In March 2021, the Black Shark 4 series was officially released, when the Black Shark 4 Pro was equipped with Snapdragon 888, the main game experience approaching the limit, while the Black Shark 4 positioning was slightly lower, with Snapdragon 870 playing an excellent cost-effective card, the two products can be said to have their own characteristics, covering the different needs of the game mobile phone market.
▲ Black Shark 4 series
The previous generation was so good that we fell into deep thinking the first time we saw the Black Shark 5: What is this upgrade?
Not to mention, as a game phone, Black Shark 5 is really not much different from the 4th generation in the most core performance configuration, the same Snapdragon 870 mobile platform, the same LPDDR5 memory and UFS 3.1 flash memory, which makes it difficult for me to firmly say "Black Shark 5 has made a huge upgrade in configuration this time" after seeing the parameter table - however, its experience is really good, and even many highlights are very amazing.
A more "everyday" look, as well as a customized version of China Aerospace
Continuing the design ideas of the previous generation, the Black Shark 5 looks more "everyday" in appearance, if you cover the only remaining camera module of some mech-style design, the back of this four-curved surface will make many friends think which is the new flagship back cover.
Of course, it actually put a lot of effort into the design of the back cover, in addition to the more basic black and white gray tricolor, Black Shark has also carried out in-depth cooperation with China Aerospace Shenzhou Media, bringing us a new "Chinese Aerospace Version". Among them, the Chinese aerospace version of Black Shark 4 uses a white background color on the back cover, and the intricate dotted lines intersect on it, creating elemental features that resemble the trajectory of aviation movement, and also echo the heat sink on the back cover.
In addition, they have also put a lot of effort into the color matching of the back cover, and there will be a strange colorful reflection under the illumination of the light, as well as the Doji RGB lamp located next to the image module and the four big characters of "China Aerospace" in the lower right corner of the fuselage, and the unique sense of technology and futurism will of course jump on the back cover.
It also put a little care on the bezel design, with the middle of the line to outline a thinner feel, while the dual magnetic powered solid shoulder keys and switches are still located on the left side of the fuselage, and a new U-shaped guide slot is added, so that fingers can find the position of the shoulder keys faster. Of course, even if there is such a specially made fine design, its thickness is still not thin, and the cancellation of the 3.5mm interface is regrettable.
Same as the 870, but the gameplay experience is completely flagship
Let's talk more about its performance. After all, it is the Snapdragon 870 that everyone is already very familiar with, and we are also curious about whether it is different after getting it, and we have carried out a rabbit running score for it, and the running scores are as follows:
The 710,000 is basically the same level as the mainstream Snapdragon 870 on the market, and it is not particularly prominent, which makes us curious about its actual performance in the game. In this regard, we also used the 120 frames of "Glory of the King" with large frame rate fluctuations and the "Original God" with a relatively high load to test it.
Frankly, this test result is amazing to me, in "Glory of Kings", the frame rate of Black Shark 5 came to almost 119.1 frames near full frames, which was achieved without any external heat dissipation and room temperature of 26°C. Half an hour later, the temperature on the back of the phone has only risen to 35.1 °C, and the front is even lower, at 34.4 °C. Note that we still open the "roast chicken mode", if you play in the "balanced mode", it can still be stable at about 120 frames, heat and power consumption can be lower, which shows the strength of the Snapdragon 870 chip.
As for "Original God", due to the higher load, its performance is not so good, but the first half can still stabilize at a frame rate of about 60 frames, until the subsequent temperature rise and the game scene becomes more complex, there is a fluctuating situation, and finally the average frame rate is 52.7 frames - this performance is similar to many of this year's new flagships, and even has a certain advantage in the average performance, which is already quite an excellent level.
The first thing to talk about, of course, is its magnetodynamic solid shoulder button. Similar to the previous generation, it still provides a very rich mapping function, such as key mapping, macros, quick start, etc., with screen pressure, somatosensory and voice control, its control mode can be said to cover every need, is still the top level of the current game phone. As for anti-disturbance, performance monitoring, personalized configuration, bypass power supply, game data and game acceleration and other in-game function optimization, it is also very comprehensive, and there are small assistants such as "shark sauce", which will not be repeated here.
120W fast charge, familiar fast
Not surprisingly, this generation of Black Shark 5 is still equipped with a 120W set of fast charge, with a 4650mAh battery, more or less a little upgrade. We also tested its fast charge, and the measured results are as follows:
Starting from 1%, it takes up to 21 minutes to charge to 100%, which is more general for ultra-100 watts of fast charging; but if you look closely, you can see that it exceeds 90% at 15 minutes, and the next 10% takes nearly 6 minutes.
As for battery life, as a game phone, it actually performs well, and we have also simulated testing it. Judging from the test results, if it is playing a game, it can even adhere to the "Glory of the King" mode of more than 4 hours and 120 frames, and the daily use of daily use scenarios such as video playback and graphic browsing is not obvious, which can make people feel at ease about the battery life of the game.
The image was upgraded again and unexpectedly worked well
Although everyone knows that the camera of the game phone, "can scan the code on the line" is almost a consensus, but the Black Shark 5 or in the image has done a little upgrade, from 48 million pixels to 64 million, ultra-wide angle lens also upgraded to 13 million pixels, you want to say that with the camera phone than that obvious gap is still there, but it will not be a bad thing to be able to beat yourself.
Let's take a look at the real samples.
In the daytime scene, its imaging style will be more "plain", not too colorful, but the color is still restored, the overall imaging details are also in place, the 64 million pixel main camera still reached its due level, in this cloudy weather can also present the sky mixed clouds, in the game phone is a good level. The 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens is not bad, although the resolution will not be very prominent, but it is still possible to take a little scenery occasionally.
▲Wide-angle main shot daytime sample
▲ Ultra-wide angle lens daytime sample
Come to the night scene, the performance of the Black Shark 5 is also good, after a few seconds of handheld multi-frame exposure, the night scene screen is still clear enough, the highlight suppression is also done well, basically can restore the lighting environment, of course, the shadow details are still worse than the image flagship, but it is still that sentence: This is a good level in the game phone.
▲Wide angle main photography of the night scene sample
At the end of the review, let's take a look back at the Black Shark 5 that we initially thought was "old wine in a new bottle". Admittedly, it does use a lot of "old" configurations, but we are consumers after all, and if we look at such configurations and actual performance from the perspective of experience, it is indeed satisfactory. Coupled with the low price, if you choose it for the game experience, you will most likely be able to experience the "mellow" of this "old wine" Snapdragon 870.