March is sweeping gaming phone month, after revealing Asus ROG Phone 5 and Nubia Red Magic 6, Xiaomi Black Shark 4 It officially arrived today after Xiaomi held a dedicated launch event in China.
The Black Shark 4, which was unveiled alongside a high-end Pro model, is one of the most interesting smartphones we've seen in a while, as it comes without much of the gaming phone features we're used to seeing. Is this good or bad? We'll have to test the phone to find out.
We will take you on a tour of the specifications of the Black Shark 4 and 4 Pro Below, so you can see what these new phones bring us, and what Xiaomi has chosen to do a little differently.
Xiaomi Black Shark 4 specifications
Both the Black Shark 4 and 4 Pro have 6.67-inch screens, with FHD+ resolution, 144Hz refresh rates, and 720Hz touch sensitivity. This last piece of information is about how you use your phone, as it indicates how often your touch is recorded on the screen, and is useful for quick interactions in games.
We have a central hole in the middle of the screen in order to house the front camera and this is something we don't usually see in gaming phones, where the front camera is located in the top frame, although most modern flagship phones are heading towards the notch. As a result, the screen has quite a bit of space lost, even though the bezels are much thinner.
While the Black Shark 4 Pro has the currently better Snapdragon 888 processor, the standard model instead uses the Snapdragon 870, which is slightly less than the 888 in some respects. Since gaming phones always use the best processor available to them, it's strange that this isn't the case for the Black Shark 4, but it could be an intentional thing for the company to keep the price down.
One of the most important specifications that both phones share is 120W fast charging, paired with 4,500mAh batteries, which Black Shark says will fully charge the phone in less than 15 minutes. Both phones also have 3.5mm headphone jacks.
Both phones have three rear cameras – one Pro has a 64MP main camera, while the other phone has a 48MP main camera. They are joined by an 8MP ultra-wide lens and 5MP macro sensor, although we don't know what the significance of these additions is yet.
So with less processor usage, what makes Black Shark 4 great for gaming? Well, one of the important things is the physical buttons, which are inside the body of the phone, which can pop up when you want to play, making them pop up and turn into pressed buttons.
Other than the chipset, it seems that the big difference between the Black Shark 4 and 4 Pro is the design, the Pro version appears to have an X letter aesthetically engraved on the back of the phone, with LED lights that light up, while the standard version does not come with those lights, and it has Normal back.
Finally, Shark Space mode, the gaming-focused mode that mutes notifications and dedicates all of the phone's power to gaming, seems to have gotten some improvements. In particular, it appears that there are more settings and modes other than games, such as the interface that now offers a lot of options.
Prices
Black Shark 4 starts at $380 for the 128GB version, but only 6GB of RAM; The price of the 8 GB version reaches 410 dollars and 460 dollars for the 12 GB RAM version. You can buy a 12GB RAM and 256GB internal storage version for $510.
The smallest version of the Black Shark 4 Pro is 8 + 256 GB, which costs $ 610, and the RAM can go up to 12 GB but you will have to pay $ 690. There is also a 16 + 512 GB version for $ 810.
Prices in China tend to be lower than in any other country, so take these prices a little seriously, as phones are likely to come at much more expensive prices in other markets.
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