Why we test on an old phone first

Every review here gets a run on a three-year-old mid-range phone before anything else. If it stutters there, that goes in the writeup, because most people aren't carrying the latest hardware.

Frame rate is the quiet killer. A racer can look stunning and still feel terrible when it dips mid-corner. Those dips rarely show up in trailers or on top-end devices.

Battery and heat matter too. A game that cooks your phone after fifteen minutes isn't one you'll keep playing, no matter how good it is.

So when we say something 'runs smooth,' we mean on a phone most readers actually own — not a review unit sent in a shiny box.