Black Shark 2 Pro edition gets Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC, UFS 3.0 storage

The Black Shark 2 Pro gets minor, but crucial design and hardware upgrades over its predecessor. Let's take a look at what is new in the Pro edition

Chinese technology company Xiaomi-backed gaming smartphone brand Black Shark on July 31 announced the Black Shark 2 Pro edition. The smartphone is not a new launch, but an upgraded version of the Black Shark 2. The phone gets minor, but crucial design and hardware upgrades over its predecessor. Let’s take a look at what is new in the Black Shark 2 Pro edition:

The Black Shark 2 Pro is powered by Qualcomm’s recently announced gaming-centric Snapdragon 855+ system-on-chip. According to Qualcomm’s claims, this mobile processor delivers up to 15 per cent faster graphics rendering and 4 per cent uplift in CPU performance from the standard Snapdragon 855, which powers the Black Shark 2. The processor is mated with universal flash storage (UFS) 3.0 for faster transfer and read/write speeds. Powering the phone is a 4,000 mAh battery with 27W fast-charging support.

The phone gets a multi-layered liquid cooling system, which can reduce the temperature of the core CPU by 14-degree – according to company’s claim. The company also claimed to have reduced the touch latency down to 34.7ms, compared to 43.5ms on the Black Shark 2. As part of updates, the phone gets the Master Touch 2.0, which allows gamers to press firmly on both (left and right) customised touch zones to trigger multiple on-screen actions with just two thumbs. The size of both touch zones and the pressure sensing value can be personally adjusted by each user.

Other than the above mentioned upgrades, the phone is identical to the Black Shark 2. It has a 6.39-inch AMOLED screen of fullHD+ resolution with in-display fingerprint sensor. It has front facing stereo speakers. Imaging is covered by a 48-megapixel primary sensor of f/1.75 aperture on the back paired with a 12MP telephoto lens of f/2.2 aperture. The front camera has a 20MP sensor of f/2.0 aperture. The phone boots a slightly customised Android 9 Pie operating system.

The Black Shark 2 Pro is currently limited to China. It comes in black, silver, blue, orange and purple colours. The phone comes in 128GB and 256GB storage variants, priced at CNY 2,999 and CNY 3,499, respectively. Both the storage variants get 12 GB of RAM.