Back in 2018, I purchased a Samsung Galaxy J series smartphone as two things struck me the most about this decice. One was the attractive price range and secondly, the long battery life which claimed to give up to 40 hours of power. A good-looking phone, impressive battery life, and a decent user interface, life was finally good until I decided to download the most popular mobile game in India, PUBG Mobile. For users who have a budget phone or have had one in the past, you guys exactly know what I’m talking about.
Majority of smartphone users know what PUBG Mobile is. The storage heavy game naturally takes time to load but on a 2-year-old mid-range smartphone, it takes a bit more than expected. The time between launching the game to finally seeing my avatar dancing on the screen was quite a struggle in my case. The in-game response time was also something that used to test my patience at times. Eventually.game lags became a part of my PUBG Mobile routine.
Most mid-range phones usually have a resolution display of less than 300ppi. While this is an assumption, it basically means that the graphics offered by these phones are a slight let down as compared to other premium phones. For a smartphone gamer, especially PUBG Mobile gamers, graphics are of huge significance, and when they are not up to the mark, it really hampers the gameplay. But since I had a mid-range phone, there was nothing much that I could do.
But that’s not all. In case you’re wondering why I still haven’t talked about the small screen and the cramped up buttons, I have a funny story to share. I remember that cold winter night when I was snuggled down in my bed, all ready to have my ‘Chicken Dinner’. The squad was playing so well, I had around 8 kills if I recall correctly and then came the final showdown. 8 players left, two full squads, we all have been there. We kill 2, they do the same and as dramatic as it may sound, it eventually came down to a 1 on 1 combat, I now had to take my team over the line. The opponent was right in front of my eyes, my DP 28 was fully loaded with the red dot was geared on it. My Chicken Dinner was on its way, I stepped out to take aim and shoot but just then, things fell apart… I positioned my finger to shoot but instead it landed on the joystick. I was left there looking like a dance enthusiast performing a freestyle routine.
Yes, we still laugh about it today but you all are aware of the pain of losing the match at the death. So basically what I meant was that a small screen with all controls overlapped doesn’t really help anyone’s gameplay. Maybe look out for a phone with a bigger, wider display and also try to customize your control panel.
But despite all that, I really need to applaud the battery life of mid-range and budget phones. They usually deliver a lot of screen on time (SoT) considering they don’t have a Super AMOLED QHD+ screen to power but a less pwoer-consuming HD LCD screen. In my case, starting at even 25%, my phone would allow me to play close to 5 team death matches and still leave me with over an hour to stream my favourite shows on Netflix. Well, it is rightly said, there always are some positives, you just need to look out for them.
So, if you have a mid-range or a budget smartphone that is a couple of years old, should you continue playing PUBG Mobile or move to a better avenue? Well, you can still play the title and if ‘playing for the sake of it’ is your only agenda, stick with your phone. Otherwise, you can always download PUBG Mobile Lite with some sacrifices in features or buy a better handset for more precise and high-res gameplay.
Well, if I talk about myself, my experience of playing PUBG Mobile on the Samsung J series phone has been a satisfactory one. Yes, there are some major drawbacks like what I mentioned above but given the specifications, the price range and the interface of the phone, I can’t have too many complaints since I’m not a pro and love to go with the flow once the match begins.
