Xiaomi Black Shark is one of the most powerful smartphones in the world. Xiaomi Black Shark is the first gaming smartphone

Xiaomi says the Black Shark is the best gaming smartphone in the world. Let's check?

Gaming smartphones are strange devices. Manufacturers simply stuff powerful stuffing into the case, make an artsy design and call it a gadget for gamers. On the one hand, users get a gaming device, but on the other hand, such smartphones do not differ from flagship models. Against this background, Xiaomi stood out, which in April 2018 showed the world Black Shark.

Xiaomi Black Shark - design

The device looks like a standard “gaming smartphone”: aggressive and pretentious. On the front side, they placed a 6-inch screen, a touch-sensitive Home button, a speaker and a camera, and the distinctive features fit on the lid. The metal case with green edging pleasantly cools the hand, and during games it dissipates heat throughout the smartphone. Inside there is a plastic insert with a pattern and the Black Shark logo. Small protrusions are made at the top and bottom of the “back” for a better grip.

The dual camera with flash was hidden under a glass insert. The 21- and 12-megapixel sensors handle HDR and portrait mode, and video is recorded with stabilization up to 4K resolution. Photos and videos come out fine, but blur in portrait mode behaves strangely.

The design captures the imitation of Razer, who paint their products in black and green. If you hide the Black Shark logo, then the smartphone can be confused with the “unannounced Razer Phone 2”. Most likely, because of recognition, they chose such colors, but Xiaomi has them more pleasant, and green does not hurt the eyes.

On the right side of the smartphone, there is a volume rocker and a lock button, and on the left - switching the game mode. A USB-C charging slot was cut out from the bottom and ... that's it, there is no headphone jack. Near the bottom port, a speaker is also marked, which strongly accentuates the bass, but in general sounds good.

Xiaomi Black Shark - Specifications

Inside the Black Shark fit an 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and an Adreno 630 accelerator. RAM and permanent memory depend on the configuration. The older model has 8 gigabytes of RAM and 128 built-in. The younger version with 6 gigabytes of RAM 64 constants came to our test, but even it coped with all the tasks.

Xiaomi did not install proprietary firmware, changing the system to Joy UI with Android 8.0 on board. Part of the resources eats away a bright and colorful screen with a resolution of 2160 x 1080, but the power of the smartphone is enough for smooth operation of the interface. For a week of use, bugs and freezes bypassed the device. There is enough RAM to run two applications at the same time on a split screen.

Keeps the smartphone alive with a 4000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging. With moderate use, Black Shark lives a day, and games, YouTube and Instagram kill a phone in half a day. In addition, Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, and LTE paired with GPS will eat the battery.

Xiaomi Black Shark - now let's play

Still, the power of Black Shark is needed for games, and not scrolling through the Instagram feed. Despite the junior configuration, the smartphone did an excellent job with all the games. The test involved: Asphalt 9, Lineage 2, Darkness Rises and Injustice 2, Life is Strange, PUBG, Creative Destruction, Ark: Survival Evolved and Shadowgun Legends.

The smartphone coped well with all the games, and only ARK made me sweat a little on the “epic” graphics settings. Shadowgun Legends and Asphalt 9 impressed with the graphics in general. I didn’t even think that I would see this among mobile games.

But the performance has a minus - the smartphone is very hot. It does not burn your hands, but after 30 minutes the whole device becomes warm due to the metal frame, which dissipates heat. With a bumper, this is almost not felt, but the same AnTuTu fixed the temperature above 60 degrees.

Despite this, the smartphone did not lose performance, and throttling did not even think of appearing. In addition, a liquid cooling system is installed inside, so you should not worry about overheating.

Still, gamers are not surprised by the powerful filling and design, so Xiaomi added two interesting features.

Filmed with Black Shark

The most important thing is a stump of a gamepad with two triggers. It connects via Bluetooth and is attached to the top of the smartphone. The bumper helps to keep it, which thickens the device, but fits into the overall design and does not cause discomfort.

At first, this idea seems strange, because for a comfortable game you need a full-fledged controller. In fact, it turned out to be convenient and practical. When traveling in transport, you do not need to get a huge gamepad, as was the case with the Moto GamePad. The controller does not take up much space in your pocket, but is installed and removed in one motion. During the game, he takes over part of the control. For example, in PUBG, you can walk and shoot at the same time, which is difficult to do with touch buttons.

It was most interesting to see the participation of third-party developers, because not all games support the gamepad. The fears were confirmed and 99% of the projects do not understand what they want from them, but Xiaomi found a way out. Black Shark has a built-in utility that allows you to customize the controller for any game. Just assign a click to a specific place on the screen and you're done. Now 99% work with the Black Shark controller.

