Introduction
Black Shark has never failed to surprise us with their gaming flagship smartphones. Traditionally, the company used to release a gaming phone at the start of the year and then an updated version in the second half of the year. However, today, the company disrupted its release cycle by unveiling a regular version as well as a Pro version in its Black Shark gaming lineup. So we get two new Black Shark gaming phones: the Black Shark 3 and the Black Shark 3 Pro. According to the company, the Black Shark 3 model goes on sale for the first time on March 6, while the Pro version will go on sale much later on March 17 in China.
The Black Shark 3 Pro pricing is as follows:
8GB RAM + 256GB ROM – 4699 yuan ($674)
12GB RAM + 256GB ROM – 4999 yuan ($717)
Black Shark 3 Pricing is as follows:
8GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 3499 yuan ($502)
12GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 3799 yuan($545)
12GB RAM + 256GB ROM – 3999 yuan ($573)
Black Shark 3 and Black Shark 3 Pro design
Both the new handsets have the brand’s X themed design, with sharp geometrical curves and grooves on the back. The biggest change in the Black Shark 3 lineup is the redesigned triangle camera housing. The company continues to opt for a symmetrical design philosophy, so we get a matching triangle-shaped design at the bottom half of the back as well. There are many important upgrades in the Black Shark 3 series design. First up, you have new Tencent Games and 5G logos on the bottom half of the two phones. The company has partnered with Tencent games to optimize gameplay on both these devices.
So the Black Shark 3 and 3 Pro models provide Tencent’s SolarCore Gaming Acceleration Engine in addition to Black Shark’s own Gaming Engine. There are three cameras at the back of the device, and in case you are wondering, the Black Shark 3 family gets rid of a telephoto sensor in favor of an ultra-wide-angle sensor. The third sensor is a dedicated depth shooter. Both the models have a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack and feature special magnetic pins (capable of 18W charging). The major difference between the two devices in terms of design is the presence of two tactile physical buttons on the right side of the Pro variant, which the standard version lacks.
Black Shark 3 and 3 Pro display and processor
As for the display, both devices get a massive upgrade. Instead of the 6.39-inch AMOLED screen on the Black Shark 2 Pro, the new standard version Black Shark 3 flaunts a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel with the industry’s first 270Hz touch sampling rate. The display of the phone combined with a 24ms touch response time and a 28ms multi-finger touch response time ensures that you face minimal touch lags during gameplay. The touch panel refreshes at 90Hz, ensuring smooth scrolling and animations.
On the other hand, the Black Shark 3 Pro takes things to another level. It arrives with a tablet-sized 7.1-inch AMOLED panel with a Quad HD+ 3120 x 1440p resolution display. It’s nearly the size of Huawei Mate 20 X massive display but with a higher resolution! Clearly, the Black Shark 3 Pro has one of the best displays for mobile gaming.
Talking about the processor, both the models have the new Snapdragon 865 flagship processor with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 and 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. iQOO seems to be the only brand that has updated its top-end lineup to UFS 3.1. Both the models feature 5G and Wi-Fi 6, and there’s a special mode that can combine both these connections to increase bandwidth. The Xiaomi Black Shark 3 and Shark 3 Pro house Adreno 650 GPU. Both smartphones reported getting 620,952 scores on the AnTuTu.
Black Shark 3 and 3 Pro gaming features
As we have mentioned above, the Black Shark 3 Pro has two mechanical gaming buttons on its right side. Black Shark explains that each of these buttons is 21mm long and features a 1.5mm keystroke. They are suitable for over 1 million clicks. Unfortunately, the standard variant - Black Shark 3 skips on these buttons. The Pro variant also gets horizontal linear motors for better tactile feedback during gameplay. The rest of the gaming-centric features are common to both the devices. This includes a special liquid “Sandwich Cooling system.” Black Shark explained at the event that its new models have a dual-battery design with a 116mm motherboard in between. The company has placed heating components like the CPU and 5G modems as far apart as possible. In fact, the company says that the distance between the two units on the motherboard is nearly 39mm.
Furthermore, both smartphones feature two 100mm liquid cooling units placed on the two sides of the motherboard. There’s graphite coating on the two cooling units as well. There’s also a unique voice control feature that allows you to initiate actions during gameplay.
Front and rear cameras
Cameras were never the selling point of gaming smartphones, but the new Black Shark 3 lineup adds a couple of upgrades in this department. Note that the setup is identical on both the models. The Black Shark 3 series has triple cameras in the rear triangular bump: 64MP primary sensor, 13MP wide-angle with 120-degree field of view, and 5MP depth shooter. The front of both devices have 20MP camera for selfie experience. Both devices can record 4k videos at 30/60fps as well as Full HD videos at 30/60/120fps. You can also record Full HD videos at 30fps by using the front-facing camera.
Batteries of both phones
The Black Shark 3 packs a 4720mAh battery with 65W fast charging while the Pro version increases the battery size to 5000mAh with the same fast charging tech. Incredibly, despite featuring a larger battery, both models take the same time to charge to 100%. So you can charge the two models up to 100% in just 38 minutes. The Black Shark 3 series can also charge at 18W through the magnetic charging port on the back.