The Black Shark 4 Pro finally launches internationally

There’s another gaming smartphone that’s become available to the international public, and it’s the Black Shark 4 Pro. This phone launched in China last year with flagship specs and a very appealing price tag but it took Black Shark almost a whole year to bring the device to other parts of the world.

What is Black Shark?

We don’t mind answering that question, as many of you might be asking themselves the same thing. Even though Xiaomi has invested a substantial amount of money in Black Shark, the latter is a completely separate company.

Black Shark has one goal and one goal only - to make gaming smartphones. Its first device was announced back in 2018, and since then the company has released several models. Unlike other Chinese brands, Black Shark also aims to deliver its gaming tech worldwide.

Black Shark 4 Pro

Back to the phone in question. The Black Shark 4 Pro is almost one year old but some of its specs will turn heads even today. There’s a Snapdragon 888 chipset (no SD 8 Gen 1 unfortunately), 120W fast charging, and a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate.

The display is quite impressive, given the recently launched Nubia Red Magic 7 sports almost the same panel. It’s an AMOLED screen with 144Hz refresh rate and 720Hz touch sampling rate. It also supports HDR10+, and Black Shark rates it at 1,300 nits of peak brightness.

The memory configuration is pretty standard by gaming phones standards - the Black Shark 4 Pro comes with 12GB of RAM (which is more than enough), and 256GB of storage. There’s no micros SD card expansion slot but on the flip side, there’s a 3.5mm audio jack.

The camera system is also pretty similar to the Red Magic 7, with a 64MP primary camera, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, and a 5MP macro camera. The selfie shooter is a 20MP sensor with fixed focus, and it’s positioned in a hole-pich in the center of the screen.

Moving to the battery - it’s 4,500 mAh, and it probably consists of two separate cells that you can charge simultaneously with the crazy 120W charger included.

As the phone was launched in China months ago, there are some charging tests flying around. This phone is one of the fastest charging in the world - It takes only 5 minutes to charge it to 50%, and less than 15 mins for the battery to be fully charged.

Other noteworthy specs include an optical under-screen fingerprint scanner, stereo speakers, and 5G and 4G support, along with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and NFC.

In terms of software, the Black Shark 4 Pro comes with a custom JoyUI 12.5 (based on Xiaomi’s MIUI 12.5), and it’s built on top of Android 11 (with an update to Android 12 possibly arriving with JoyUI 13). Last but not least, there's a LED logo on the back and two capacitive shoulder triggers on the side of the phone.