Xiaomi has finally unveiled its new gaming smartphone, Xiaomi Black Shark, today at an event in Beijing, China. The phone is released in partnership with the Xiaomi backed BlackShark Technology Inc company. The gaming-oriented smartphone comes with a plethora of gaming-centric features which includes a dedicated button for the game mode, a new X-Antenna Technology for better signal reception and a new model of the cooling system to keep the beefy Snapdragon 845 cool.
The Black Shark greets you with a 5.99” Full HD+ IPS LCD display, with a 2160x1080p resolution. The display covers 97% DCI P3 color space with the help of the integrated Iris chipset and has an 18:9 aspect ratio. The Shark is powered by Snapdragon 845 chipset with Adreno 630 GPU. Thanks to the new multi-stage integrated liquid cooling system, the CPU temperatures on the Black Shark are said to be down by 8°C. The phone comes in either 6 GB of RAM & 64 GB of storage or 8 GB of RAM & 128 GB of storage variants, but sadly it doesn’t have a microSD slot for storage expansion. The phone runs on Android 8.0 Oreo with a new JOY UI on top.
The Black Shark comes with 12 MP f/1.75 camera with a 1.25 um pixel size and a 20 MP f/1.75 camera with a 1um pixel size and has 6P lens camera combination. There’s also a dual LED flash on the back alongside the dual cameras. The selfie shooter on the phone is 20 MP f/2.2 camera. The rear camera can shoot videos up to 2160p at 30 fps, while the selfie shooter is limited to 1080p video recording.
The Black Shark comes with a beefy 4000 mAh battery for long lasting gaming sessions and can be topped up quickly at QC3.0 speeds through the type C port. The phone also has an X shape frame, which is utilized for cleverly integrating the Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, LTE and GPS antennas. The phone skips the 3.5 mm headphone jack and instead offers you a USB-C to 3.5 mm headphone jack dongle.
The Black shark comes with many gamer optimized features such as a dedicated “Shark” button on the left, which assigns all the hardware resources to the ongoing game while limiting the resources to other apps and services. The mic on the Shark can be used to make voice calls and radio chat with your teammates, without interrupting your gameplay. There’s also a third gen Iris chipset from Pixelworks which is said to help the phone to provide a smooth gaming and cinematic experience, like never before.
“We all witnessed the performance wars that pushed console and desktop gaming to unprecedented levels. Now that smartphones are taking center stage, mobile gamers expect the same level of performance and enjoyment they’ve historically only experienced on larger devices. With Pixelworks Iris chipset, Blackshark is the first to offer this type of superior user experience on a smartphone.”
said Xiaomi Blackshark CEO Peter Wu.
The Pixelworks Iris tech used in the Black Shark offers the following features, as mentioned in the company’s press release.
- True Clarity for bringing smooth, blur-free motion to videos and gaming
- True Color for providing up to 1 billion accurate, yet vibrant colors
- In-line color calibration to achieve a color accuracy where it is impossible to notice differences in actual color vs. displayed color
- A comprehensive tone-mapping pipeline to render HDR10 videos true to the creator’s intent
- Sophisticated contrast management and sharpness to provide more realistic gameplay
Pixelworks CEO Todd DeBonis added,
“Xiaomi-backed Blackshark has released a truly innovative phone that leverages Pixelworks Iris technology to offer users cinematic quality video, true to life color accuracy and bring mobile gaming to a compelling new level. We are excited to have worked closely with Blackshark to enable many of the advanced video capabilities featured on their flagship smartphone.”
Xiaomi has also said that the phone comes with surround sound, thanks to the earpiece doubling as the second speaker, to provide a stereo sound experience. Like we mentioned earlier, the integrated liquid cooling system helps gamers breeze through their gaming sessions without feeling the warmth or breaking a sweat.
Additionally, Xiaomi has also unveiled a Black Shark Gamepad, which attaches to the phone in a similar manner to the Nintendo Switch. The gamepad has a 340 mAh battery and can connect using Bluetooth. The gamepad will be sold separately, but the first 50,000 Black Shark buyers will get it for free.
Black Shark comes in two color options – Polar Night Black and Sky Gray. The 6GB RAM/64 GB storage variant is priced at CNY 2,999 (USD 557/ INR 31,140), whereas the 8GB RAM/128 GB storage variant would cost you CNY 3,499 (USD 477/ INR 36,330). The Black Shark Gamepad is priced at CNY 179 (USD 28/ INR 1,858) and will be sold separately. The phone is said to go on sale in China next week, on April 20, while the pre-orders are already up on JD.com. There’s no news on the availability of the phone in other markets as of now.
Xiaomi is capturing all segment of the market pretty well,thanks