The Black Shark 2 Review: A Gaming Phone's Existential Crisis
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 25, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Xiaomi
- Snapdragon 855
- Black Shark 2
GPU Performance
GPU performance is arguably one of the most important aspects of a gaming phone, as you’re expected it to be optimised for such tasks. Gaming phones are usually a lot bulkier than regular designs, and this should enable the phone to have a larger thermal envelope helping dissipate heat off from the SoC.
My usual testing methodology is that I’m using customised versions of the benchmark applications – we work closely with the benchmark vendors and have access to non-public tools. Unfortunately one main reason of doing things this way is that in the past we’ve seen smartphone vendors detect the public variants of these benchmarks and enter in a special mode that would increase performance or disable thermal throttling mechanisms in order to artificially increase the reported benchmark numbers.
Unfortunately, the Black Shark 2 is one of these cheating devices. When using the public version of the given benchmarks, the phone detects this and disables thermal throttling. The problem with this is that seemingly the Black Shark 2 is very ill equipped with actually handling the high power dissipation of the SoC at peak performance. I saw device skin temperatures rise to a peak of 58°C before I decided to call it quits and stop the app – the phone had gotten so hot I couldn’t comfortably hold it anymore.
When using a customised version of the benchmarks, the phone would correctly thermal throttle and peak skin temperatures wouldn’t exceed ~43°C, which is more or less the standard maximum operating temperatures we’ve seen of smartphones over the years.
Unfortunately, this behaviour is not a first from Xiaomi. In the past I’ve encountered the same problem with the MIX 2S and actually also the first generation Black Shark. We never wrote up a review for the Black Shark, but the fact that this behaviour continues is just shameful of Xiaomi – especially given the non-cheating sustained performance scores of the Black Shark 2 which we’ll address now.
In the 3DMark Physics test which is more CPU bound, we see the Black Shark 2 perform quite oddly. It’s the only Snapdragon 855 device that has a significantly below-the-norm peak performance in this test, clearly much below that of other phones.
The sustained performance is more or less in line with other S855 phones, at least the ones which have more considerable thermal throttling behaviours.
In the graphics benchmark, we see the Black Shark 2 suffer from a considerable performance drop, lowering to 57% of its peak performance, significantly lower than any other S855 phone.
This meagre performance showcase continues on through all the GFXBench workloads, with the Black Shark 2 clearly ending up significantly slower than other Snapdragon 855 phones.
I included the original Black Shark scores into the data in order to showcase just how little the phone has improved over last year’s device.
I have a bit of a dilemma here; on one hand I should be praising the Black Shark 2 for maintaining reasonable device temperatures; this generations we’ve seen some phones such as the OnePlus 7 Pro and the OPPO Reno 10x not thermal throttle at all but also reaching peak skin temperatures in excess of 53°C. I haven’t found evidence of cheating on those phones, and I do hope they’re legitimate and they don’t simply have a more sophisticated detection mechanism.
On the other hand, this is a gaming orianted phone, and its sustained gaming performance is simply the worst of any flagship phone in 2019. We’ve seen significantly better results from other devices, and even Xiaomi’s own Mi9 performs better than the Black Shark 2. The only explanation I have here is that the phone’s hardware and thermal design just isn’t any good. The original Black Shark was also quite a massive disappointment in its sustained performance scores, and the BS2 simply didn’t improve the situation much at all.
If you’re considering the Black Shark 2 because of expectations of better gaming performance, then this phone is not for you, and you can as well just stop reading the review right here.
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eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Thanks Andrei, also and especially for calling a (now major) manufacturer -Xiaomi- out for having benchmark cheating built into their software! The hardware side is just as bad - why all style, no substance? The aluminum case almost screams for use as a heat sink, especially now that phones are all closed up.Regarding gaming phones: will you have a chance to test the ASUS ROG2? Might tell us if all these "gaming" phones are all smoke and mirrors. The ROG 2 is even more expensive, so it'd better be spectacular.
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
We'll have a ROG2 review out next week.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Andrei, please be sure to dig into Mate30P's slo-mo with detail, now that the 1-to-4 frame interpolation is confirmed, I'm not the only one suspecting that the 720P is also interpolated from an inferior readout that skips even more lines!isthisavailable - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
The Rog phone 2's size and weight look huge. Can you please include it's everyday usability in your review? I'm tempted to buy but 77cm wide and 9mm thicc phone looks a bit too much. And 240g weight!brucethemoose - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I can tell you the Razer Phone 2 is the real deal. Performance is fine, but holy heck, the screen! Im not even a phone gamer, but 120hz is like night and day, and you couldn't pay me to go back to a phone with a 60hz display.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
What do you think of 240Hz then? A phone with that was just released by Sharp.Mediocre phone by other metrics though.
brucethemoose - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Its probably pretty similar, as Razer uses the same Sharp LCD line those Aquos phones use.But on 120hz vs 240hz specifically... I don't know? I've never even laid eyes on 240hz anything. I'd guess that you need more tightly integrated VRR support from base Android and something faster than an LCD to really make use of it, but what do I know?
Also, for a $400 phone, the RP2 is suprisingly good by other metrics. Its not perfect (no 3.5mm, no OLED, 845 instead of 855), but I don't feel like I traded much off to get 120hz.
hemedans - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
RoG 2 is around $500 base model with 128GB/8GB memory, probably best Gaming phone for now, waiting for Review too.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I thought that was the Chinese "Tencent special edition" price, yet I checked and at least India gets the same price...it seems US customers get ripped off...or is only the top tier available there?$500 sounds good but 128GB really doesn't last.
Tams80 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Well, the Tencent thing is a deal between ASUS and Tencent (I'm guessing mainly subsidised by Tencent). I'm guessing India is a mix of a deal with some company and lower variation due to India having lower household incomes.