Black Shark 3 series debuts as the world's first 5G gaming phone

Black Shark announced today its latest series of handsets that it claims to be the world's first 5G gaming smartphones. One of the key specs of the Black Shark 3 and 3 Pro is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865 chipset, as revealed by the chip-making company late last month when it unveiled the list of the first batch of smartphones to be powered by its latest flagship SoC.

The Black Shark 3 Pro sports a 7.1-inch AMOLED 2K Display with a resolution of 3,120 x 1,440, while the non-pro version has a 6.67-inch FullHD+ AMOLED display. As a gaming phone, the Black Shark 3 series features what the company calls the “Sandwich” liquid cooling system. It incorporates long-shaped cooling pipes into both sides of the main board to keep the phone's internals cool during heavy gameplay.

Both the Black Shark 3 and 3 Pro also pack a dual battery unit, claimed to be the industry's first. The dual battery system (4,720mAh for the standard variant and 5,000mAh for the Pro version) uses series charging for its 65W fast charging and parallel discharging for battery life stabilization and longevity. The company claims that both the phones' batteries take 12 minutes to reach 50% and 38 minutes to fully charge.

The devices also boast a triple camera setup comprising a 64MP main camera, a 13MP ultra-wide shooter, and a 5MP depth sensor. Other features include USF 3.0 and LPDDR 5 for faster data transfer, USB Type-C charging, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Pro's only difference from the regular version is its use of the gaming-centric Master Button, which is found on the shoulder side. The buttons can serve as a hot key and work for multiple games.

The Black Shark 3 and 3 Pro will be initially available in China from March 3 and March 10, respectively. The regular version is priced at ¥3,499 (~$502) for the 8GB/128GB configuration, ¥3,799 (~$545) for the 12GB/128GB, and ¥3,999 (~$574) for the 12GB/256GB variant. The Pro version will cost ¥4,699 (~$675) for the 8GB/256GB variant and ¥4,999 (~$718) for the 12GB/256GB configuration. The company also announced the Black Shark Bluetooth Earphones 2 (Black Shark Ophidian Gaming Earbuds), available from today. The international availability of these new phones will be revealed in the future.