The latest entry to Black Shark series of gaming smartphones, the Black Shark 3S, was launched in China a couple of days back. Surprisingly, although it does feature some upgrades in terms of hardware, the phone does not come equipped with a Snapdragon 865 Plus – unlike what was previously expected.
The Black Shark 3S still features a similar 6.67-inch AMOLED display as its siblings, but it now features a 120Hz refresh rate in addition to the 90Hz mode. Hardware-wise, the phone also features the same Snapdragon 865 chipset and is now paired with 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage of up to 512GB. In comparison, the Black Shark 3 and its Pro variant offers LPDDR4 support and UFS 3.0.
Another addition included with the Black Shark 3S is the brand’s latest JOYUI12 operating system, which is based on Android 10. On top of the various software improvements found in the new version, one exceptionally new screen mirroring feature that allows you to output the phone’s display over to your computer’s screen via USB-C. This mode will run at 60fps, has a latency of 40ms, and would also allow you to play your games with a mouse and keyboard.
Apart from that, everything else – including the camera setup – is pretty much the same as the ones found on the regular and Pro version of the Black Shark 3. And like the non-Pro variant, the 3S lacks the mechanical shoulder buttons or air triggers. But hey, at least the headphone jack is still available.
The new Black Shark 3S model will be available in two colour options – Skyfall Black and Crystal Blue – and will go on sale in China starting 4 August 2020. The device is priced at CNY3,999 (~RM2,425) for the 12GB/128GB, CNY4,299 (~RM2,606) for the 12GB/256GB, and CNY4,799 (~RM2,910) for the 12GB/512GB configuration. No word on a Malaysian release at this time.
(Source: Black Shark [China] / XDA)
