- 2 days ago
Can the iPhone 17 Pro replace a gaming handheld? Paul Antill puts Apple’s latest flagship smartphone through a full iPhone 17 Pro gaming review, comparing it directly to the MSI Claw 8 AI+ handheld gaming PC. With the powerful A19 Pro chip, a new vapor cooling chamber for sustained performance and a larger battery, we test whether this is the best gaming phone of 2025.
From AAA console ports like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil Village, and Death Stranding to the expanding Apple Arcade lineup, Paul benchmarks FPS, graphics, thermals, and battery life to see how the iPhone 17 Pro really performs for serious gaming. He also dives into Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now to find out if cloud streaming makes the iPhone a true replacement for portable gaming consoles.
If you’re wondering whether the iPhone 17 Pro is good for gaming, how it stacks up to dedicated handhelds like the MSI Claw 8 AI+, which iPhone accessories you need for the best gaming experience or if, simply, Apple finally made a true gaming phone, you've come to the right video.
From AAA console ports like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil Village, and Death Stranding to the expanding Apple Arcade lineup, Paul benchmarks FPS, graphics, thermals, and battery life to see how the iPhone 17 Pro really performs for serious gaming. He also dives into Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now to find out if cloud streaming makes the iPhone a true replacement for portable gaming consoles.
If you’re wondering whether the iPhone 17 Pro is good for gaming, how it stacks up to dedicated handhelds like the MSI Claw 8 AI+, which iPhone accessories you need for the best gaming experience or if, simply, Apple finally made a true gaming phone, you've come to the right video.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Hey, if you've been watching this channel for a while then you know I have been obsessed
00:04with portable gaming for the past couple years. It started with the original ASUS ROG Ally and
00:08lately it's almost been exclusively with the MSI CLAW 8 AI+. But as far as these handhelds have
00:15come, there's still one big limitation. They're not exactly pocketable. So with my new iPhone 17 Pro
00:22which has some big performance upgrades, I decided to try something pretty ridiculous. I replaced my
00:27handheld gaming console with Apple's latest smartphone. Yes, an iPhone as my main gaming
00:33machine. I know this sounds crazy but stick around because by the end of this video you're
00:37going to want to try this out too. All right, so the thing that actually got me interested in this
00:41video from the start is that I wanted to get more gaming in on the go without necessarily having to
00:45carry one of these around all the time. But here's why I thought the iPhone 17 Pro was up to the job.
00:51The A19 Pro chip that we find under the hood in this generation's phone is much better for GPU
00:58performance and I'm not just saying that because it's what Apple advertises. We actually benchmarked
01:02the iPhone 17 Pro and it did in fact hit 30 plus frames per second in many demanding AAA games and
01:08I'll share a few of my favorites in just a sec. That wasn't the case for the 16 Pro and all the
01:13iPhones before it. So that's thanks to the A19 Pro chip but then there's also the new vapor cooling
01:18chamber and that lets the entire phone run cooler. But that's not just for making it easier to hold
01:23without burning your hands during intensive tasks. It also means that the phone has better sustained
01:28performance which for more demanding games, which I'm going to be putting this phone through,
01:32it absolutely needs. On top of all that the iPhone 17 Pro lasts a lot longer and our test it runs for
01:38about an hour and a half more than the 16 Pro. So mix that all together and we get the most capable
01:43iPhone for gaming yet. But what kind of games can we actually play on the 17 Pro and Pro Max?
