It’s incredible to think how advanced the games on our smartphones have become. With nothing more than your phone, you can now play some of the same games people play on full-fledged gaming PCs and consoles. With that, the idea of “gaming phones” have risen up, and this week Xiaomi is getting in on that market. For the sake of the gamer, the Xiaomi Black Shark has an extremely striking design and impressive finish from monolithic metal. The front of the machine is not very prominent, but the special comes from the back with the design as a super sports car supporting Shark’s GamePad controller with the stylized “S” icon in the center.

1. Design

The “Black Shark” will also offer Android Oreo but with Xiaomi’s “Joy UI” skin over top. One cool aspect Xiaomi shows off on its site about this is the ability to swipe the fingerprint scanner to pull up a shortcut menu when games are active. The rear panel clearly shows we are dealing with a gaming smartphone. It uses a sports design with a bossy body. Thanks to the black metal and green light bar it looks amazing. However, when looking closely we can see the back panel of the device has glass section on the upper and lower sides. The upper side carries a dual-camera and flashlight, while the lower part carries the phone’s name of ‘Black Shark’. In addition to the usual volume and power buttons, we find a selector on the left side to enter the game mode. Coherent! There is the front notification LED (in addition to the backlit S) and the speakers are stereo with the capsule becoming loudspeaker. Frontally the fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone (but it is not physical).

2. Display

When looking at the Xiaomi Black Shark, we see a familiar look with a 5.99-inch Full HD+ resolution screen with an 18:9 aspect ratio. Below it, we can find a non-pressed home key. But when we turn the phone backside, we see what a great job the designers have done.

3. Hardware

it comes with the most powerful processor made for mobile devices, the Snapdragon 845. Plus, the SoC is coupled with a 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It can be used together with its own Hexagon 685 DSP chip to match the CPU. Moreover, the GPUs perform AI calculations together to ensure maximum resource allocation during the game.

4. Camera

At the front, the differences are even more pronounced. The Xiaomi Black Shark self-camera has impressive 20 megapixels, with f / 2.2 aperture lens, and records in Full HD. The secondary camera of the Black Shark has only 8 megapixels, resolution seen in intermediaries, and has f / 2.0 lens.

5. Battery & Features

The Xiaomi Black Shark also has a liquid cooling system, commonly seen in computer gamers, which aims to reduce the temperature by up to 8 degrees during heavier gaming. Both competitors bring a 4,000 mAh battery. Black Shark already leaves the factory with Android 8.O (version 8.1 ), and, just like any Xiaomi phone, brings the MIUI interface. There’s no microSD card slot or headphone jack, which is a bit odd, but the phone does offer a special analog stick attachment which can be used for certain games. The gamepad dedicated to Black Shark fits on the top of the smartphone but requires to fit correctly that the official bumper is inserted. Being a custom-made accessory the gamepad is equipped on the back with a special hole to allow the use of rear cameras even with the gamepad inserted. Xiaomi Black Shark has performances that have nothing to envy to any other top of the range in general use, with great fluidity in all areas of use. With particular attention to gaming, high-end hardware and liquid cooling can keep the CPU and GPU at high load levels for hours of gaming sessions without ever decreasing performance or overheating problems.

Where To Shop

it is a gaming smartphone that is not afraid of being such. It achieves the objectives of extreme performance, excellent autonomy, and superior gaming experience, but to do it sacrifices ergonomics and the camera. And besides this, it is obviously currently thought for the Chinese market alone and will probably not be “internationalized” shortly. Xiaomi Black Shark is now available on IBuyGou in just at $609.99 using Coupon Code: GEEK09, In Shenzhen Stock).