Black Shark 3, Black Shark 3 Pro Gaming Smartphones Launched

Black Shark has launched its highly anticipated Black Shark 3 gaming phone in China. Not just that, the company has also launched a Pro version of the device, as well as a bunch of accessories for a better gaming experience. Both devices are powered by the Snapdragon 865 SoC and have almost the same triple camera setup on the back. The Pro variant comes with dedicated gaming shoulder buttons but the non-Pro variant does not. The Black Shark 3 is available in Armor Grey, Lightning Black, and Star Silver while the Black Shark 3 Pro comes in Armor Grey and Phantom Black.

Black Shark 3 and 3 Pro price and availability

The Black Shark 3 is up for pre-orders and will go on sale on March 6. According to the company’s Weibo post, the 8GB + 128GB variant of the Black Shark 3 is priced at CNY 3,499 (roughly Rs. 36,800), the 12GB + 128GB goes for CNY 3,799 (roughly Rs. 39,900), and the 12GB + 256GB variant costs CNY 3,999 (roughly Rs. 42,000).

The Black Shark 3 Pro is currently up for reservation with pre-sale starting on March 10. The 8GB + 256GB model is priced at CNY 4,699 (roughly Rs. 49,400) and the 12GB + 256GB model is priced at CNY 4,999 (roughly Rs. 52,600).

Both the Black Shark 3 and the Black Shark 3 Pro is currently only available in China with no information on availability in foreign markets.

Coming to the accessories, there are aplenty. The clip on cooling fan is priced at CNY 179 (roughly Rs. 1,890). Black Shark says that the cooling fan can bring down temperatures by 14 degrees Celsius in just one minute. The Black Shark Gamepad 3.0 is priced at CNY 199 (roughly Rs. 2,100) and the magnetic charging connector is priced at CNY 79 (roughly Rs. 830). Along with these, there are earphones, both wired and wireless, and a variety of cases as well.

Black Shark 3 specifications

The dual-SIM (Nano) Back Shark 3 runs Android 10 with the company’s JOYUI skin atop. It has a 6.67-inch AMOLED display (1080 x 2400) with an aspect ratio of 20:9 and a pixel density of 394ppi. According to Black Shark’s website, the display covers 105 percent of DCI-P3 colour gamut and a peak brightness if 500 nits. The display has a 90Hz refresh rate and a 270Hz touch sampling rate. It is powered by the octa-core Snapdragon 865 SoC clocked up to 2.84GHz. The graphics are handled by the Adreno 650 GPU. The Black Shark 3 comes in two RAM configurations, 8GB and 12GB, with the former being LPDDR4x dual channel and the latter being LPDDR5 dual channel.

Talking about the three cameras on the back of he Black Shark 3, the primary is a 64-megapixel sensor with an f/1.8 aperture. The secondary is a 13-megapixel sensor with an f/2.25 aperture while the third is a 5-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2. On the front is a 20-megapixel selfie shooter with f/2.2 aperture.

The Black Shark 3 has two storage variants, 128GB and 256GB, and both of them are faster UFS 3.0 based. The phone supports 5G, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax ), Bluetooth v5.0, and sports a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is a USB Type-C port for charging and an under display fingerprint scanner as well.

The Black Shark 3 has a 4,720mAh battery with support for 65W fast charging. The website mentions that the 8GB + 128GB variant of the phone comes with a 30W charger. There is also a magnetic charging connector on the back that is capable of 18W charging. It is 168.72×77.33×10.42mm in size with the thickest part being 10.8mm and weighs 222 grams.

Black Shark 3 Pro specifications

The Black Shark 3 Pro comes with a massive 7.1-inch AMOLED display (1440 x 3120) with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 as listed on the company’s website. This gives it a pixel density of 483ppi. It has the same peak brightness of 500 nits as the standard version, but only covers 97 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. The Black Shark 3 Pro also has a 90Hz refresh rate with a 270Hz touch sampling rate. It is powered by the same processor and GPU but has LPDDR5 dual channel memory and two variants, 8GB and 12GB.

The front and rear cameras on Black Shark 3 Pro are the same as the standard Black Shark 3 with the only difference being support for laser focus on the Pro variant. It comes in only one storage option which is 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. The device has the same connectivity options as the non-Pro variant.

The battery in the Black Shark 3 Pro is 5,000mAh and it comes with the 65W charger as standard. Talking about dimensions, the Pro is slightly larger than the non-Pro at 177.79×83.29×10.1mm with the thickest part being 10.48mm. It weighs the same as the non-Pro variant at 253 grams.

The Black Shark 3 Pro comes with dedicated gaming buttons on the right side of the phone while the non-Pro version does not. When put into landscape mode, these buttons are like shoulder buttons, common on most gamepads.

―Gadgets 360