Still, a gamepad is useful exclusively for shooting games. Not for nothing that PUBG was constantly shone in the advertising campaign. In the same Injustice, everything is controlled by swipes and taps on the screen, and in Lineage 2, the gamepad is only useful for walking.

Fortunately, Black Shark also supports full-fledged gamepads, but the problem is that the same utility only works with proprietary ones. This is where third-party apps come to the rescue that do the same thing but support more devices.

In addition to an external joystick, Black Shark received a game mode that turns the phone into a portable console. On the left side of the smartphone placed a switch that activates the interface. From there you can see your game statistics: where you spent the most time, when you prefer to play and how much traffic you spent online.

Swiping on the touch button “Home” calls up the “game menu”. It shows the load on the processor and video accelerator, and also allows you to switch your smartphone to night mode or configure the gamepad buttons. If I rarely used the game mode, then I opened the menu all the time - a handy thing.

Xiaomi Black Shark - HB verdict

Xiaomi's first gaming attempt turned out to be successful. Black Shark meets all the requirements of a proper gaming smartphone: functional design, powerful hardware and additional features. For this, Xiaomi Black Shark gets a score of 8 out of 10. Still, something needs to be done with heating and a strange gamepad.

Unfortunately, the smartphone has not yet got out of China. The price for the Black Shark starts at $500, and the gamepad costs $29.

The smartphone is provided by the store MIoT.ua

Not all Xiaomi can just go and buy in the nearest store. And popular trading platforms are not always encouraging. Meanwhile, sometimes they release very interesting devices for the domestic market (Redmi Pro, hello!).

One of them was the Black Shark smartphone. It has a gaming ergonomic design, the most powerful hardware in the world, a liquid-cooled processor😱 and a joystick🎮 included. What for?

Now you can throw away PSP. There is Black Shark.

What's special about Black Shark

Guess what's in the photo?
Black Shark one of the startups sponsored by Xiaomi. Therefore, its first version was sold only in China, where advertising and sales were taken over by Xiaomi.

At the moment, several stores offer an international variant of the smartphone without mentioning Xiaomi. On the other hand, the early version had no connection with the giant corporation: its own firmware ( not MIUI), their logos.

International variant💣 differs from the Chinese kit and firmware. Europeans are offered an operating system that supports all languages ​​available in Android and is added to the kit branded joystick.

In addition to the actual gaming “chips”, Black Shark boasts a unique design, a very high-quality screen, serious stereo sound with good amplification, a good camera, and quick control of game pieces.

The only _not_iPhone_

It seems that this is the only smartphone that does not have a hint of the iPhone, Samsung or last year's state employee.

It looks unusual and cool, especially with the backlit logo on the back. Although someone will seem too sporty or even childish.

Perception changes the live view of the screen, which completely occupies the frontal surface. This is not found in smartphones under 500 bucks: IPS-panel with a resolution FullHD+ and support for HDR 10 with wide color gamut DCI-P3 to display 97% visible colors.


Perhaps it is only comparable to AMOLED iPhone X screen. With a small remark: Black Shark is correctly calibrated and shows real colors📺.

Below the display is the Home button, more precisely a touch panel with a fingerprint that recognizes touches.


Gestures are available only on the screen, so next to the sensor there are the usual buttons "back" and "menu of running applications"

How Black Shark became the fastest smartphone of 2018

The Snapdragon 845 is installed inside the smartphone, as in all the flagships of the year. Ordinary? Not at all. Every manufacturer lowers its clock speeds due to extreme heat and endless throttling.

Only Black Shark works at full capacity, outperforming all competitors in synthetic tests.

The secret is simple: under the original back cover, water cooling of the processor and memory is hidden (here the fastest UFS 5.1), allowing the Snapdragon 845 to work at full strength.


Black Shark Cooling System
Let u Samsung S9 faster storage, iPhone X does math better, and new ones Xiaomi- logical tasks with the help AI. Black Shark don't care overtakes them in games.

The Black Shark processor heats up to 40 degrees in 40 minutes in a stress test, Samsung S9 - in 5 minutes, iPhone X - in 7 at maximum operating temperature before reducing the clock speed to 80, 50, 45 degrees, respectively.

Despite this, Black Shark does not burn your hands: the case effectively dissipates energy, distributing it with the help of inserts made of materials of different thermal conductivity.

How Black Shark turns into a game console

If someone had told me before that a smartphone could be more convenient than a portable set-top box, it would only cause laughter.

