It’s 2020 and the choice for top-of-the-range smartphone enthusiasts has never been broader or more exciting. While brands like Samsung and Apple still rule the roost when it comes to premium options, there are several brands bringing up the rear such as Oppo and OnePlus that offer excellent alternatives at very reasonable prices. If you want a top-of-the-range smartphone, you’re absolutely spoiled for choice in 2020, and the same goes for every price range from upper to budget. Put simply, smartphone enthusiasts have a huge amount to choose from right now.

If your arena is online casino gaming, though, you might be wondering if you even need the kind of power that a top-of-the-range smartphone puts out. There are, of course, plenty of reasons to buy a flagship phone; futureproofing, the chance to get your hands on cutting-edge tech, better peripheral compatibility, et cetera. However, there could be just as many reasons to buy a mid-range device. It all comes down to your personal needs; how much casino gaming are you going to do on your phone and what do you need for that level of gaming?

Here’s the rundown on mobile casino gaming. For the last few years, mobile casino gaming has been exploding, no doubt helped by the fact that smartphone adoption is at an all-time high. For that reason, there’s a very good chance that if you’re doing some online casino gaming in 2020 or beyond, you’re doing it on your smartphone. The mobile casino gaming industry is so huge that many sites are now specifically working on responsive design platforms to accommodate mobile players more than they’re working on their desktop sites. Suffice it to say that mobile gaming is poised to become huge.

So if you’re looking for ways to capitalise on an excellent deal you’ve found, such as this LeoVegas bonus offer, then you’re likely going to be doing so on a smartphone. With that in mind, what are the circumstances where you would need a top-of-the-range device? Why would you opt for something that’s much more expensive than a mid-range phone? Well, the answer is complex and will, of course, depend entirely on your own personal circumstances. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here, but you can decide whether or not you need a top-range phone using some of these guidelines.

First, ask yourself just how much you use your phone for every day. Is your device a daily driver for your main job? Is online casino gaming actually your main profession? If the answer to these questions is yes, then a more expensive high-spec smartphone probably is the right choice for you. Many online casino sites may be designed with mobile in mind, but they’re also often running games and other applets that might be quite demanding on your processor. For this reason, a flagship device might be desirable for you.

However, with many sites now targeting the mid-range phone as well as the high-spec device, you might well be able to get away with a phone that’s slightly less expensive. After all, mobile casino platforms usually offer games that aren’t too graphically demanding, tending to favour 2D representations of games so as to bring in more customers. With that being the case, you could well enjoy games of poker, slots, and roulette using a mid-range device that isn’t too hard on the wallet but still offers plenty of clout for your money.

Another reason you might want to use a flagship device for your online casino gaming is security. Many lower-budget devices don’t come with the robust security that higher-end phones do, and while budget devices now often include fingerprint scanners, they can be unreliable when compared to flagship devices. Lots of higher-end phones now also come with face-scanning technology, meaning criminals will find it much harder to steal your phone and take your data from it. If you’re security-conscious and want to look after your bankroll, then a higher-spec phone might be for you.

The one recommendation we would make if you’re considering a lower-spec smartphone is not to opt for the ultra-budget models if you can afford it. There’s a debate going on about whether budget smartphones represent excellent value for money or a false economy, and while the range of budget smartphones and the functionality they offer has undoubtedly improved in recent years, it might still be more worth your money getting a better phone so you don’t need to replace it in the months or years to come. Of course, you may not have that option, in which case try to plump for the best budget phone you can find.

As far as mobile devices go, we’d recommend that you do your casino gaming on a tablet. Online casino games simply look much nicer on the bigger and more vibrant screens that tablets offer, and you’ll have a bigger space on which to input touch commands, too. There’s nothing quite like watching slots spin in a mesmerising way on a large tablet screen. They also have the advantage of being much more portable than laptops or desktop PCs, so you can still carry them around with you but take advantage of the larger amount of screen real-estate.

In the end, whether or not you buy a top-of-the-range smartphone will likely depend on your own personal usage habits. We wouldn’t necessarily recommend buying a more expensive phone if you’re going to use it primarily for online casino gaming, as many mid-range handsets can handle this task just fine and many online casino sites are designed for lower-end handsets to be able to run them anyway. If you do find yourself using your device for more than online casino gaming, it might be worth investing in a high-end phone, but with so many excellent mid-range alternatives available it can feel hard to justify the extra expense. Just be sure that you consider investing in a tablet, because the transformative experience of online casino gaming on tablets must be seen to be believed.