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Just a day after the Snapdragon 800 series-powered POCO F3 5G and POCO X3 Pro smartphones’ global launch, Xiaomi‘s gaming-focused brand announced two new handsets built around the latest and all-powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 870 chipsets.

(Update, April 28: The Black Shark 4’s Philippine prices, offers, and freebies have been revealed!)

(Update, April 23: Here‘s the launch date of Xiaomi’s Black Shark 4 gaming phone in the Philippines!)

The Black Shark 4 Pro and Black Shark 4 are now official, and they look very much alike but have major differences in the chipset (as we’ve mentioned earlier) and camera departments. In China, where preorders have gone live, the Black Shark 4 gaming phones are priced as follows:

• Black Shark 4
  • 6GB/128GB: ¥2,499 (around P18,646 or $383)
  • 8GB/128GB: ¥2,699 (P20,139 or $414)
  • 12GB/128GB: ¥2,999 (P22,377 or $460)
  • 12GB/256GB: ¥3,299 (P24,616 or $506)
• Black Shark 4 Pro
  • 8GB/256GB: ¥3,999 (P29,839 or $614)
  • 12GB/256GB: ¥4,499 (P33,570 or $690)
  • 16GB/512GB: ¥5,299 (P39,539 or $813)

Pricing and availability in the Philippines have yet to be revealed, but we’re optimistic about a local release in the future.

Similar to the POCO F3, the Black Shark 4 Pro and Black Shark 4 pack 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED displays made by Samsung, although their refresh and touch-sampling rates have been cranked up to 144Hz and 720Hz, respectively, supposedly making them look smoother and more touch-sensitive. They both have pressure-sensitive shoulder keys that can distinguish between a light tap and a hard press as well. No surprises. This series is built for serious gaming, after all.

The Black Shark 4 Pro and Black Shark 4 also come with insanely fast 120-watt charging out of the gate, putting them on a par with the fastest out there. A demo during the launch event showed that the Black Shark 4’s 4,500mAh dual-cell battery can be charged from zero to full in just 14 minutes and 50 seconds.

To offer the same processing power as its modern contemporaries in the Android world, the Black Shark 4 Pro is equipped with a Snapdragon 888 chip, while the cheaper Black Shark 4 runs on a less powerful Snapdragon 870. The latter is actually a higher-clocked chip than the Snapdragon 888, but is essentially just the Snapdragon 865 Plus on steroids, so it uses slower, older-gen technology.

In addition to that, the Pro variant also offers a superior dual-layer liquid-cooling system that Black Shark claims can lower the CPU temperature by up to 18 degrees Celsius. It also boasts Xiaomi’s Ramdisk feature it introduced on the Mi 10 Ultra. This allows the system to allocate a portion of RAM to be used as virtual storage for faster performance in certain apps.

For optics, the Black Shark 4 Pro gets a sharper 64-megapixel primary camera, too, as opposed to the vanilla model with a 48-megapixel shooter. However, the secondary cameras — in this case, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, a 5-megapixel macro camera, and a 20-megapixel front-facer — are identical on both gaming phones.

Based on the Black Shark’s aggressive pricing strategy, it looks like the POCO F3 might have some competition when Xiaomi launches the gaming phones outside China. What do you think? Drop us a line in the comments, and let’s discuss.

Black Shark 4 Pro specs

• 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED display, FHD+ resolution (20:9), 144Hz refresh rate, 720Hz touch sampling, HDR10+
• Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 with 5G
• 8GB/12GB/16GB LPDDR5 RAM
• 256GB/512GB UFS 3.1 storage
• Triple 64-megapixel (main), 8-megapixel (ultra-wide), 5-megapixel (macro) rear cameras
• 20-megapixel front camera
• Fingerprint sensor (under display)
• 4,500mAh dual battery with 120-watt USB-C fast charging
• Joy UI 12.5 based on Android 11
• Pressure-sensitive shoulder buttons
• Colors: Black, Dark Blue, Silver

Black Shark 4 specs

• 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED display, FHD+ resolution (20:9), 144Hz refresh rate, 720Hz touch sampling, HDR10+
• Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 with 5G
• 6GB/8GB/12GB LPDDR5 RAM
• 128GB/256GB UFS 3.1 storage
• Triple 48-megapixel (main), 8-megapixel (ultra-wide), 5-megapixel (macro) rear cameras
• 20-megapixel front camera
• Fingerprint sensor (under display)
• 4,500mAh dual battery with 120-watt USB-C fast charging
• Joy UI 12.5 based on Android 11
• Pressure-sensitive shoulder buttons
• Colors: Magic Black, Black, Silver

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