Why we test every game on an old phone too

Most reviews are written on flagship phones, which is fine until you realize most people aren't playing on flagship phones. A game can look flawless on the latest hardware and fall apart on a three-year-old handset.

So we keep an older mid-range phone in the drawer specifically for testing. If a game chugs, overheats, or eats battery on that device, we say so. It changes our recommendations more often than you'd expect.

Racing and arcade games are especially sensitive to this. Frame drops during a corner or a combo don't just look bad, they cost you the run. A racer that stutters isn't a racer worth playing.

We also watch storage size and download bloat. A tiny arcade game shouldn't take up a gigabyte, and when one does, that's worth a mention.

The goal is simple: tell you whether the game will run for you, not just for us. That's the whole point of a review you can trust.