/ Built for gaming. Priced for everyone.
Mateo Lowe leads the Best Picks desk of TheTweaks. All the buying guides, ranked lists and gift suggestions on this website pass through his hands. He is in an editorial position that requires editorial judgment and Mateo has this. He worked seven years in retail consultancy and product research before joining the team, advising brands on the real-life purchasing decision-making process of consumers. He was a natural fit because that background made him a good fit to work at a job as he is helping readers to spend their money wisely.
Most of the lists with best gaming phones under $300 tagline have similar descriptions online, focusing on processors, benchmarks and specs sheet. But real gaming results are determined by what happens after an hour of hardcore gaming. All those nice specs in the brochure are worthless if the phone overheats, experiences frame drops, or lags during the game. I took five popular budget phones for a spin and used them for a few days and played some tough games to see how they performed, how hot they got and how stable they were.
Quick Verdict: The Redmi Note 15 Pro is the top gaming device in this price segment, with the best performance, speed and cooling efficiency. The Galaxy A36 is a more versatile device, suitable for gamers and regular users alike, making it the more practical option for many. The Galaxy A26 offers solid value for casual gamers, whereas the Pixel variants are still good smartphones, but they’re more likely to be used for photography, software and everyday use than gaming.
| Phone | Chipset | Best For | Gaming Score (My Rating) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Redmi Note 15 Pro | Dimensity 7400 Ultra | Raw performance & sustained gaming | 9/10 |
| Galaxy A36 | Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 | All-round balance, cooling | 8/10 |
| Galaxy A26 | Exynos 1380 | Casual gaming, budget pick | 6.5/10 |
| Pixel 8a | Tensor G3 | Camera-first users who game lightly | 6/10 |
| Pixel 6a | Tensor G1 | Only if gaming isn’t the priority | 5/10 |
I didn’t just run benchmark apps and call it a day. Here is the actual processing that I did on all devices:
I’m not a lab technician nor do I have a climate controlled testing chamber. What I have is five weeks of sweaty palms, thumb cramps, and a spreadsheet of frame drops. Here’s what I found.
Price: $252.50 at Amazon
I went in skeptical as Redmi phones have taken me for a ride with heavy thermal throttling. I was instantly sold on the Note 15 Pro. It’s powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 7400 Ultra (the 5G version I tested was 8GB RAM/256GB storage and was in the same ballpark for silicon might as the global 5G version).
You could feel it the moment it started playing. BGMI played at a fixed 60 frames per second on the Ultra HDR setting with no stuttering that I would’ve expected from such a cheap handset. Genshin Impact at 60fps mode remained in the high 50s throughout exploration and even dropped to the high 40s when it had to compete with numerous elemental effects on screen during the most hectic combat scenes, much better than phones I’ve tried in the near double price range. GameBench recorded frame time stability in the low single digit range, or at least in the range of what the human eye considers smooth, if any at all, as this describes the stability of the game, rather than just saying it was technically 60 fps on paper.
It’s the 45 minute stress test that really sets it apart. During a complete Genshin session, the rear panel warmed up to approximately 41°C which is a warm but not overbearing temperature. Most importantly, at 20 loops, which is one of its best stability scores I’ve seen for a budget phone, it held up to around 78% of its peak performance in our 3DMark stress test. Xiaomi doesn’t market its cooling loudly, but it clearly works.
The 6580mAh battery doesn’t get enough credit. I lost about 12-14% of my battery after a full 45 minutes of gaming which is a big amount if you are playing on your commute or on a long flight delay. It was an incredible amount of power for my daily use, and it was easy to use for more than a day and half a day.
It’s not flawless. There’s still a lot of preinstalled crap on the HyperOS, and I had to disable a few of the ad-serving system apps in the first 10 minutes of install. The camera is decent, but not a Pixel-killer: photos of light scenes come out punchy and crisp, images of darker scenes have glaring noise reduction smears.
My personal opinion: If you’re primarily a photographer, read on. I’d repurchase this gaming phone if gaming performance was my priority for under $300.
Price: $279.99 at Amazon
The Galaxy A36 really caught me off guard this time, not only because Samsung broke from its usual playbook and packed the phone with a Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 but because it’s the only phone among the Galaxy A-series that used these new chips and it shows the moment you start playing.
COD mobile played very well in very high graphics settings with the 60 fps frame rate turned on, and in some Search and Destroy matches, there were some sporadic slowdowns. I don’t think it’s as consistent as it could be, but it capped out around the HD and extreme level for me, instead of reaching the full Ultra HDR level that the Redmi supports.
Samsung‘s vapor chamber 15% larger, the same size used in the Galaxy S24+ actually earns the marketing hype for once. In fact, after the 45 minutes of stress run using the Genshin game, I noticed that the temperature of the back panel was about 38°C, which is much cooler than the Redmi phone. Even though the Redmi is better than Samsung in terms of frame rates, the 3DMark stress test had about 72% of performance.
The A36 is better all round for daily usability. The 6.7 inch Super AMOLED display screen is bright enough to read outside on a sunny day. One UI is cleaner and less cluttered than HyperOS out of the box and the six year OS and security update guarantee is something neither Xiaomi nor the price point usually provides. Battery life during gaming was solid too, about 15% drained per 45-minute session, slightly more than the Redmi used.
