The upcoming Black Shark 2 gaming smartphone has apparently been tested under Geekbench and the process revealed a handful of hardware characteristics. The device identified as “blackshark AAA” in the online benchmark’s database has 12GB of RAM, and the “msmnile” motherboard indicates that the unit employs the Snapdragon 855 chipset from Qualcomm.
Xiaomi’s mobile gaming-oriented sub-brand launched the original Black Shark smartphone last year in April, so the device is effectively reaching its one-year anniversary, which means that a direct sequel might be closing in for a market release in the next couple of months.
The original Black Shark was equipped with a Snapdragon 845 chipset from Qualcomm, coupled with 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of built-in memory. According to the information found in Geekbench, the Black Shark 2 will aim to once again adopt the most powerful Android chipset solution presently available, i.e., the Snapdragon 855, and effectively double the amount of RAM employed by the base Black Shark variant launched last year.
The idea of a second-generation Black Shark model is not new. In fact, the device appeared to have been certified by TENAA as early as last September, when its alleged exterior design was revealed in a couple of pictures.
At this particular time, it’s unclear whether the actual Black Shark 2 set to launch this year will look anything like the model seen in September. It’s been more than five months since that variant was certified and for all we know, it may have been completely redesigned in the meantime.
The Black Shark 2 is known to exist in one form or another, as confirmed last month by Xiaomi’s co-founder Lei Jun through a post on the Chinese social network Weibo. There, he posted a teaser image that didn’t reveal much about the phone itself, but he seemingly asked fans of the original model to share their expectations and suggestions for the sequel so he can pass them along to the Black Shark development team.
Much like the original model, the Black Shark 2 is expected to be a gaming smartphone, which can mean a number of things. For starters, it should adopt high-end hardware components and the benchmark at hand seems to confirm this. Then, it will likely be pre-loaded with gaming-oriented software features such as a custom game launcher that promises to optimize performance.
Last but not least, it might boast an advanced internal cooling system to prevent performance degradation and throttling, and all of these characteristics are likely to be reflected by a colorful exterior design that may or may not employ LED stripes.
Xiaomi’s sub-brand is not the only one to have developed so-called gaming smartphone over the last year, and with the emerging 5G era, this could become a more prominent, or maybe a less volatile market segment.
ASUS launched the ROG Phone last year, ZTE’s sub-brand Nubia just recently introduced the Red Magic Mars in the West, and last year Razer launched its second generation gaming phone, yet the future of the company’s mobile platform is uncertain following recent rumors of the Razer Phone 3’s cancellation.