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
Battery Life
The Black Shark 2 comes with a 3900/4000mAh battery, and given we’re not seeing any other particularly power hungry components in the phone, we should be expecting the phone to perform relatively well in terms of its battery life.
In the Web Browsing test, indeed we see the BS2 last quite long at 11.83h – among the better devices out there in the market and the second-best Snapdragon 855 device behind the Galaxy S10+. Samsung here still has an advantage due to a more efficient screen, even though it’s also higher resolution.
In PCMark, the BS2 also does quite well. The better efficiency here can be explained by the fact that the phone is slightly more conservatively tuned in terms of its performance, using the more efficient performance states more than more aggressively tuned phones.
Overall, battery life of the Black Shark 2 is very good and lands exactly where you’d expect it to.
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Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
You don't seem to understand, the gaming mode on the BS2 makes absolutely zero difference. It still throttles to the performance levels published here.As for the OPPO, that phone didn't throttle in either mode so I don't understand what you're on about. The performance mode it has is not like that of other phones and it's not a natural operational mode of the phone.
s.yu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
If we could achieve a new consensus on testing battery life in default mode and performance in performance mode, then I suppose something like that could be reasonable, but many other devices would have to be retested.Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
I'm testing all devices in their performance modes both for performance and battery - the only exception to this rule until now has been the Reno as its performance mode just blatantly ignores normal DVFS operation.s.yu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Right, that also works.melgross - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
The point is. That it can’t maintain that speed without burning something out.melgross - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Anandtech is the only site that does it correctly. The others don’t do real reviews.brucethemoose - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Or, more importantly, heating up your (non replacable) battery and degrading its useful life.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
It should all be run in whatever default mode available out of fairness, and comparability of results.Total Meltdowner - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
The specs on these phones are all so boring.Give me an 8000mAH battery and a screen that isn't a downgrade from an S6 Active.
How about some ports or SOMETHING that separates these devices from one another? 0 innovation. It's just a bunch of chinese garbage.
plsbugmenot - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
I think you'll enjoy the ROG Phone 2 review, then.