1. Introduction and pictures
“The handle of the game phone.”
This sentence is the introduction of the official Weibo of the Black Shark gaming phone, which shows that the brand has a strong self-confidence. At present, the category of gaming phones has not yet been fully formed. There is nothing wrong with saying this. Looking back on the previous generations of Black Shark phones, it is indeed unique. As for the real sales volume, and whether it is the trump card, I believe that not many people compare it to the truth.
From the product point of view, Black Shark is a brand that listens to users’ opinions and makes corrections. For example, the back design that was deeply criticized in the past two years, this year’s Black Shark 4 has begun to make drastic changes, and the front also uses a hole-digging screen, which is one of the few Game mobile phones with special-shaped screens are often used.
In fact, the development of game mobile phones for so many years, the Black Shark 4 Pro is a model that I personally think can really be called a game mobile phone. Subject to the mobile phone itself and the industry, it is impossible for chip suppliers to develop a new series for game mobile phones. This is equivalent to It blocked the CPU and GPU, but the Black Shark 4 Pro took a different approach and plugged an SSD into the mobile phone, which improved the performance of reading and flash memory by leaps and bounds, and directly overtaken the corner.
The storage solution of the Black Shark 4 Pro means that the gaming phone is no longer as simple as adding a few game functions and shortcut keys, but a real change from the hardware. Other brands also have other solutions, such as heat dissipation, so I won’t talk about it here.
Not long ago, I got a new Black Shark machine, named Black Shark 4S, which is the release rule of the brand. Iteratively upgraded in the first half of the year, and slightly updated based on the previous generation in the second half of the year. It can be seen from the naming that it should be the same this time.
The Black Shark 4S series includes standard and Pro versions. I have the standard version in my hand. There are three options: black black/fog white/Gundam limited edition. The picture shows the black black and Gundam limited edition. Most of the boys who like to play games have Gundam dreams, and this Gundam limited edition is really handsome.
mobile phone packaging
mobile phone packaging
mobile phone packaging
Black Shark 4 The S Gundam Limited Edition has a new packaging design, full of Gundam style, but the size and thickness of the two are exactly the same, and the limited edition does not come with peripheral products.
front of phone
front of phone
front of phone
All Black Shark 4S series use the same screen. The design of the centered hole-digging screen, which is rare for gaming phones, has an aperture of 2.76mm. It is one of the smallest hole-digging screen solutions at present. The upper frame of the front camera is narrower, and the screen ratio of the Black Shark 4 has been significantly improved. The same is true of the previous generation, and not many users complained about this point.
It is really unacceptable. You can also turn on the hidden bangs function in the game assistant, and the digging part will have a black screen, but this is of little significance, after all, there is less screen display.
In fact, gaming mobile phones are more suitable for off-screen proactive technology, even if the selfie effect is sacrificed, but the off-screen proactive camera currently cannot support a high-quality screen, so it has to give up.
front of phone
front of phone
front of phone
In terms of parameters, like the previous generation, the Black Shark 4S adopts a 6.67-inch straight screen design, and the Samsung AMOLED screen with the latest E4 luminescent material supports a high refresh rate of 144Hz and a three-speed custom refresh rate of 60/90/120Hz. The touch sampling rate reaches 720Hz, and the multi-touch touch delay is 8.3ms.
In addition, this screen has 100% DCI-3 color gamut, peak brightness of 1300nit, screen-by-screen calibration, JNCD≈0.36, delta E≈0.35, and has passed SGS eye protection certification and HDR10+, as well as dual-zone screen pressure sensitivity 5.0. Sub-standard standard.
The back of the phone
The back of the phone
The back of the normal version is much the same as the previous generation. The overall style is basically the same, but the pattern has been changed. In order to save costs, there is no need to develop new molds for small upgrades. However, compared with previous generations, the Black Shark’s The style tends to be conservative, it is no longer an exaggerated e-sports element, and it is more suitable for daily use.
The back cover of Black Shark 4S allows each individual pixelated unit to have its own light sensing direction through the nanolithography process. Through sequential calculation and arrangement, the pixel units continuously form a light column effect, and then cooperate with the AG matte effect to change with the light and shadow. Then check out the Gundam Limited Edition.
The back of the phone
The back of the phone
The back of the phone
The Gundam Limited Edition has the same design as the regular version, but it is full of Gundam patterns. With the white back cover, it has a very strong mecha style. The lens part is marked with a red ring, and the recognition is completely full.
