The niche of gaming smartphone is still somewhat nascent but that hasn't deterred the limited numbers of players from striving for improvement. With popular titles like Call of Duty and League of Legends getting versions for mobile, the category can easily be expected to skyrocket. Brands like Razer and ZTE's Nubia have released follow up to their gaming smartphones and another brand keeping up with the pace of development is Black Shark. The company released its first gaming smartphone in April last year along with a Bluetooth gamepad and besides the investment from Xiaomi, it borrows the virtue of selling high-powered devices at economical prices. The first Black Shark launch was followed by a mid-cycle iteration in the form of Black Shark Helo later on in the year and it came along with an improved set of Nintendo Switch-like controllers.

Black Shark 2 XDA Forums

Moving forth, the company released its second gaming phone – the Black Shark 2 – in China a couple of months ago. Unlike the previous predators, the Black Shark 2 also be making way to markets outside of China and its first stop is India. In a press event at New Delhi, the company announced the beast will be available in India starting at ₹39,999 with two variants - 6GB RAM along with 128GB storage and 12GB variant with 256GB of storage.

To refresh your memory, the ludicrous gaming smartphone comes with the industry-leading Snapdragon 855 chipset alongside quirks like an RGB-lit logo on the back and a few strips on the sides, vouching for the smartphone's gaming DNA.  The smartphone also comes with dual cameras on the back but that may not be the most selling aspect of the smartphone.

The launch of the Black Shark 2 spells troubles for performance-oriented smartphones like the OnePlus 7 series as well as the upcoming Redmi K20. However, Indian consumers usually look for a wholesome and replete package, so it will be interesting to see if they are swayed by this new trend of gaming smartphones.

The Black Shark 2 will be available in India exclusively via Flipkart starting June 4th for a price of ₹39,999 for the 6GB+128GB variant and ₹49,999 for the 12GB+256GB version.

Along with the smartphone, Black Shark announced a few accessories, including a USB-C to HDMI connector, a gamepad-shaped dock for the two controllers (similar to Nintendo Switch), USB-C headset, and a detachable cooling fan with different modes. The prices of these accessories were not revealed at the event but we expect to learn the same as soon the smartphone goes on sale.

Here are the first impressions of the Black Shark 2 our friends at Pocketnow had at the time of the China launch.

Category

Xiaomi Black Shark 2 Specs

Chipset

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

Display

6.39-inch AMOLED at 1080 x 2340 pixels, input latency of 43.5ms, pressure sensitive

RAM

6GB/8GB/12GB

Storage

128GB/256GB

Front Camera

20MP f/2.0

Rear Cameras

48MP f/1.75 + 12MP f/2.2

Cooling

Direct touch multilayer liquid cooling system

Battery

4,000mAh

Security

In-display fingerprint scanner

Pricing

  • 6/128GB – ₹39,999 / CNY 3,200
  • 12/256GB –₹49,999 / CNY 4,200

Availability

Available in China & India

This article has been updated to fix errors pointed out by readers.