But Black Shark did it. The case is really very comfortable thanks to the branded silicone case, which ergonomically follows the contours of the smartphone.

A branded joystick with 2 triggers, a control stick and a power button sits very firmly on the case. So the smartphone becomes half of the portable Play Station🕹.


It is a pity that the developers did not come up with a system similar to Motorola modules: the gamepad will have to be charged through its own USB Type C port.

The grip is as comfortable as possible for one hand. The manipulators are pleasant, resist confident enough. Alas, no feedback.

With it, you can not touch the hot back panel at all. It's just not very clear what to do when the cover becomes unusable.


In addition to the joystick, Black Shark received a mechanical switch to access quick functions:

• Activation of the "game" mode without notifications,
• Memory clearing,
• Receiving or rejecting incoming,
• Blue filter activation,
• Remapping joystick keys.

Conveniently? And how. Without interrupting the gameplay, without pop-ups, answering calls is very pleasant.

For the flagship game - not an end in itself?

But Black Shark will cope with other tasks that are assigned to the flagship⚖. Although everything in it is optimized for gaming tasks.

The international version of the smartphone carries its own OS based on Android 8.0. The external design is copied either from the iPhone or from Xiaomi, but the main elements are from the usual Android AOSP.

For the game, the system offers a number of interesting chips. For example, you can use a keyboard shortcut to record a video or a live broadcast.

Another useful "feature" completely clears the memory of all running applications and processes, leaving only the "dialer".

Another plus: Among all Xiaomi smartphones, it is Black Shark that can be called a stretch "musical": there are a couple of amplifiers in its audio path Smart PA.

Through them, the sound in analog enters the connector USB Type C(stream double goes in “digit”), which replaces the headphone mini-jack🎧, and stereo speakers (the conversational speaker becomes one)🔊.


Not Texas Instruments, but it sounds loud, clean and dignified - perhaps the owner of Black Shark can refuse cheap Bluetooth speakers.

The smartphone has an original noise reduction system with a unique property - it works in all communication modes, both in headphones and during a call, and even during a speakerphone.

Can Black Shark replace a smartphone

With the camera and communication at the "Black Shark" is also all right. How else? Who needs a simple game console today?

Dual main camera📸 based on Sony sensors consists of the main on 12.0 MP and additional 20-megapixel spruce for 2 times magnification. Each lens has an aperture of f/1.8, phase detection autofocus, dual-tone flash, and EIS.

The front camera uses a 20MP sensor with a lens at f/2.2. The camera is equipped with phase detection autofocus, two-color LED flash, with a two-fold zoom.


Photos during the day are excellent in any scenario. At night it will be necessary use a tripod due to the lack of optical stabilization.

Voice and Internet work on Black Shark is incredibly fast. And it's not just about supporting the most advanced communication standards.


Stylish "X" on the case back - huge remote antenna. Not surprisingly, the connection is stable even in the Moscow metro.

Interestingly, the Chinese version of the smartphone only supports Chinese networks. But the international device - almost everything, including LTE Band 3,7,20, which is still necessary for some Russian operators.

All this splendor makes the smartphone extremely voracious. Therefore, Black Shark uses an honest battery for 4000 mAh with fast charging support Quick Charge 3.0. The stock is enough for 4 hours of play, 7 hours of surfing or 8 hours of video.

This is not much, but still at the level of modern flagships. And even a little more.

instead of conclusions. Interesting but not niche

Unlike competitors, Xiaomi and the company did not just rely on the power of the platform - but on its convenience for long-term play.

Do you dream of purchasing a gaming smartphone that pleases not only with top technical characteristics, but also with excellent design and photographic capabilities? Then don't miss the chic Xiaomi Black Shark!

The elaboration of the appearance of the phablet is achieved due to the large 6 inchframeless screen, double camera, pleasing to the eye by combining black (white) and green colors. The display itself is simply amazing with natural color reproduction, brightness and detail. When allowed in 2160x1080 pixels powerful processor snapdragon 845 , 6/8GB RAM and video chip Adreno 630 provide a huge number of frames per second in the most resource-intensive games. Applications can be stored on 64/128GBROM. Do not upset the main 20- and 12 megapixel photomodules that can easily cope even with evening shooting. Yes, and the "front-end" in the same 20 megapixels will give you a lot of perfect selfies. Autonomy at the level of a decent eight hours of active screen time is guaranteed by a battery of 4000mAh. And if you add to the list of advantages Android oreo, NFC, OTG, water cooling and a fast charging function, then the device from Xiaomi is becoming one of the most technologically advanced and balanced devices on the market.