My personal opinion: The A36 isn’t the fastest of these gaming phones but is the one I’d still feel good about using in 18 months. For most people asking “what should I actually buy,” this is my real answer.
Price: $262.99 at Amazon
The Samsung A26 has really been the one in this series to make me redefine what a “gaming phone” is at this price. It utilizes the same Exynos 1380 processor that was used in the previous A35, and you can really hear the difference when running a high-O demand game.
This phone needs some manual tweaking in the settings. The BGMI default setting was “HD + High” instead of the higher settings on HDR and I had to manually lock it there otherwise it would show a noticeable stutter after about 3 minutes of a match. Genshin Impact was the most difficult one. In 60fps mode, I saw frequent drops into the mid-30s during heavy combat with multiple characters casting abilities at once. Switching to 30fps mode made it way more playable, and if you own this phone, that’s the mode to stick with.
The A26 is strong in lighter, less graphics processor heavy games. Clash Royale, Subway Surfers and other turn-based RPGs went through without a hitch and casual mobile gaming, the most common form of gaming on the bus or in the lunch break was okay. The 3DMark stress test ran lower than the others, holding up around 65% performance retention after 20 loops, but not bad enough to ruin casual use.
Thermally it stayed cooler than expected around 36°C mostly because the chip isn’t working as hard to hit its lower frame ceiling. The battery life was really impressive in everyday use and the microSD card slot (which is also absent on the A36 and Redmi) is a great practical feature for you, if you shoot lots of video or have large offline game files.
My personal opinion: If you’re playing BGMI, Genshin or COD Mobile at high settings, then you should avoid the A26. It’s a solid value buy as long as you have the right expectations: if you’re looking for a reliable, well built Samsung phone for calls, social media and casual gaming, it’s a solid choice.
Price: $252.88 at Amazon
The Pixel 8a’s Tensor G3 processor was never meant to take gaming benchmarks. Google has always wanted to build Tensor chips around AI and camera processing, and it’s evident as soon as you head into a demanding game. However, the prices have fallen considerably since the launch. I have seen it for as low as $250 to $330 depending on the retailer and condition. So it is definitely in this $300 conversation right now.
The Genshin Impact was the ultimate stress test. On the 60fps mode, it dropped into the high 30s, occasionally climbing back to the low 50s, depending on the scene, and even after 30 minutes of play, I could see the phone heating faster than all the other devices here, with the temperature reaching around 43ºC. The performance decrease graph was clearly indicated on the Frame time chart by GameBench. The BGMI game worked fine at HD settings, but on pushing the HDR settings, the stutters were noticeable, causing me to lose a shootout.
As my 3DMark stress test demonstrated, performance retention was about 68% and more importantly, thermal throttling was triggered much earlier in the loop sequence compared to the phones in this list powered by Snapdragon and Dimensity.
The problem is, though, I still kept looking for this phone, but just not for a game. The camera system actually works really well for the price, performs much better in low light and portrait modes than all other phones on this list, and the AI features of Google’s Magic Editor, Call Screen, and Circle to Search are crafted nicely, compared to the others that aren’t. Software support is also class-leading and guarantees years of support beyond the Android contest.
My personal opinion: If gaming performance is your main concern, the Pixel 8a is not the best choice for under $300. It’s a very good phone if you don’t buy it hoping to get Genshin on max settings and if you only play occasionally.
Price: $134.44 at Amazon
The Pixel 6a is the oldest phone in this test as it came with the original Tensor G1 and is often found at $199 or below, which is exactly why I include it. It’s an enticing offer, for that price. Of course, in gaming it was the phone where I felt the generation gap the most.
Although BGMI ran, I had to lower my settings to smooth and high, only to keep the frame rate from falling below acceptable playing limits in the firefights. Genshin was the tougher test. Even in 30fps mode, I saw drops into the low to mid 20s whenever more than two or three characters used abilities together. It’s not a knock on the phone so much as math, the Tensor G1 is simply a few years behind everything else here.
The thermal behaved reasonably, just, as it’s not powerful enough to generate the heat the newer chips do. It only got around 39°C after my stress test. The 3DMark retention score was about 70% which is very good on paper, but is more indicative of lower peak performance than real sustained performance.
The Pixel 6a is earning its worth in all sections except gaming. With this phone, the photos are still pretty good, the software experience is pretty stock android, and if you’re using the phone for primarily messaging, social media, browsing, and a few casual games such as word or a puzzle game, you won’t notice the limitations, I’m talking about above.
My personal opinion: If you are not a gamer, then just purchase the Pixel 6a in 2026. If you’re looking for something to do with BGMI, COD Mobile or Genshin, every other phone on this list will do you a whole lot better.
After five weeks of sore thumbs and a phone stack on my desk my final verdict is this: if you’re looking for the best raw gaming performance under $300, go with the Redmi Note 15 Pro based on frame rates and prolonged gaming sessions. For the user looking for a phone that is suitable for gaming and for everything else, it’s the Galaxy A36 for me. As long as you keep your expectations low for what you play on the Galaxy A26, it’s a decent budget gaming phone. But both Pixels are still great phones in general, neither of which I would pick up and take to a friend’s house for the sole purpose of gaming. Buy based on how you will use your phone on a daily basis, rather than just the spec sheet.
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