Μjust six months after the debut of the first Black Shark gaming phone, Xiaomi returns today with a new model called Black Shark Helo, which brings some major upgrades to the table.
Unlike the original Black Shark, which was officially released only in Xiaomi's hometown, China, the new model has a high chance of being released in other markets around the world.
While Xiaomi seems to retain much of the original Black Shark design, there are some subtle differences that make it stand out. First of all, the Black Shark Helo is still a non-notch device, with a screen resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels and a diagonal of 6 inches, but it has replaced the LCD screen with an OLED, so we should expect a deeper black color, more accent colors and save energy when viewing dark content. The Black Shark Helo has also changed the position of the fingerprint scanner, which was moved from the home button on the previous model to the back of the device. In addition, there has been a change from a gamepad that had the first to two gamepads, one for each side of the device.
While the device doesn't have the 90Hz or 120Hz display of Razer and ASUS respectively, it does have a similar glowing RGB logo on the back with AI lighting that changes depending on the game. Similar to Poco Xiaomi's subsidiary F1, the Black Shark Helo comes with a dual pipe vapor cooling system to keep the device temperature low during long gaming sessions. It lacks a headphone jack, has stereo front-facing speakers, a hardware performance key, and a customizable LED light strip on the side.
Regardless of the design, most of the improvements come in the internal features of the gaming phone. The device is powered by the top Snapdragon 845 SoC combined with 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM and 10GB RAM + 256GB ROM memory options. It runs Android 8.1 Oreo, maintains the 4.000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 3 support, while there is a vertical layout (16MP + 20MP) dual camera on the back of the phone.
Xiaomi Black Shark Helo - Specifications
- 6.01-inch (2160 × 1080 pixels) Full HD + 18: 9 screen with 100% NTSC color gamut, 430 nits brightness
- 2.8GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 845 64-bit 10nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 630 GPU
- 6GB / 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB (UFS 2.1) storage / 10GB LPDDR4x RAM and 256GB (UFS 2.1) internal storage
- Android 8.1 (Oreo) with custom Joy UI
- Dual SIM (nano + nano)
- 12MP main rear camera with f / 1.75 aperture, 1.25µm pixel size, dual-tone LED flash, 20MP secondary rear camera with 1.0µm pixel size, f / 1.75 aperture
- 20MP front camera with 1.0µm pixel size, f / 2.2 aperture
- Fingerprint scanner
- Dual Smart PA, Hi-Fi Audio, Dual Front Speakers
- Two-stag SHARK key for high performance gaming mode
- Dimensions: 160 × 75,25 x 8,7 mm, Weight: 190 grams
- 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11ac dual-band (2 × 2 MU-MIMO), Bluetooth 5, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou, USB Type-C
- 4000mAh (typical) / 3900mAh (minimum) battery with Quick Charge 3.0 support
Xiaomi Black Shark Helo - Price and availability
The Xiaomi Black Shark Helo is immediately available for purchase in China, with no mention of availability or pricing for the rest of the world.
- 6GB RAM and 128GB storage at 3.199 yuan (~ $ 460, € 400)
- 8GB RAM and 128GB storage at 3.499 yuan (~ $ 505, € 440)
- 10GB RAM and 256GB storage at 4.199 yuan (~ $ 605, € 527)