Xiaomi Black Shark- this is the first gaming smartphone from Xiaomi and in this review we will try to tell in more detail about the gaming "Black Shark" from Xiaomi, show tests, identify strengths and weaknesses along the way.

Fast passage:

1. Delivery set and unpacking

The unboxing of the Xiaomi Black Shark will not surprise you much. Yes, the package is quite common and includes:

1. The smartphone itself
2. Signature bumper
3. Screen protector
4. USB Type-C cable
5. Charger Quick Charge 3.0
6. 3.5 mm adapter
7. Papers.

1. Here I am, the Black Shark.

2. The bumper is good, but it is mainly intended for attaching a joystick, it protects the corners, but also increases the dimensions.

3. The film is the simplest, however, you cannot install glass on this smartphone.

4. USB Type-C cable is normal.

5. Charger 5 Volt 3 Amp - 12 Volt 1.5 Amp, Quick Charge 3.0

The whole set looks like this:

2. Specifications of Xiaomi Black Shark

The device is built on the most popular processor of 2018 - Snapdragon 845 with Adreno 630 video accelerator. At the moment there are 3 modifications - Xiaomi Black Shark 6/64, 8/128 and 8/256 GB. There is no support for memory cards, which for many can be a significant disadvantage. Such a combination of characteristics allows the device to “pull” all modern 3D games without any problems, this device is actually intended for this.

3.Antutu test

In Antutu, Black Shark scores between 280,000 and 290,000 points. The smartphone, at the time of publication of this review, occupies the top 1 in the rating of this test. However, the situation will soon change.

Specifically, this device showed a result of 284,895 "parrots", but some users on the official forum had a result of more than 289,000 points.

4. Appearance

The smartphone has an unusual design and it is very attractive. The device will appeal not only to gamers, but also to users who just want a powerful modern smartphone with an unusual design, and who are tired of parodies of the iPhone X with their “bangs” and glass body.

The device is quite large and its dimensions are 161.6 x 75.4 x 9.3 mm, with a weight of 190 grams, but despite the large thickness and dimensions, it does not feel like a “shovel”.

Of course, this is facilitated by the shape of the case, which reduces the thickness of the back cover to 5 mm at the edges and thanks to this, the device is very pleasant in the hand.

On the left side there is a slot for 2 SIM cards and a slider switch with which you can turn on Shark Space (game space).

On the right side, everything is quite standard - the power and volume buttons.

At the top of the display there is a front camera, sensors and a multi-color (hooray comrades!) LED notification indicator.

There's a fingerprint scanner at the bottom of the screen (not a mechanical key), as well as back and task manager touch buttons. There are no backlights on these buttons.

The scanner is excellent, fast, and also supports gestures that allow you to open various menu items, as well as a panel in Shark Space. There are no elements on the upper edge of the case, only plastic antenna inserts.

At the bottom, everything is more than standard - a USB Type-C connector (standard 2.0), a microphone under the left grill and a speaker under the right grill.

The speaker is very loud and of high quality, it is also worth noting the stereo effect in Xiaomi Black Shark, thanks to the use of the top speaker. There are no special complaints about the build quality, except that it is necessary to mention a small backlash of the volume button, probably the production lines have not yet been debugged. On the back panel there are 2 cameras, a flash, a microphone and a logo in the form of a corporate letter S, which can glow during calls, notifications, as well as some events in games.

5. Screen

The display in Xiaomi Black Shark is made using IPS technology and is a good quality matrix. 5.99 inches, 2160 x 1080 pixels and 403 ppi pixel density.

The DCI-P3 color gamut is approximately 97%, which allows you to get colors on the screen that are as close to natural as possible. There are no complaints about the viewing angles, although at the maximum angular positions there is a slight inversion to red.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the frame interpolation technology, which, using a separate processor, makes it very smooth during video playback, due to software processing of the stream and drawing frames.

The mode is called Super Cinema Mode and you can activate or disable it in the settings. Similar technologies have long been used in modern TVs and now they have come to mobile devices.

6. Camera overview

The cameras in Xiaomi Black Shark are a very controversial element. On the one hand, you should not expect a gaming smartphone and top-end cameras from it. On the other hand, the price of the device is very close to other second-tier flagships (OnePlus 6, Mi 8, etc.), which means you want a camera of their level. Here, not everything is so clear. Until now, it remains a mystery exactly which camera modules are used in the Black Shark, but their characteristics are as follows:

• Main camera- 12 MP, f/1.75, pixel size 1.25 µm
• Second main camera- 20 MP, f/1.75, pixel size 1 micron
• selfie camera- 20 MP, f/2.2.

However, on the official forum there is some mention of as many as two Sony IMX376 and one Sony IMX486.

