What you need to know
- Xiaomi's latest gaming phone is a relatively small upgrade over the Black Shark 3 launched in March.
- It features a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display, Snapdragon 865 chipset, and a 4,720mAh battery with 65W fast charging.
- The Black Shark 3S will be available to purchase in China from August 4 for a starting price of 3,999 yuan ($573).
ASUS and Lenovo unveiled their latest and greatest gaming phones last week, featuring Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 865+ chipset. ZTE's Nubia sub-brand also launched a new gaming phone earlier this week, powered by the older Snapdragon 865 chipset. Xiaomi's answer to the latest gaming phones from its rivals is the Black Shark 3S, which comes with a few small upgrades over the Black Shark 3 launched earlier this year (via XDA Developers).
The Black Shark 3S has a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a higher 120Hz refresh rate and low latency of 17ms. Under the hood, however, the gaming phone features the same Snapdragon 865 chipset, paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB UFS 3.1 storage.
The triple-camera setup on the back of the phone includes a 64MP main sensor, a 13MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 5MP depth sensor. It also features a 20MP selfie camera and a 4,720mAh battery with 65W fast charging. A secondary magnetic port is included as well, which supports 18W fast charging. Some of the other key highlights include touch-sensitive shoulder buttons and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the software side of things, the Black Shark 3S runs Android 10 out of the box with the manufacturer's Joy UI 12 on top.
Xiaomi's Black Shark 3S will go on sale in China from August 4 in Skyfall Black and Crystal Blue colors. Prices start at 3,999 yuan ($573) for the base 12GB/128GB version and go up to 4,799 yuan ($688) for the 12GB/512GB version.
