Xiaomi’s sub-brand Black Shark has finally unveiled the Black Shark 3S in China. The device comes with an upgraded 120Hz refresh rate and faster charging. More importantly, Black Shark in partnership with Tencent has made some big improvements in terms of features.
The new Black Shark 3S design is similar to its predecessor and has a 6.67-inch notch-less AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It has a 17ms touch response and a 270Hz touch sampling rate. Moreover, it retains much of the design aesthetics of its predecessor.
Black Shark 3S specifications
It has a MEMC 3.0 module to upscale lower-refresh rate content and offers better image compensation. It also has DC dimming, Quadruple eye protection, E3 luminescent material. Also, it is HDR10 certified and has ΔE<1 and JNCD<0.55. This represents great colour accuracy on the display.
Under the hood, the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 5G SoC is retained. This is paired with LPDDR5 RAM. However, the storage is now upgraded to UFS 3.1 compared to the UFS 3.0 on the Black Shark 3 Pro.
As for the optics, it has a triple-camera layout similar to the 3 Pro and comes with a 64MP main shooter, 13MP ultra-wide and a 5MP depth sensor. While the selfies can be taken with a 20MP sensor.
Gaming-centric features
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Other features include an in-house engine for gaming, Tencent’s partnership resulting in Tencent Solarcore, and sandwich liquid cooling system for better gaming. It already supports 120Hz on 13 games including QQ Speed, Dungeon and Warrior Mobile Games, Ace Warrior, Under One Man, Dragon Fantasy, Running Kart, New Swordsman and more.
Lastly, the company says the USB 3.0 type-c port can be used for screen-mirroring and connected to bigger displays. There are shoulder buttons on the sides and Joy UI supports features like 3D sound, hunting mode, in-game notifications, Black Shark moment 3.0 and more.
All this is backed up by a 4,720mAh battery with support for 65W fast charging via Type-C and 18W magnetic charging via external contact. The new Black Shark 3s runs on upgraded Joy UI 12 based on Android 10.
Price and availability
Coming in Skyfall Black and Crystal Blue colours, the Black Shark 3S is available in a single 12GB RAM option. However, you do get 128/256/512GB storage choices. It is priced at CNY3999 ($573) for the 12/128GB, CNY4299 ($616) for 12/256GB and CNY4799 ($687) for 12/512GB storage.
The device is already up for pre-orders on Jingdong, Black Shark Mall and Xiaomi Mall. It will be available for sale from 10 AM Chinese time on August 4th with offers like 300 yuan cashback and 12-month interest-free periods (EMI).