Beijing, China, March 23, 2021 — Black Shark introduces a new gaming-focused smartphone with mechanical pop-up shoulder buttons. The new product will be available as Black Shark 4 and Black Shark 4 Pro, with slightly better specs on the pro version.
The smartphone market is a little curious at the moment. If you’re not an Apple buyer, what good alternatives are there? Many large companies did not introduce any major advantages for their latest models, so why even bother getting a new phone? And if you need a new phone, what should you get?
Many interesting companies from China are building Android-based phones that are worth to be checked out in detail. One of those that you should have a look at is Black Shark, who have even staged their own Android version called JOYUI, based on the MIUI operating system from Xiaomi. Since many aspects of the phone are specialized to drive gaming performance, such customizations on the operating system level appear to be a requirement.
What are the key features of the Black Shark 4 Series?
The primary features that Black Shark advertises are the mechanical pop-up shoulder buttons, the 120W “ultra-fast charging” technology, and the 4,500mAh battery, which can be charged from zero to 100% in 16 minutes on the Black Shark 4 and 15 minutes on the pro version of the model.
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Next to that, naturally, a gaming phone needs to deliver computing and graphic performance. The phone is shipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 CPU, respectively, installed in the pro version. Both versions come with LPDDR5 RAM and UFS3.1 flash storage, which as Black Shark states, makes it the first smartphone to use enterprise-level storage solutions with an array system and RAMDISK accelerator.
What can the Black Shark 4 display deliver?
Both versions of the gaming smartphone have a 6.67″ AMOLED display from Samsung and can display video signal with a 144Hz refresh rate if the software can even deliver that sort of frame rate. The touch sampling rate of 720Hz helps with input speed and reaction times. The Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max has a touch sampling rate of just 120Hz, just to give you an idea for comparison. Black Shark claims to have reached the lowest delay in the industry with 8.3ms for touch and 24ms shooting delay. With the Master Touch 5.0 solution, users are also able to leverage custom functions on their phones based on varying pressure applied on the touchscreen.
What else do you get in the Black Shark 4?
We asked for a review unit, but since the product is still pretty new, we have not yet received one to prepare a more detailed review or present you with verified benchmark data. However, based on the information we received, we have some other interesting aspects to share in quick bullets.
- Sandwich liquid cooling for the 5G network chip, SoC, and 120W charging chipset
- Camera with 64MP main lens, an 8MP wide-angle lens, and a 5MP macro lens
- Optional accessories: Black Shark FunCooler 2 Pro, Black Shark 3.5mm Earphones
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Black Shark 4 pricing and options
The product will be available outside of China Mainland in the “near future.” As of now, the pricing for the options of the Black Shark 4 (RAM+Storage) is as follows.
- Normal version – 6GB+128GB: 2499 RMB (383,49 USD)
- Normal version – 8GB+128GB: 2699 RMB (414.19 USD)
- Normal version – 12GB+128GB: 2999 RMB (460.22 USD)
- Normal version – 12GB+256G: 3299 RMB (506.26 USD)
- Pro version – 8GB+256GB: 3999 RMB (613.68 USD)
- Pro version – 12GB+256GB: 4499 RMB (690.41 USD)
- Pro version – 16GB+512GB: 5299 RMB (813.18 USD)
Since the Chinese price is usually lower than the pricing you’d be facing outside of China, you’ll have to expect higher pricing if you plan to save up money for this gaming monster.
YouTube: Black Shark 4 and 4 Pro Review [English]
Photo credit: All images have been provided by Black Shark for press usage.
Source: We have received a press release via email.
