[Review] Black Shark 4 Pro – Gaming Phone With Mechanical Triggers

If you use your mobile phone to play lots of hardware demanding mobile games like Genshin Impact and PUBG, here is the perfect gaming phone for you at a reasonable price – the new Black Shark 4 Pro.

One of the most innovative features of the Black Shark 4 Pro is a pair of magnetic pop-up triggers at the side of the body. By gently flicking two side-mounted buttons, the magnetic pop-up triggers will appear, giving you responsive and satisfying tactile control for your gaming needs. With these triggers, there is no need to purchase gaming controller conversion devices like Gamevice for a better gaming experience on your mobile.

The triggers can also be used for other functions such as turning on and off the flashlight, freeing up RAM, recording audio, taking screenshots, screen recording and more. We love how seamlessly easy it was to operate and release the two triggers. However, this also resulted in one drawback – the buttoms are a tad too sensitive and the lower trigger gets accidentally activated easily when you pull your phone out of your pocket.

Performance-wise, fast charging and long battery life are a given for any gaming phone worth its salt. The Black Shark 4 Pro comes with a 120W HyperCharge that can go from 0% to 100% within 15 minutes or 0% to 50% in 5 minutes and is powered by Xiaomi’s brand new double-cell eSports battery technology with a super-capacity 4500mAh battery.

For audio, the phone features DTS Ultra X surround sound technology certification and is ranked number one for its audio quality by DXOMARK among smart phones in similar ranges.

For display, the Black Shark 4 Pro comes with a 6.67-inch AMOLED display, with 2.76mm ultra small punch hole, 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and MEMC motion compensation. These features are great for enjoying your favourite Netflix shows too.

Specifically for gaming, the phone has a high screen refresh rate of up to 144Hz and a multi-finger touch sampling rate of 720Hz, with response time as low as 8.3ms to give you a silky smooth gaming experience.

The Black Shark 4 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G processor with a JoyUI Android 11 operating system.

For the phone camera features, it comes with a triple camera setup at the rear, with a 64MP main camera, 8MP ultra-wide, and a 5MP macro. You can get some pretty decent basic shots with the Black Shark 4 Pro. Not the best, but do remember this phone is built with gaming in mind first.

Here are some test shots taken with the rear camera:

Design-wise, the haptics, starting from the mechanic triggers to the fingerprint sensor at the side that doubles as a power button, are all absolutely fantastic. I really dig the side fingerprint sensor because of the need to wear masks all the time due to covid, making it very troublesome to unlock your phone with your face ID. The physical biometric sensor over the in-display, ultrasonic ones is also way more sensitive and intuitive, making it a breeze to unlock your phone.

The technical details aside, the Black Shark 4 Pro comes loaded with a proprietary Shark Space app and an anime digital assistant, Shark Chan. The former allows you to go into gaming mode for uninterrupted gameplay and optimises your hardware while the latter is the equivalent of your Siri on iPhones, but with more anime characterisation.

I really like the rear design of the phone. The hexagonal rear camera unit looks sharp and there is a triangular LED indicator beneath it which is used to signal incoming calls, notifications and other prompts. Black Shark allows your to customise the colour, pacing and behaviour of the LED in the settings. These features are more for aesthetic than functional, but they up the cool factor of the Black Shark 4 Pro as a gaming phone.

For the hardcore mobile gamers, you can also purchase a Black Shark Magnetic Cooler add-on to prevent your phone from overheating during long hours of extreme gameplay.

The cooler weighs 73g and is well-designed to look like an object from a sci-fi movie. You attach it to the back of your Black Shark 4 Pro phone with a piece of an adhesive magnetic sheet which you can then stick the cooler on and off easily.

Availability and Pricing

The Black Shark 4 Pro is now available at Black Shark’s Lazada and Shopee store for S$999. It comes in only a single 12GB+256GB configuration, and though it comes in two colours, Shadow Black and Misty Grey, it is only available in the latter at the moment. Each purchase of the phone comes with a free Black Shark magnetic cooler that’s worth S$79.

Technical Specifications

Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G
Display	6.67-inch AMOLED, 2400×1080 pixels, 144Hz refresh rate
RAM/Storage	8GB/128GB or 12GB/256GB
Cameras	64MP main camera, 8MP ultra-wide, 5MP macro, and 20MP front-facing camera
Battery	4,500mAh with 120W fast charging
Connectivity	3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C, Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 802.11ac
Colors	Shadow Black, Misty Grey, Cosmos Black
Operating System	JoyUI on Android 11