2nm is coming? Are mobile gamers ready to pay the flagship IQ tax?

Worth it, but not worth it for everyone.

Over the next two years, top-tier flagships will become toys for a minority.

RAM prices are skyrocketing; this isn’t just an excuse from manufacturers. 2nm chip foundry fees are outrageous, and stacked together with RAM they blow up the BOM cost. For high-end flagships now, it’s not about whether they’re willing to pile on hardware, but that every spec bump is burning cash. Manufacturers definitely won’t swallow that themselves; they’ll just have you pay the bill together with them on launch night.

The next-gen Ultra models in the Android camp are being explicitly named in the industry as targeting the 10,000-yuan segment. This means the very top tier of Android will be priced head-on with the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Once prices are level, the significance of pure spec stacking shrinks, and brand premium plus system experience will be put on the table. For users who only play mobile games, the portion of your money that actually goes toward frame rate is just a small slice.

Looking at the broader market, IDC has directly cut its 2026 smartphone shipment forecast by nearly 13%. It’s not that phones are hard to sell; it’s that people don’t want to upgrade—if they can squeeze out another year, they will. The industry has completely shifted from a penetration phase to stock competition, and manufacturers are relying on raising ASPs to protect profits. The result: you think it’s too expensive and don’t upgrade, they keep raising high-end prices to make money, and a vicious cycle forms.

For mobile gamers, this wave of price hikes has three practical impacts. First, if you want to “buy once and be set” with a maxed-out model, your budget will have to move straight into the “five-digit era.” Second, the mid-range segment will be squeezed, but its price–performance ratio may actually get better as high-end hardware trickles down faster. Third, cloud gaming and handheld consoles will be brought back into the discussion, using cheaper hardware to deliver sufficiently good visuals.

The question of whether to buy is actually easy to split. If you’re still using a mid-range phone from three or four years ago and big online games often stutter and overheat, you can consider going for a sub-flagship. Don’t chase the first wave of 2nm; previous-gen flagships at clearance prices are usually much more reasonable, and their performance is enough to crush mainstream mobile games. If you’re already using a flagship from the last two years, as long as the battery isn’t cooked, you can easily wait out another generation.

In the future, flagship competition won’t just be about benchmarks, but about “who can justify being expensive more convincingly.” Manufacturers will keep swinging between technological leadership and pricing, and players will vote with their wallets. My advice is simple: don’t be a test subject—let the market test the waters for you first.