We all know we can use our smartphones as an emulation/gaming station, especially if you have a telescopic controller, that makes it like 1000x better.
But the reasons why you should look somewhere else are:
It is just cool to have a dedicated device for gaming where you can utilize all the resources of the unit specifically for it (until we get 2 days of SOT or something like that in our smartphones I wouldn't do gaming seriously here).
It is kinda annoying to have notifications in your screen or calls while gaming, even when using DND you have the constant reminder you have a backlog of messages of the real word there.
Gaming without a controller is kinda rough, I mentioned a telescopic controller before because I think that's the best way to take advantage of serious gaming on the go, but having to take that controller out also defeats the purpose of the convenience you get when you have your all in one device, if you are using something like a backpack while you are out, you might as well take one of those beautiful Chinese handhelds with you, and don't choke your battery life in the process.
Now, probably there are other downsides of having your main smartphone for gaming/emulation, but those are the ones that come at the top of my mind... But now if we talk about reusing devices... I have always considered attaching a telescopic controller to a spare smartphone a good way to do so... Sadly none of my capable smartphones have survived my daily usage yet to have this "second life" 😅
You can do it on iPhones as well. Now here's the kicker... it's better on my 2019 Galaxy S10 than it is on my 2024 iPhone 16 Pro Max. Daily driver and backup phone, but, I mean, I'm posting in an Android community so you should at least get that I enjoy Android as well. But also, I genuinely love using the smaller, lighter phone — and it has a better software keyboard (Gboard vs iOS stock keyboard; AFAIK it isn't named).
I have a Razer Kishi controller. Despite being USB-C, it doesn't work with my iPhone (never mind it barely fits — it does fit). Works with the Galaxy S10 though. Despite the iPhone 16 series using what is supposed to be a standard USB 3 controller, it apparently only works with approved devices? Not sure who to blame here. It works with flash drives and my MacBook's (third party) Thunderbolt (aka USB 3/C with 10x more bandwidth, but backwards compatible to USB 3) to HDMI cable.
So anyway, RetroArch on both of them, and Delta on the iPhone, and I can play any retro game I want. RetroArch has more (IIRC as in, all of the) cores, but I don't know what I'm missing on the iOS version. Probably something. There are way less though. (Because Apple. I know.) And, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, despite being more powerful than the 2024 Galaxy, let alone the 2019 one, doesn't actually run any games I play any better. The Galaxy S10 is sufficient to play the games I like. Keep in mind, I'm an old guy. My games are NES, Super NES, GBA, some NDS, PS1, etc. I don't care about N64, PS2, NGC, or any of the newer ones. Not really anyway. So the games I like, the 2019 S10 is good enough.
(While the S10 also has the advantage of a microSD slot, I don't have anything in it. microSD is too slow. Shame Android never got a better memory card format. Its 128GB onboard storage is enough. The iPhone has 512GB, which is awesome, but I mostly have movies and other video up there.)
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I turned my flagship phone into a powerful retro gaming console, and you can too | Spyke
We all know we can use our smartphones as an emulation/gaming station, especially if you have a telescopic controller, that makes it like 1000x better.
But the reasons why you should look somewhere else are:
It is just cool to have a dedicated device for gaming where you can utilize all the resources of the unit specifically for it (until we get 2 days of SOT or something like that in our smartphones I wouldn't do gaming seriously here).
It is kinda annoying to have notifications in your screen or calls while gaming, even when using DND you have the constant reminder you have a backlog of messages of the real word there.
Gaming without a controller is kinda rough, I mentioned a telescopic controller before because I think that's the best way to take advantage of serious gaming on the go, but having to take that controller out also defeats the purpose of the convenience you get when you have your all in one device, if you are using something like a backpack while you are out, you might as well take one of those beautiful Chinese handhelds with you, and don't choke your battery life in the process.
Now, probably there are other downsides of having your main smartphone for gaming/emulation, but those are the ones that come at the top of my mind... But now if we talk about reusing devices... I have always considered attaching a telescopic controller to a spare smartphone a good way to do so... Sadly none of my capable smartphones have survived my daily usage yet to have this "second life" 😅
You can do it on iPhones as well. Now here's the kicker... it's better on my 2019 Galaxy S10 than it is on my 2024 iPhone 16 Pro Max. Daily driver and backup phone, but, I mean, I'm posting in an Android community so you should at least get that I enjoy Android as well. But also, I genuinely love using the smaller, lighter phone — and it has a better software keyboard (Gboard vs iOS stock keyboard; AFAIK it isn't named).
I have a Razer Kishi controller. Despite being USB-C, it doesn't work with my iPhone (never mind it barely fits — it does fit). Works with the Galaxy S10 though. Despite the iPhone 16 series using what is supposed to be a standard USB 3 controller, it apparently only works with approved devices? Not sure who to blame here. It works with flash drives and my MacBook's (third party) Thunderbolt (aka USB 3/C with 10x more bandwidth, but backwards compatible to USB 3) to HDMI cable.
So anyway, RetroArch on both of them, and Delta on the iPhone, and I can play any retro game I want. RetroArch has more (IIRC as in, all of the) cores, but I don't know what I'm missing on the iOS version. Probably something. There are way less though. (Because Apple. I know.) And, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, despite being more powerful than the 2024 Galaxy, let alone the 2019 one, doesn't actually run any games I play any better. The Galaxy S10 is sufficient to play the games I like. Keep in mind, I'm an old guy. My games are NES, Super NES, GBA, some NDS, PS1, etc. I don't care about N64, PS2, NGC, or any of the newer ones. Not really anyway. So the games I like, the 2019 S10 is good enough.
(While the S10 also has the advantage of a microSD slot, I don't have anything in it. microSD is too slow. Shame Android never got a better memory card format. Its 128GB onboard storage is enough. The iPhone has 512GB, which is awesome, but I mostly have movies and other video up there.)