New Mobile Gaming Phone, Black Shark, Coming to Canada?

Black Shark gaming phone to compete with Razer Phone.

Razer Phone by Razer Inc.

When the Razer Phone hit the market late last year, the devices were flying off the shelves. It was the first genuine mobile gaming phone (that didn’t piss customers off ~cough-Acer Predator 6-cough~). Razer is designed specifically for high-performance gaming; kind of like carrying a miniature Playstation, Xbox, or Gaming PC in your pocket. And with a $699/$899 price point, it’s cheaper than non-gaming models like the Samsung Galaxy 9 and 9+, or any of Apple’s recent iPhones.

It was a fantastic day for the hard-core gaming community, and one that industry experts knew would lead to bigger better, and notably cheaper things, in the near future. Well, the future is here, and it’s got a name. Xiaomi calls it… Black Shark!

Black Shark Phone by Xiaomi

Announced last week on April 13, the Black Shark mobile gaming phone looks primed to compete with the Razer. It’s set to release in China and ‘some other countries’ tomorrow, April 20, 2018. Whether Canada will be among them, or we’ll have to wait, is yet to be seen.

Note: Let me just get this out of the way now. For those who don’t know, Acer announced what was supposed to be the world’s first gaming smartphone, the Acer Predator 6, back in early 2015. It was released overseas, and was supposed to arrive in North America in early 2016, then mid 2016, then late 2016. Canada’s gaming junkies anxiously waited, month after month.

Finally, in 2017, it was confirmed that 1) Acer would not release the Predator 6 in North America; and 2) they were pulling the plug on it in the rest of the world. You may be able to find a used one on eBay, but I won’t be including that phone in today’s comparison.

Black Shark Gaming Phone: Under the Hood

Xiaomi’s Black Shark is sleek, powerful, and includes a detachable, Bluetooth Gamepad controller. It sports the industry’s fastest SnapDragon 845 2.8GHz octa-core processor, and Adreno 630 GPU. It offers full HD+ resolution at 2160×1080, dual 12MP and 20MP rear cameras, a 20MP front camera, and 4k/30fps video recording.

The more powerful model comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage, upgradable to 256GB. There will also be a 6GB RAM, 64GB model available. But if you’re a gamer, you gotta go big. And if the price rumors are true, it’ll be less than a $100 difference anyway.

How does Xiaomi’s Mobile gaming Phone Compare?

Next up, we’ll compare the specs of the Black Shark and Razer mobile gaming phones.