Black Shark 5 is now official in the Chinese market, and this is the successor to last year’s Black Shark 4/4S. This is the most affordable phone under the new Black Shark 5 series, and this series includes two more phones – 5 RS and 5 Pro. The Black Shark 5 gets the same SOC as last year’s Black Shark 4/4S, the same display, and the same charging speed. In terms of upgrades, there is a slightly bigger battery, an upgraded camera setup, and a different design.
Speaking of the design, Black Shark 4 RS comes with a quite unique looking camera module, so looking at it, it looks like not one but two camera modules with one inside the other. There are three cameras on the rear. There is branding all over the back, so we have a huge “Black Shark” text on the bottom right corner, the Black Shark logo on the bottom left, and “Designed by Black Shark” text on the top right in case you miss the branding on the bottom part.
There are pop-up mechanical shoulder triggers on the side, along with a fingerprint scanner/power button. The headphone jack sits on the bottom, and there is a stereo speaker setup.
As for the specs, Black Shark 5 has a 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED with an FHD+ resolution and 1300 nits peak brightness. This is the same panel as some previous Redmi and Black Shark phones, so nothing much to talk about here. The same is the case for performance since Black Shark 5 has Snapdragon 870, the same chip that powered Black Shark 4 and 4S last year. There is LPDDR5 (5500Mbps) RAM and UFS 3.1 storage.
The battery size is slightly larger this time at 4650mAh (compared to 4,500mAh), but the charging speed remains the same at 120W. In terms of cameras, there is a triple camera setup on the rear that includes a primary camera with a 64MP sensor and an f/1.79 aperture lens. There is a 13MP sensor for ultrawide shots and a 2MP macro camera. There is support for 4K 60fps video recording as well. For selfies, Black Shark 5 has a 16MP sensor.
Black Shark 5 comes in three colors and here is the pricing –
- 8GB + 128GB – ¥2799 (~$440)
- 12GB + 128GB – ¥2999 (~$472)
- 12GB + 256GB – ¥3299 (~$519)
The Black Shark 4 and 4 Pro launched globally last year, so we are expecting the same to be the case with the new Black Shark 5.