Xiaomi Black Shark 2 Pro review: great value gaming phone – but pay for the additional controller accessory to make it feel like a Nintendo Switch
- The smartphone is shinier and faster than the 2018 Black Shark – and gaming feels on par with using a Nintendo Switch
- The stock Android 9 system, however, makes using the Black Shark 2 Pro as a regular smartphone harder than it should be
Xiaomi launched multiple sub-brands in 2018, the most interesting of which was perhaps the gaming-centric Black Shark.
Design and hardware
The Black Shark 2 Pro keeps the original’s glass and metallic vibe – its back is still crafted out of aluminium, with a series of grooves, patterns and LED lighting strips that glow during gameplay. The size of the screen has increased from 5.99 inches to 6.4 inches but, because of the slimming of top and bottom bezels, is about the same size and weight as the largest iPhone, and manageable by today’s standards.
The new phone was given the expected internal spec bump to Snapdragon 855+, and there are a couple of noteworthy hardware improvements over the original Black Shark.
The OLED screen has a touch report rate of 240Hz, which Xiaomi says results in the industry’s lowest touch latency rate of 34.7ms. You’d need to be a hard core fan of first-person shooters or fighting games to notice improvements during gameplay, but the phone does feel slightly zippier when navigating through regular smartphone stuff.