According to a post from the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, a sequel to the high-powered gaming phone backed by Xiaomi, the Black Shark, could surface from the water in a few months. As reported by other sites, Black Shark product director Wang Teng Thomas said that he had seen the new gaming phone up close and it looked “full of personality, very cool.”
If you’re not familiar with the Black Shark, the gaming-focused smartphone launched in China in April of last year, eventually coming to the United Kingdom and Europe by the end of the year. We took it for a spin and enjoyed our time with it, praising the power it packed into a stylish body, the gamepad, and the low price — but unfortunately, some woeful software meant we couldn’t include it in our list of the best gaming phones.
Still, Black Shark has the chance to right some of those wrongs with a follow-up phone, and the signs are that such a thing — the Black Shark 2 — is indeed in the works, and might be released in China in April, matching the release schedule of the first phone. While release schedules elsewhere aren’t confirmed, we would expect to see the Black Shark 2 come to the U.K. and Europe again — and might even hope for a release in the United States this time around.
Like the first phone, we would expect the Black Shark 2 to come with some top-level hardware. The first phone was equipped with the Snapdragon 845 and at least 6GB of RAM, and that enabled some serious gaming power. The Black Shark 2 looks set to follow that tradition, packing the highly anticipated Snapdragon 855 and at least 8GB of RAM. An update to Android 9.0 Pie is also expected.
One of the biggest draws of the Black Shark was its price-to-power ratio. Despite being equipped with the very latest and most powerful hardware, the Black Shark could be found at a mere 390 British pounds (about $500) in certain British retailers. We expect the Black Shark 2 would follow this same tradition.
Unfortunately, we don’t know much else about the updated Black Shark, other than the fact it looks “very cool,” and some hypothesized specifications. No doubt we’ll see more of this phone as we get further into 2019, and we’ll keep you up to date with the latest as it occurs.
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