Package comes with a Gundam Limited Edition phone case
Gundam limited edition phone case, the ring is a magnet to match the cooling fan
Gundam Limited Edition Magnetic Radiator
Magnetic radiator can be attached to the phone case
Right side of the fuselage
The right side of the fuselage is the same as the previous generation, the side fingerprint recognition power button is two-in-one, and two physical lift buttons, of which the Gundam limited edition is processed in red and blue colors.
On the left side of the fuselage are volume keys and SIM card slot
The top of the fuselage is a speaker and a noise-cancelling microphone
The bottom of the fuselage is a microphone, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB Type-C interface, and a speaker.
Comes with a 120W charger and data cable, as well as a Black Shark sticker (radiator needs to be purchased separately)
2. Performance and heat dissipation
I didn’t expect the Black Shark 4S to be equipped with the Snapdragon 870. I was a little surprised when I knew it, but after thinking about it carefully, compared with the Snapdragon 888, the Snapdragon 870 with stable power consumption seems to be more suitable for the less extreme pursuit of games. Users, and Black Shark has changed its product strategy since the beginning of the year, and a single model cannot meet market demand, so it is understandable to carry the sub-flagship Snapdragon 870.
As for the Black Shark 4S Pro, it should be equipped with Snapdragon 888 Plus and UFS 3.1+SSD disk array technology, which represents top performance. Unfortunately, Black Shark 4S is not equipped with Snapdragon 870+LPDDR5 memory+UFS 3.1 Flash memory, more consideration is given to power consumption. This time I only got the Black Shark 4S equipped with Snapdragon 870 to see its benchmark performance.
As shown in the figure, the AnTuTu score of the Black Shark 4S is 725737. Compared with the recently released Snapdragon 870 model, the results of the two are basically the same, which means that the Black Shark 4S has not made too many adjustments to its performance. Similar to conventional mobile phones, the algorithm is not radical, and the UX and MEM scores are relatively normal.
Storage is also relatively normal, using conventional UFS 3.1 flash memory, the sequential read speed is 1690MB/s, and the sequential write speed is 771MB/s, which is a normal read performance. Does this mean the Black Shark 4S is more of a regular phone full of gaming features? Not so, let’s take a look at the cooling configuration.
The entire Black Shark 4S series continues the previous generation sandwich liquid cooling system solution, and has made an upgrade on this basis. For example, the front of the motherboard adopts a 3400mm² large-area and high-cavity liquid-cooled heat dissipation plate for direct contact heat dissipation, and a 3D three-dimensional capillary tube is attached. The strip-shaped power pump of the structure runs through the heat dissipation plate to accelerate the liquid flow inside the liquid-cooled heat dissipation, so that it can dissipate heat quickly, and there is a 500mm² liquid-cooled heat dissipation pipe on the back of the motherboard to form a three-dimensional heat dissipation.
5G chips, processor units, and charging chipsets are the components with the highest heat inside the mobile phone. Black Shark’s approach is to isolate them, each heat source dissipates heat independently, and each has a large-area direct-contact copper block. In order to quickly conduct heat to the liquid-cooled heat dissipation plate of the motherboard, an NTC temperature sensor is added to detect the grip area, and it is adjusted according to the system temperature control strategy, thus forming a “sandwich” liquid-cooled heat dissipation system 2.0.
3. System Features and Experience
1. Game Features
As a gaming phone, the system feature is one of the main differences from conventional phones. After all, the core configuration is basically the same. The only thing that can be changed is the shape or the game shortcut keys. The entire Black Shark 4S series still continues the magnetic power lift. The shoulder key, thanks to the non-contact magnetic drive, increases the lift life by 10 times.
Compared with the common touch shoulder buttons on the market, I personally prefer a solid shoulder button such as the Black Shark. It has a more tactile feel and is closer to the gamepad. It can be hidden when not in use.
At the same time, the entire Black Shark 4S series supports the screen pressure-sensitive function. The left and right screens map shortcut keys according to the finger pressing force. This function is very easy to use. For example, in shooting games like “Peace Elite”, the mobile phone only needs to be slightly You can shoot by pressing the screen hard. It is the first game phone to adopt this scheme.
