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I've been using it for like five years. So I made a video about this phone a really long time ago
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at the beginning of the gaming smartphone trend. Smartphones designed specifically for gamers
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with gamer features. LEDs, special colors, aggressive styling. So I made a video about this, it's called the Black Shark
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It was one of the first ones that came to my attention, but at the time wasn't available for me to get a hands-on with
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I have it in front of me now, they finally sent it. Okay, so this is it
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Ooh, yes, very aggressive, very gamer-ish. The whole thing is a metal body, grippy as well
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This has a rubberized kind of grip to it on top of the metallic finish
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I kind of don't mind the design. Yes, it's gamer-ish, but not too over the top
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Oh, the game controller is in here. A case, so it leaves the back open
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an improvement in cooling, I'm guessing. That's interesting. So it doesn't change the look of the device very much
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It's sort of like a bumper. That's the controller. So you get a joystick, shoulder buttons, tons of grip
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Looks like it charges over USB type C. Oh, good call, Will
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Case first, then. Look at willy-do over there, huh? Just, do I have this the right way, Will
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or does it go like this? Probably like that. Oh yeah, that locked. That a nice looking little gaming device Definitely better than just the phone on its own Now you still have access to your cameras on the back as well as all your other switches No headphone jack type C to
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mini jack. It feels very high quality. No plastic in sight. The whole thing is metal. The fingerprint
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scanner, because it's not on the back, is on the front here. It's a Snapdragon 845. 8 gigs of RAM
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4000 mAh battery. It's kind of like a Pocophone, but gaming. 12 plus 20 megapixel camera setup there on the back
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Front facing camera here is 20 megapixels. So we have a dual SIM card tray
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Ooh, it's already set up. And has PUBG already on it. Comes in either 128 gigs of storage or 64
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Starting around 480 bucks US. Another thing I'm noticing is the skin looks pretty stock on here
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on here very stock oh my goodness very stock you can probably tell immediately
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the bezels here are not very small by today's standards you got a big forehead
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a big chin the unit that ships to you may have some version some sort of a
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skin on it so just be aware of that so the display is 1080 by 2160
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that's kind of cool so it must be little individual LEDs you have audio coming firing out of the
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bottom as well as the earpiece region well done Jesse James on that one but
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also the speakers on this are nice and crystal-y I feel like I should just pop
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that song up on my poker phone because it can it definitely doesn sound that good they thought about the audio There is some audio kicking out of this
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Of course they had to think about it though. How are you going to call it a gaming phone and not think about the audio
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Oh, Dave2D is about to be mad. Ooh. First impressions with the thumbstick
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Very responsive. and way better than grabbing onto the screen, for sure
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So they've mapped it right out of the gate. I mean, you just connect via Bluetooth to controller
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and you're pretty much up and running. It is as advertised. It feels more like a controller, obviously
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That's what we're going for, right? So, yes, this is cool. I'm a fan of this
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It's not going to immediately make you a pro star gamer, obviously
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but if you are interested in extended gaming sessions on a smartphone
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this is just going to make it so much comfier. This has one of those vapor cooling situations to keep the chipset cool
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while you're pressing it like you would via a video game. So this key on the side, it's called the shark key
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And when you click it, it'll say you have toggled the shark key to close all current applications and enter shark mode
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Oh man. Uninterrupted gaming. No notifications. No incoming calls. Featuring intelligent frequency and voltage regulation and RAM cleanup It just freed up some of my RAM specifically for the purpose of greater gaming performance
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That's cool. You can also see how much time you're spending playing games
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You have some statistics available to you. And then to go back to standard phone mode, you just switch the key back and you go straight in
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You've got a camera setup here. It looks very similar to what I've been working with on the Pocophone
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which is, of course, also a Xiaomi product. Pretty nice image. Not bad
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You already know I'm not a big fan of these portrait modes. But nonetheless, that's how it works
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You can see the focus fall off far more drastic than what the lens is capable of creating on its own
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It's acceptable. It's not the main focus of this phone. It's a special type of phone for a particular type of enthusiast
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If your smartphone is your main gaming device, you're going to start looking at devices like this, which are tuned up for that purpose
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And of course, in this case, even a special interface. Nonetheless, there it is, the Black Shark, the first of many gaming-specific smartphones
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that I'm sure we're going to see as manufacturers continue to attempt to differentiate their devices
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for different users, for different use case scenarios, and specifically the gaming market
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because it has become such a prominent place for gamers. There are so many new users, especially in emerging markets
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where this will be their de facto standard, possibly only gaming device
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And so it's cool to see these different implementations of how you can be gaming on a smartphone
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This is one of the best I've experienced
