The Black Shark 2 Review: A Gaming Phone's Existential Crisis

Over the last 1-2 years we’ve seen a new type of smartphone category start carving itself a niche in the market: the gaming smartphone. Last year, the original Black Shark was amongst the first devices to try to cater to a gaming audience, offering characteristic “gaming designs” as well as promising to offer software features to differentiate itself from the more usual smartphone offerings.

This year, Xiaomi has updated its Black Shark line and brand with the new Black Shark 2. The phone is very much a continuation of what we saw last year with the Black Shark, but offering the newest hardware innards and iterative improvements to the design and features.