Gaming smartphones are a niche of their own and they do need to exist. Gamers definitely enjoy having hardware buttons that assist in playing shooter games immensely, and software that has been optimized for a gaming experience. But these phones are often quite expensive.
What if we told you that you don’t need to spend all of your savings on such a phone?
Enter Black Shark S4. A new gaming phone that has actual mechanical shoulder buttons (they pop in and out of the body magnetically), a huge 6.67” AMOLED screen with a 144 Hz refresh rate and a 720 Hz sampling rate, and — get this — a 120 W charger.
It comes in two price tiers — $399 for the 6 GB RAM model and $479 for the 8 GB RAM model. But, for a limited time, you can shave $20 off the 8 GB model with the promo code BLACKSHARK20! Links below:
The phone has a 6.67-inch, Samsung-made AMOLED panel on the front. Its refresh rate can go up to 144 Hz for super-smooth animations — you can choose to dial that down to 120 Hz, 90 Hz, or 60 Hz from Settings. Its touch-sampling rate is 720 Hz, which guarantees an insanely-fast response (8.3 ms) to your touches and swipes.
Additionally, the screen employs a Master Touch 5.0 technology, making it pressure-sensitive.
The display is HDR10+ certified and has a peak brightness of 1,300 nits for optimal performance even outdoors.
The hardware buttons are placed along the right frame of the device and stay hidden until you need them. When you are ready to game, press the small unlock buttons and the magnetic triggers will unlatch and pop out of the body for a tactile gaming experience.
There are stereo speakers located in large chambers on both sides of the screens for full, punchy audio. The phone’s microphones employ noise-cancelling algorithms so you can clearly chat with your teammates while placing headshots.
Black Shark S4 hardware and software
The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 — a 5G processor that’s only a step below the flagship Snapdragon 888. The Black Shark S4 comes in two variants — 6 GB of LPDDR5 RAM or 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM. Both will have a 128 GB UFS3.1 storage chip.
The light is kept on by a 4,500 mAh battery. But get this — the phone supports 120 W fast charging (charger included). It goes from 0% to 100% in about 15 minutes!
The software on board is a modified version of Xiaomi’s MIUI 12.5 — it’s called JOYUI 12.5 and comes with additional overclocking features and a gaming space to hold your games and settings.
Black Shark S4 camera
There is a triple camera on the back — a 64 MP main sensor, 8 MP ultra-wide camera, and 5 MP macro camera. The camera is capable of 4K video recording, 60 FPS video, and supports the HDR10+ format.
It may be a gaming phone, but it doesn't skimp on the camera. Here's something fun — you can use the mechanical gaming triggers as a mechanical shutter button, too!
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