01:50So I'm going to be focusing on my three favorite categories of games that you can play on the
01:53iPhone including AAA games which have been ported over from PC and consoles that includes Death
01:57Stranding, Resident Evil and Assassin's Creed, Apple's own library of games including those on Apple Arcade
02:04and then something I've been getting into a lot recently, cloud streaming, which I'm starting to
02:08believe is going to be the future of all gaming. But let's put that into the scope of gaming
02:13handhelds. Of course my MSI Claw 8 AI Plus which runs Windows 11 gives me access to way more games
02:19especially since I'm not just limited to one app store. You've probably already heard me rave about
02:23how versatile the claw is and why I think it's and why I think it's the best handheld that you can buy
02:28today but the iPhone 17 Pro is no slouch either. Apple's library of first-party games is becoming more
02:35impressive each month and we're getting a steady amount of ported over AAA games which if you told me
02:40I'd be playing them on my iPhone five years ago I'd never believe you. Quickly one last thing I know
02:46if my iPhone 17 Pro is going to have any chance of going head-to-head with a real handheld like the MSI
02:51Claw touch controls are not going to cut it so I've got this. The Backbone One Pro it's my favorite
02:59phone controller hands down if you've ever researched gaming controllers for your phone you've probably seen
03:04this one before I mean just look at how compact this thing is. My iPhone 17 Pro slots in really quickly
03:10it connects via USB-C and now I have a gaming setup that's literally a game changer especially for
03:16shooters and racing titles. It also has a really nice app library for all your supported games that
03:22you can launch into really quickly. Now this pro model is $170 but on top of connecting to USB-C
03:27phones and giving you full-size controls it also has bluetooth and lets me connect to my iPad PC or even
03:33my TV and I'm all about multi-purpose gadgets that aren't just locked down to one single device
03:38but if you want to save a little bit more you can go with a non-pro for $99 it's basically the same
03:43thing but without bluetooth so I'll link the best deals for both down below so you can check them out.
03:49All right so with my controller ready let's get into some games I want to start things off by talking
03:52about the ones that I think look best on iPhone right now. Two years ago Apple announced that they
03:57were going to be bringing big name AAA games like Resident Evil, Death Stranding, Assassin's Creed and a lot
04:02more to iPhone and honestly I think a lot of people myself included were pretty skeptical it didn't
04:07help that when those games originally launched it was with the iPhone 15 Pro and those games didn't
04:12really run that well but with the 17 Pro it's generally a different story now. Fans of horror
04:18are definitely spoiled here because there are a ton of ported over titles that you can now run on your
04:22iPhone 17 Pro. Understandably some trade-offs are made to get these games running as well on something
04:28this small but I think Apple hit a major milestone in getting these visually demanding games to hit a
04:34smooth 30 or even 60 frames per second whereas my 16 and 15 Pro before that would definitely dip into
04:40the low 50s 40s and in some cases 20s which for me made them really unplayable and overall it doesn't
04:48really feel like you're losing out on too much compared to the original ps4 version if you ever played that
04:53that is until you start to look at some of the finer details that do look softer overall especially in the
04:58background and the draw distance just isn't as great but with other games like Assassin's Creed
05:02Mirage I think that's also another really great title the game now runs much smoother on my 17 Pro
05:08especially in faster action or denser areas of Baghdad and it feels a bit weird to say this but I think
05:14this is one of my favorite games to play now on the go that's to say the MSI Claw still has a pretty
05:20big edge with its Intel Arc GPU besides the overall sharper visuals and higher frame rates that I can achieve
05:26here I have more graphic settings which lets me decide what I want to prioritize whether that's
05:31frame rates or higher resolution giving me even more control over how I play my games but besides
05:37how these AAA games actually run there's another big setback with iPhone gaming coming from the MSI
05:43Claw first the claw has a much larger 8 inch 16 by 10 display that's way more immersive I can't tell
05:51you the amount of times I'm just like looking at the details or trying to read text on the smaller
05:55screen it's just not as enjoyable and I find myself holding the phone a lot closer to appreciate the
06:01details in those games but with the MSI Claw it has another really big advantage I can quickly go from
06:07playing in portable mode to docking it with my 49 inch ultra wide for getting even more immersion and of
06:14course connecting to all my peripherals for a true desktop gaming experience you've probably heard me say
06:20this a ton in our other gaming videos but I'm that weird guy who actually likes to use the claw as a
06:26desktop replacement especially when I'm at home I think the claw strikes a really good balance between
06:31portability and power especially for the games that I love to play most that I don't really need anything
06:36more powerful than this for those of you who also love gaming handhelds let me see a show of hands
06:41if this is your only gaming PC but then things get a little bit more awkward because there's the issue of
06:48storage this is probably the biggest downside that I didn't even consider at first when going into
06:52this these games can be absolutely massive and almost as large as their PC and console versions
06:58the iPhone 17 Pro starts with 256 gigabytes of storage and if you're cheap like me and opted for
