Xiaomi Black Shark is official: here’s what’s up with Xiaomi’s first gaming phone

Xiaomi has launched its Black Shark gaming smartphone at an event in Beijing, China. The phone was developed in partnership with gaming product company Black Shark Technology, and follows shortly after the launch of the company’s first gaming laptop.

The Xiaomi Black Shark features a 6-inch, 2.5D, 2160 x 1080 resolution display, Snapdragon 845 chipset with Adreno 630 GPU, up to 8GB of RAM and up to 128GB storage. At this stage, it appears that previous rumors regarding the 120Hz display mode may have been inaccurate.

It comes with a dual 12MP + 20MP rear-camera setup with f/1.75 aperture and 6P lenses, plus dual-tone LED Flash. Phase-detection autofocus, 4K capture, HDR, and Portrait Mode are also included, along with something Xiaomi calls “dark light enhancement technology.” The front camera arrives at 20MP with an f/2.2 aperture and 5P lens.

There’s a fingerprint scanner on the front, a 4,000 mAh battery inside (with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 and USB Type-C connectivity), and it’s running Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box — but it looks like it’s lacking a headphone port.

Additionally, the Black Shark also supports a one-sided, “plug-and-play” gamepad that attaches to the device (above). This has an internal 340mAh battery, said to be good for around 30 hours of gaming on a single charge, and supports Bluetooth.

The phone itself has an integrated liquid cooling system to avoid overheating during long gaming sessions, and houses a dedicated “Shark key” (presumably that’s the green button on the edge of the device) that can be pressed to enter a high-performance gaming mode. We don’t know much about this just yet but we should learn more in the coming days.

As for the dimensions, the handset comes in at 161.6 x 75.4 x 5.1mm-9.25mm and weighs 190 grams (so it’s on the heavier side of Android phones).

The Xiaomi Black Shark price begins at 2999 Yuan (~$479) for the 6GB RAM / 64GB internal storage model, and costs 3499 Yuan (around $559) for the 8GB RAM / 128GB version. The controller can be picked up separately for 179 Yuan (~$29).

The handset will go on sale in China in two colors, Polar Night and Sky Gray, but wider availability details aren’t yet known. We’ve reached out to Xiaomi for more information and will update this page when we learn more.