary points for gaming like : 1. Hardware 2. Software 3. Battery capacity 4. Storage , we can conclude that at an average the "Gaming" phone and the available flagships are just the same. The gaming phones will not have an edge in camera quality since they were never meant to be the best there however apart from delivering good performance, the flagships might provide decent shots, also the dedicated controller which the Black Shark possesses can be replaced by any controller via Bluetooth on any device or if you own a Moto Z series device, the dedicated Gaming MOD will help.
The only department that these devices excel to some extent is in the design especially because of that "Gaming" look which ultimately is based on the personal preference. Also the games that are available on the Android platform are indeed resource heavy however even the mid-range SOC's like Snapdragon 636 or 660 handle many heavy titles with ease. The ultimate requirement is the optimisation by the developer for that particular SOC.
Summing it up - Will you still prefer a gaming phone over an equivalent flagship ? Well in our case you probably have already guessed our answer which is a NO. If it were a gaming laptop with mechanical keyboard and dedicated Cooling pipe - we would surely but a "Gaming" phone is just a gimmick since the games available work very well on most devices which including the "gaming" phones come with a 60Hz display (except The Razer Phone). Ultimately, if the design or an obvious smooth performance coupled with good battery performance is your priority then these Gaming smartphones will be an ideal choice.