The camera application is the most common and in fact is no different from those in other Xiaomi phones. It is this fact that does not fully reveal the potential of the cameras available in the device. In general, the photos are good and detailed in most cases, but the portrait mode is still very poor.

Sample photos from the camera

photos from it are obtained at a resolution of 2592 × 1940 pixels, which is about 5 million pixels, does it turn out that the manufacturer is misleading us? As for the quality of this camera, it is the most mediocre. The dynamic range is at the level of devices in 2010, autofocus always misses (probably not at all), the color in the photo turns out to be terrible. However, see for yourself.

In part, the situation can be corrected by the Google Camera HDR application, and this is facilitated by the presence of an active Camera 2 API out of the box,

But while this program works on Xiaomi Black Shark it is not very stable and good.

Yesterday in Beijing, Black Shark, with the financial support of Xiaomi, introduced its first gaming smartphone. The gadget is packed with impressive specs including an 18:9 display, 8GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 845 processor, and a dual camera setup. However, the main distinguishing feature of the Black Shark gaming smartphone is the ability to connect a Bluetooth controller for a more realistic gaming experience.


The Black Shark gaming smartphone measures 161.6 x 75.4 x 9.25 mm and weighs 190 grams. From the front, the device looks like a regular smartphone with a brutal design of the back panel, and support for the Shark GamePad controller turns the novelty into a real game console. On the left side there is a proprietary Shark Key button that allows you to instantly switch to game mode, while the volume buttons and the power key are on the right. On the back there is a dual camera and a large “S” logo with green backlight.


The device received a 5.99-inch 18: 9 InCell display with support for Full HD + 2160 x 1080 resolution. MEMC intelligent motion compensation technology ensures smoother video playback during the game. At the bottom of the front panel is a fingerprint scanner.


As mentioned above, the new gaming gadget is equipped with a powerful Snapdragon 845 processor, thanks to which the device showed a score of 279,464 points on AnTuTu. To stabilize the temperature, the smartphone is equipped with a sophisticated cooling system, which includes a copper alloy substrate with high thermal conductivity, nanocomposite graphite to improve heat dissipation, a heat pipe that can reduce the temperature of the device by 8 degrees by improving CPU cooling by 20 times.
The base model of the Black Shark gaming phone includes 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage (UFS 2.1), while the maximum version has 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal memory. The smartphone is powered by a 4,000 mAh battery with support for 18W fast charging via Quick Charge 3.0, with which the manufacturer promises up to 5 hours of continuous gaming.

The Black Shark smartphone received a specialized JOY UI game interface based on Android Oreo, which includes some MIUI features. While gaming, the fingerprint scanner can be switched to Shark Dock mode, which offers a number of convenient features such as silent mode, DND and more.

The dual rear camera consists of a 12MP sensor with f/1.75 aperture and 1.25µm pixel size and a 20MP sensor with f/1.75 aperture and 1.0µm pixel size. The camera is equipped with 6p lenses, dual-tone LED flash, PDAF, HDR, has a portrait and panoramic mode. For selfies, there's a 20-megapixel f/2.2 camera with a 5p lens, auto beauty enhancements and 4K video recording at 30fps. The operation of the smartphone's cameras is controlled by an independent processor from Pixelworks.

When connected to the Shark GamePad Bluetooth-enabled gaming adapter, the Black Shark Phone turns into a real gaming device. It offers gamers a convenient joystick, trigger and a 340 mAh battery that provides up to 30 hours of adapter work. Not least, the GamePad is also compatible with other Android devices that support Bluetooth 4.0 and Android 4.4 or higher.

Available connectivity options include USB-C, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, 2 x 2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G VoLTE, dual SIM support, GPS, AGPS, GLONASS. The Chinese manufacturer has adopted an X-shaped antenna design, which guarantees an uninterrupted communication signal, regardless of the horizontal or vertical use of the device, including during the game.

As for the sound parameters, the Black Shark gaming smartphone received Hi-Fi audio and Biso stereo speakers with dual Smart PA. In addition, the smartphone's microphone can be used for voice calls or radio chat while gaming.
The 6GB+64GB and 8GB+128GB versions of the Black Shark will go on sale for 2999 Yuan (~$477) and 3499 Yuan (~$557). The Shark GamePad is not included as standard and can be purchased separately for 179 RMB (~$29).

Pre-order registration for the new Black Shark gaming smartphone is open today in China at Xiaomi Mall, Jingdong and Mi Jiapin, while the gadget will ship from April 20. The novelty is available in two colors - Polar Night Black and Sky Gray.

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