07:04the base model it's not hard to see how quickly just a few of these AAA games will eat through all of
07:09that so if you want to install a couple of these bigger games and still want space for other phone
07:14things like your photos music you're probably going to want to seriously consider investing in a larger
07:19storage model right off the bat because there's no upgrading internal storage or using external
07:25storage in any way in a big contrast with gaming handhelds they usually start with 512 or a terabyte
07:31of storage and that's like the standard now if you wanted to upgrade that down the road it's super
07:36easy you can either just pop in a micro SD card slot and install the games there or if you're a bit more
07:41tech savvy you can actually upgrade the internal storage while removing a few screws yeah do you
07:46ever think you'll see a micro SD card or external storage support for games on your iPhone probably
07:52not but you know what my favorite way to play AAA games on my phone right now doesn't actually take
08:00up any storage and that's thanks to xbox cloud gaming this is part of xbox game pass ultimate which
08:06chances are if you already own a xbox or gaming pc you might be subscribed to the subscription tier
08:12lets you play a wide library of games from the cloud to a bunch of supported devices including
08:18an iphone now no you don't need an iphone 17 pro for this but i just want to talk about all the great
08:23ways to play amazing games on your new iphone and you know it's kind of funny because microsoft has
08:29kind of made a joke of itself calling everything in xbox these days but i'm starting to get what they
08:34mean since everything is streaming performance is going to be the exact same whether it's my iphone
08:40handheld or even traditional pc no matter the game uh but here's the thing performance is heavily
08:46reliant on your internet connection since you're not actually playing these games locally anymore
08:50and if i'm being fair games don't look as sharp or visually fluid compared to if they were locally
08:55installed on like my msi claw or xbox and on top of that input latency can be an issue especially
09:01with racing games or shooters but makes sense you're sending your controls to the cloud and then
09:06receiving it back it's not always a fun experience well let's say you do have a good internet connection
09:12and you're actually cool with streaming your games to your phone in which case let me tell you about
09:16one other cool thing called geforce now it's kind of similar to xbox cow gaming but it works a little
09:22bit differently in that it streams the games that you already own on steam epic or even game pass and at
09:28its higher tiers you're getting rtx 50 80 performance on your phone which yes is insane in my experience
09:36games look much sharper and run way smoother compared to xbox cloud gaming and when i pair it with the
09:42backbone it's easy to forget i'm streaming you can actually use it for completely free on its ad tier
09:49which gives you access to over 2 000 plus supported games but gaming sessions are capped to one hour up to
09:541080p resolution and 60 frames per second but still free and like i said if you have a reliable internet
10:00connection and an existing catalog of pc games or you're already subscribed to xbox game pass but you
10:06want to take the experience to the next level this is the best way to play demanding games on your phone
10:11right now okay but going back to games we can actually install locally and play even when we're offline
10:21apple arcade is apple's own gaming subscription that supports over 200 plus games and is constantly
10:27adding more like every few weeks if you just bought a new apple device like the 17 pro here you can
10:33actually get three months for free just by signing up in apple arcade you're basically getting ad-free
10:39versions of many popular games like angry birds temple run and bellatro but you'll also find some more
10:45visually impressive games like nba 2k 25 maybe nba 2k 26 by the time you're watching this skate city
10:52and outlanders 2 i mean those are some of my favorites these games aren't as flashy compared to
10:57you know death stranding assassin's creed as well as like all the streaming stuff but i mean that doesn't
11:02take away from how fun these games are and if we're being honest that's why we play these right so
11:08while it would have been nice for apple arcade to include some of those triple a games and hey maybe down
11:12the road they will for seven bucks a month or 50 for the year there are a lot of hidden gems in the
11:17subscription that i think you'll want to check out so i gotta say the iphone 17 pro really surprised me
11:24and i'm being honest re-sparked my interest for playing games on the go with big performance
11:30upgrades this year more triple a games and likely more along the way the 17 pro does feel like a big
11:36moment for iphone gaming so long as you don't mind its smaller screen when paired with a solid
11:42controller like the backbone one pro i think this is one of the best truly portable gaming experiences
11:49you can get albeit with some caveats like probably having good wi-fi if you want a bigger catalog of
11:54games but if you do have any other setups that you think i should try next time i'd love to hear them
11:59in the comments so be sure to share those for me though handheld pcs like the msi cloth still earn their
12:04keep with their better raw gaming performance storage and yes desktop versatility and that's
12:09going to be the case for at least the next couple years but for a console experience that i can
12:14basically take anywhere and yes put in my pocket i think the iphone 17 pro is the most capable that
12:21i've tried in a very long time so if you've enjoyed this video stay subscribed follow me to see what
12:28other cool tech and gaming content i'm testing out and until the next one i'll catch you later
Be the first to comment