Why we test on mid-range phones too

Most reviews get written on whatever expensive phone the reviewer happens to own. We think that's a blind spot. A huge share of players are on modest hardware, and a game that only sings on a flagship has a problem.

So we keep an older mid-range phone in the drawer and run everything on it. It's where heat problems and frame drops show up first, and it tells us whether the developer optimised or just hoped for the best.

Sometimes a game we loved on a fast phone falls apart on the cheap one. When that happens we say so, and we note which settings pull it back into playable shape.

It's more work, but it makes our battery and performance notes mean something. That's the part of the review I'd want to read as a buyer.