Black Shark 4 Pro review, a great gaming focused smartphone despite the year old internals

Almost a year after the initial announcement of the black shark 4 pro in china, the smartphone is set to come to uk shores touting gaming focused features like a 144 hertz. A mold display magnetic pop up triggers rgb lighting and 120. W hyper charge support the black shark 4 pro sounds tempting, but can the early 2021 spec hold its own against 2022 smartphones? Well, the black shark 4 pro is a gaming phone, and that means that its – not the thinnest or lightest in the market likely down to the beefed up internals and larger cooling components than standard flagships. If thats, not your thing, youd be better off elsewhere, but while the black shark 4 pro is a chunk at 9.9, millimeters thick and 220 grams, its not unwieldy, thanks to the narrow 20 to 9 aspect ratio of the 6.67 inches display. Although the trade off is that its hard to reach the top of the display when using the phone one handed size aside black shark 4, pro as an evolution in the design of the black shark, keeping the same x, antenna rear as its predecessor but switching out The combination of metal and glass for an all glass affair, the glass rear, is matched to help resist fingerprints with the familiar x pattern visible beneath with interesting light, refraction effects that give it a premium, but not so in your face, gamer look a gaming phone. It most definitely is, though, complete with rgb lighting on the rear, although it is a bit lackluster compared to most gaming peripherals that compact, with bright lights, instead youre treated to a single triangular rgb panel that sits just beneath the rear facing cameras customizable to display different Colors and patterns when youre gaming getting calls and more the feature has been improved compared to its predecessor, with just 160 grams of pressure required to activate a 1m plus click trigger life and a more responsive tactile feel when using them its something.

I found myself using a lot during my time with the black shark 4 pro and because the triggers can be remapped for use in any game, not just those with controller support, its better than a dedicated controller for some games. One area where the black shark 4 pro excels, is in the display department, the fhd plus 1080 by 2400 display measures in at an impressive 6.67 inches with e4 mold tech, providing a vivid, bright and detailed visual experience perfect for mobile gaming and movie watching alike. Theres. Hdr 10 plus support with peak brightness at a claimed 1300 nits. That makes those netflix shows look great and the 20 to 9 aspect ratio nearly perfectly matches the 21 to 9 aspect ratio of hollywood movies, although it does mean that standard 16 to 9 content has larger black bars than usual. The tall aspect ratio is also why the top of the display is so hard to reach one handed, as mentioned earlier. That means that touch input is detected much more quickly than traditional smartphone displays, resulting in lower latency and faster response times, especially crucial when playing competitive online games. In fact, black shark claims that the tech means theres only an 8.3 milliseconds touch delay and, if true thats among the best in the market, even in 2022 a year after its release, it certainly feels responsive in everyday use, especially in online shooters. Like call of duty mobile, where im able to instantly respond to incoming threats, sometimes even when im already in the enemy, crosshair and im, not even what i describe as a pro player, the black shark 4 pro had top of the line specs when it was initially Revealed back in march 2021, but almost a year later, those specs arent, quite as enticing the black shark 4 pro sports qualcomm snapdragon 888, alongside either 8 or 12 gigabytes of lpddr.

Five, six thousand four hundred megahertz ram and youve got either 128 or 256 gigabytes of ufs 3.1 storage to play with putting it in likes with the likes of the asus raj phone 5 and red magic 6, which were also released around the same time. So how does that translate to real world performance despite not having the latest and greatest tech by 2022 standards? The combination of a snapdragon, 888 and 8 12 of a gigabyte of lpddr5 ram provides a solidly high end gaming experience thats sustained over long periods thanks to the companys sandwich liquid cooling system, its certainly more than enough for casual mobile games and even the most demanding Triple a mobile games like call of duty, mobile or pub g mobile, run at the highest graphical settings with additional extras enabled without issue its also just as smooth when scrolling, through instagram, using the camera and just about anything else. As you might expect, while you could argue that the snapdragon 888 is simply not as powerful energy, efficient or ml capable as the latest chipsets on paper, black shark has done an admirable job at squeezing every last drop of power from the year old chipset, while itll Still bother gamers that feel they need the latest and greatest its perfectly acceptable for the vast majority. Camera performance is important on any smartphone, but if theres any category of smartphone, where it doesnt matter as much its gaming phones at least thats, what the manufacturers seem to believe, though the black shark 4 pro does improve on its camera, offering compared to its predecessor its Still not what most would consider flagship on the rear.

Youll find a main 64 mp sensor alongside an 8mp ultrawide lens and a 5mp macro lens. The main sensor is what youll be using most of the time with specs that far outperform the other two lenses with headline features, including a fairly decent, f, 1.79 aperture with good lighting stills, have a decent amount of detail, vibrant colors and great dynamic range making it A good snapper for everyday shots, its in low light conditions that quality begins to tail off with images looking much softer with a more noticeable anti noise algorithm at play, and there isnt much of a difference when shooting in the dedicated night mode either the black shark 4, pro ships with joy, ui 12, which itself is based on xiaomis, my ui 12, which is based on android 11, so its a custom ui based on a custom ui of stock android 11, got that great based on xiaomis, my ui 12. It should come as no surprise that the joy ui 12 experience is about as far from stock android as you can get for better and for worse. It certainly has that gamer, aesthetic with custom icons, cool gamer, focused backgrounds and a bunch of themes to choose from including third party options that bring it closer to the stock android. Look if thats what you prefer the main hook of joy, ui 12, as of course, shark space 4.0. The companys hub for gaming on the smartphone, the black shark 4 pro features a 4 500 milliamp hours battery that, on paper at least cant quite compete with the six thousand milliamp hours battery on offer from the likes of the asus raj phone 5s and even non Gaming phones, like the 5000 milliamp hours, moto g200 in real world tests.

However, i found the black shark 4 pro would comfortably get me through a days use without getting battery anxiety with a mix of casual gaming, texting, tweeting and calling, although that will depend on what youre up to the black shark 4 pro is set to come to. Uk shores from the 23rd of february 2022, almost a year after its china, reveal its available in two configurations: eight gigabytes, 128 gigabytes and 12 gigabytes, 256 gigabytes, costing 489 pounds and 569 pounds respectively, though, that does sound like a tempting offer its worth, pointing out that You can get more recent gaming focused smartphones, like the 888 plus equipped nubia red magic 6s pro for around the same price and the likes of the moto g200 costs even less at ‘9 pounds.