In addition to lifting the shoulder button and screen pressure, Black Shark 4 supports two shortcuts: voice control and somatosensory control. The somatosensory should be realized by using the built-in gyroscope and gravity sensor of the mobile phone, and then combined with the algorithm. The actual use is not as good as the shoulder button or the screen. The pressure comes directly.
Then there are the software changes of the Gundam Limited Edition, mainly due to the use of Gundam themes and wallpapers, which is a common practice in the current custom or joint version.
As shown in the figure, only the software icons and wallpapers have a Gundam atmosphere, and opening the software is still the default interface. The refresh rate provides three gears of 144Hz/90Hz/60Hz, of which 144Hz is only implemented in some game scenes, and the default is still 120Hz refresh. rate is displayed.
The game Dock is similar to the previous generation. The game information is in the center position, and the viewing is intuitive and clear. Next to it are additional functions designed for the game, such as game configuration, notification shielding, phone rejection, and anti-accidental touch functions.
Black Shark 4S has built-in extreme speed mode. Through Ramdisk disk acceleration technology, the application is directly installed and run in RAM memory. This method can save the time for loading data from disk to memory when the application is running, and improve the reading and writing speed of the application, but only Support 12GB and above RAM version models.
In addition, there is a function called hidden bangs, which is actually to hide the digging hole, forcing the digging hole area not to be displayed, so as to achieve the effect of a full screen. I personally think that the aperture of the Black Shark 4S is small enough to play games. However, it is also considered to provide players with another display method.
2. Game experience
Having said so much, let’s see how the Black Shark 4S with Snapdragon 870 performs in the game. I will simply test with the popular mobile games, including the game frame rate and the temperature of the back cover of the fuselage. I will explain before the test. The Black Shark 4S has not yet been updated in a major version. Because it has not been released, some games may not have high frame rates. It is subject to the game settings and will not wait for subsequent updates.
——”Peace Elite”
Enable full HD (90fps) supported by Black Shark 4S
game fps
Body temperature
For a popular mainstream mobile game such as “Peace Elite”, Black Shark 4S naturally attaches great importance to it. It can even be said that a large part of the user group of Black Shark game mobile phones is to run “Peace Elite” smoothly.
Therefore, the Black Shark 4S can run “Peace Elite” smoothly, and the whole process is almost maintained to 90 frames, and it has become a straight line. There is no frame lock or frame drop, and the body heat is not obvious. The maximum temperature of the back cover is 41.6. The average temperature is 37.6.
– “Original God”
Enable full HD (60fps) supported by Black Shark 4S
game fps
Body temperature
The “Genshin Impact”, known as the flagship killer, ran the map and brushed the four blacks during the game. There was no hang up. It was obvious that the Snapdragon 870 was a little bit laborious. , the whole process maintained 60 frames, the average frame rate was 53, but the temperature of the fuselage increased, rising to 39.9, and the highest temperature was 44.2.
– “Glory of the King”
Enable full HD (90fps) supported by Black Shark 4S
game fps
The MOBA mobile game “Honor of Kings” is even more convenient. The Black Shark 4S maintains 90 frames during the whole game process, and the slight fluctuation is caused by the game loading.
–“call-of-duty”
Enable full HD (90fps) supported by Black Shark 4S
game fps
“Call of Duty” is a fast-paced first-person shooter game. The game quality needs to be loaded in real time. However, there is only one picture in a game. Most tasks of the GPU only need to load character animation, so the frame rate is also very stable. , a large frame drop belongs to the loading process at the end of a game.
– “Crossing the Fire”
Enable full HD (120fps) supported by Black Shark 4S
game fps
Black Shark 4S supports 120 frames for some games. For example, “Cross Fire” can turn on ultra-high frame rate. The picture is really silky and smooth, it feels like a brand new game, and the basic whole process is 120 frames.
——”QQ Speed”
Enable full HD (120fps) supported by Black Shark 4S
game fps
Black Shark 4S is also adapted to the 120 frames of “QQ Speed”. This kind of racing game is even more stress-free, but the end of a game is too fast, which causes the frame to drop due to screen switching, thus affecting the average frame rate. In fact, Maintaining 120 frames throughout the entire process is not a problem at all.
