In March this year, Black Shark launched two gaming phones named Black Shark 3 & Black Shark 3 Pro, both of which featured the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SOC & a 90Hz OLED panel. Today, we got the Black Shark 3S, and while it seems like Black Shark’s reply to the likes of ROG Phone 3, Legion Duel & Red Magic 5S, that isn’t the case.
We were expecting the phone to launch with the new Snapdragon 865+ SOC, but for some reason, Black Shark decided to stick with the same Snapdragon 865, which powered the Black Shark 3 & 3 Pro.
BLACK SHARK 3S – DESIGN & SPECIFICATIONS
Compared to Black Shark 3, there is no change in the design as it is exactly the same. The cooling mechanism remains the same as well, i.e., “Sandwich” Liquid cooling.
So, what’s new? Well, the biggest upgrade comes in the display department. While the Black Shark 3 & 3 Pro launched with a 90Hz AMOLED panel, the Black Shark 3S has a 120Hz AMOLED display with Full-HD+ resolution & there is an independent image processing chip. The touch-sampling rate remains 270Hz.
As mentioned in the title, the SOC is Snapdragon 865 & not the newer 865+. But, one upgrade is that the storage is now UFS 3.1 compared to UFS 3.0 on the Black Shark 3 & 3 Pro.
There is no change in the cameras as well. So, the triple camera setup on the back includes a primary 64 Megapixel shooter, a secondary 13 Megapixel ultrawide lens, & a third 5 Megapixel depth sensor. There is a 20 Megapixel selfie camera.
The battery underneath is of the same size as that of Black Shark 3, i.e., 4,720mAh. Also, the charging speed remains the same at 65W.
BLACK SHARK 3S – PRICING & AVAILABILITY
The phone comes in two colors – Crystal Blue & Black. There are two storage options –
- 12GB (LPDDR5) RAM + 128GB (UFS 3.1) ROM – 3,999 Yuan ($573)
- 12GB (LPDDR5) RAM + 256GB (UFS 3.1) ROM – 4,299 Yuan ($616)
The phone will start shipping in China from August 4th. There is also a 512GB variant, but that will be available later.