My phone got destroyed and since i'm out shopping for a new one, i wonder if it's worth getting into this whole mobile gaming shit. I got a Deck but it's not exactly... portable, as in something i can actually whip out of a pocket when i'm out during the day (truth be told i've been using the Deck more as a secondary PC whenever i feel like playing with Linux). Plus i need a phone one way or another so why not.

Question is are we there yet in terms of gaming on Android?

By gaming of course i mean emulation, both consoles and maybe windows, and of course PC ports (and source ports) and the like. I don't know if there's good native Android games, but i'm not sure i'd bother even if there were. Plus, hardware wise that seems the easiest part to cover. Most of the phones i've been looking at always mention shit like Genshin Impact or Withering Waves. I have zero clue what they are and no plans of playing either but i guess they are the top heavy Android games and if something as cheap as a Poco X7 Pro can run those i guess that takes care of the native Android side of things.

So the question is, can Android actually do emulation now (i mean, good emulation not just can it run a game at 10 FPS with the phone turning 90 degrees)? I've seen some people even trying to play shit like Witcher 3 (talk about overkill) so it seems things have moved farther along than i expected, especially if Android can run Windows games now. Hell, i've been seen some people say even PS3 emulation is a thing now, or starting to become a thing. Console emulation on a mobile device is somewhat alluring to me as there's games i may find too casul to play on my PC but which might good for a mobile situation.

Lastly, there's the question of hardware. From what i understand drivers can be an issue, and it's best to stick to Snapdragon. That would leave some budget options like the aformentioned Poco X7 Pro out of the equation (since it has a Mediatek Dimensity which i'm not sure if it's as supported as Snapdragon). If i got it right the most supported chipset right now is Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and there's some semi-effordable options there, though a few of them are a bit sketchy. Like, the Poco is notorious for its shit UI and bloatware plus adware (i actually had an X3 Pro for a while but i got rid of it since the system was that shitty and bugged, plus the few times i tried to play games on it the thing turned into an oven so i figured gaming on mobile just wasn't there yet), while one model i was looking at, the Red Magic 10 Air, which has one of the most interesting screens i've seen on a phone (it's completely flat, with square corners and the front microphone is hidden BEHIND the screen which seemed really cool. It's like the most perfect screen for media i've seen on a phone) apparently uses a low quality BOE OLED that gets screen retention very easely (fuuuuuuck that shit) and doesn't look as good as some comparably priced models (like the Poco F7 Ultra). Also apparently the OS has spelling errors. Fucking China lmao. This kinda of pissed me off i was kinda of considering their tablet since it's one of the few with an OLED screen but not if it's this shitty. I guess getting an older gen flagship might be an alternative but i don't want a used one and here in Italy old flaships don't seem to drop in price at all.

BTW so far my most successful gaming activity on Android has been on a shitty 11" Lenovo tablet i got for free from my IP provider, where i played a couple of Scummvm games and it's been perfect for that, almost better than on my PC since it's so comfy on my bed/couch lmao. Only with combat in Fate of Atlantis did the touch screen struggle a bit but obviously that didn't matter too much. On a phone i have to see what kind of games are actually playable given how small the screen is. I'm thinking PS1 or PS2 era and anything before that would be best since the graphics are so blocky they ought to be easy to see on the screen. I tried idtech4a++ on my mother's phone just to try it and while Doom is perfectly playable, Doom 3 and beyond is already too much. The screen is simply too small for a game with that amount of detail. I can see why blocky graphics have become a thing for mobile gaming. That said, I still wouldn't mind trying newer consoles, like Switch etc.