Fourth, battery life and charging
Battery life is a pain point for gaming phones. The battery capacity of the Black Shark 4S is 4500mAh, which is not too big. It belongs to the conventional level. Don’t be confused. Weigh the 210g weight of the fuselage to understand why it can’t have a larger battery. Fortunately, the whole system supports it. With a 120W wired fast charge, it can be resurrected with full blood in ten minutes, and there is not much to say about the battery life.
As usual, this time, I will continue to use the AnTuTu stress test function for super power consumption test.
Stress test is a built-in function of AnTuTu Review. It tests the stability of device performance by performing high-load operations. It requires a lot of calculations by the CPU, so the power consumption is larger than that of video and daily use.
Test conditions: no SIM card inserted, the device is connected to Wi-Fi, the positioning is turned on, the battery is fully charged, the screen brightness is adjusted to the highest, and all background services are turned off. Open the AnTuTu stress test, test continuously, and record the remaining battery power of the device every 30 minutes.
In the super power consumption test, the Black Shark 4S equipped with Snapdragon 870 lasted for 170 minutes. For comparison, another realme GT Master Explorer Edition equipped with Snapdragon 870 tested not long ago was 180 minutes, both of which were 4500mAh. And considering the slightly larger screen of the Black Shark 4S, this battery life is a normal performance.
It should be noted that this result is obtained when the CPU is always fully loaded. Considering our daily use and screen time, this data must be converted into multiples, and it is concluded that the Black Shark 4S has more than 6 hours of continuous use. Time, pay attention to continuous use, not to turn off the screen every day, reply to messages, etc.
Next is the charging aspect, the Black Shark 4S supports 120W wired fast charging, let’s see how fast it is.
After the actual test, it took 16 minutes to charge the Black Shark 4S to 100%, of which 33% was charged in 3 minutes and 85% in 12 minutes, which is the normal speed of 100W fast charging, which can make people completely forget to charge at night, because It can be fully charged in the time of taking a shower in the morning, which relieves the anxiety of battery life to a certain extent.
5. Video photography
In terms of cameras, the Black Shark 4S has a rear-mounted 48-megapixel main camera (IMX582) + 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle + 5-megapixel macro lens, and the front is a familiar 20-megapixel selfie lens, which is generally quite satisfactory.
1. Daytime proofs
high-rise building
Roadside plants (main camera macro)
Roadside plants (main camera macro)
Super wide angle is not turned on
Turn on ultra wide angle
The 48-megapixel main camera is still enough, and some macro details are clearly visible, including the veins of the leaves. In fact, the IMX582 is completely sufficient for a well-lit environment. Combined with the camera algorithm, there is no problem in daily shooting.
2. Night proofs
Night view is not turned on
Turn on night view
Parameters not adjusted
lower brightness
The night scene algorithm of the Black Shark 4S is slightly violent, and the brightness is pulled very high. However, after the night scene mode is turned on, the highlights will be suppressed, and the default film is only focused on improving the brightness, which makes the light source discolored. You need to manually reduce the brightness to restore. But for a gaming phone, this quality is enough.
6. Summary
Let’s talk about the conclusion first, the Black Shark 4S is a qualified gaming phone, especially the introduction of the lifting shoulder keys and the dual-zone pressure on the screen, so that the gamer can also achieve six-finger operation. This plug-in game feature must be hand-operated. A great weapon for swimming, the core configuration is basically full. Compared with conventional models, the Black Shark 4S as a gaming phone fully fits its positioning.
Next, let’s talk about the significance of the Black Shark 4S. It is not for users who already own a Black Shark gaming phone, but for those who want to buy a phone to play games. This is also a small upgrade from many manufacturers. Meaning, after all, this upgrade will definitely not satisfy users who already hold the previous generation.
Then there is another tangled question. I already have the main phone. Do I need another mobile phone to play games? This is a personal need. If you happen to have a lot of money, then buying another gaming phone is definitely better. It can also separate entertainment and life, and taking the Black Shark 4S as an example, the game features are full, and it can be more comfortable to play games. Especially this time, the joint launch of the Gundam Limited Edition with Bandai is in the right direction.
After all, what makes us interested in buying game equipment is the fun of the game itself. Even if we eat ashes every day, in our spare time, the equipment will not cause the game to freeze or make mistakes. As the Black Shark 4S that carries the game, this is achieved. At one point, this is also the best destination I can think of for gaming phones. I think of a sentence when I write this, which is also in line with the concept I want to express, and it can also be used as an ending.
“I use my hands to achieve your dreams.”
