Performance is fun to test, but there are some exciting moments when we really balance performance against price. The Black Shark 4 arrives at a compelling price, and with some fun gaming hardware. Notably, this phone is the first we get to test using the Snapdragon 870. This SOC is a refresh on last year’s top of the line option from Qualcomm.

Often when we push a phone’s price to the mid-pack, we use a middle tier SOC. This year Qualcomm is offering two options for their 800 series chips. This introduces an interesting performance sub-tier. As a cost savings, we can often recommend a one year old flagship phone for those looking at cutting costs.

The Black Shark 4, as a brand new phone, looks to compete against last year’s premium offerings.

We should expect to see a lot of our tests land somewhere inbetween the most expensive phones from last year, and the premium tier phones from this year. Let’s see how this gaming phone handles some real world apps!

Performance testing is more involved than running a synthetic bench and comparing who’s number is bigger. Let’s dig a little deeper than that. Here’s the Black Shark 4: By The Benchmarks!

How are each of these tests performed? Here’s my process for benchmarking phones!

Synthetic Bench – Geek Bench 5

Starting off with some synthetic tests, it’s fun looking at Geekbench to see if this test suite can predict where the phone might actually land in other tests.

The Black Shark 4 has a very strong showing here. The SD870 is a better binned refresh on the 865+, and in synthetic CPU scores, we do see a lift over the Note 20 Ultra.

Ditto GPU scores, where the Black Shark is able to wedge perfectly in between phones with an SD888 and the SD865+.

This is exactly where we would predict the Black Shark to land, given the claims on this SOC from Qualcomm.

Video Render – PowerDirector

Rendering a complex video project, surprisingly the Black Shark beats our synthetic benchmark expectations. Landing the fastest render we’ve seen yet in PowerDirector.

Just barely scooting past the LG V60, which has lead this test since its launch.

Video Render – KineMaster

Kinemaster doesn’t show as dramatic differences in performance, and here the Black Shark 4 falls behind numerous phones from last year (including the Black Shark 3), but the performance delta is MUCH smaller.

Video Transcode – PowerDirector

On a simpler video project, the Black Shark is in the mix with a healthy finish. It’s worth noting here, that PowerDirector on a single video file doesn’t seem to benefit from the more powerful hardware on the SD888. SD865 and SD870 phones lead our chart here.

Video Transcode – KineMaster

Running the same single video conversion in KineMaster shows this app is about maxed out. There’s almost no difference in performance over four versions of Qualcomm’s top SOC. It’s an area where we likely need to see this app optimized for more current SOCs.

Podcast MixDown – Audio Evolution

The Black Shark’s weakest showing is on our audio test. Mixing down a podcast, we fall behind some phones from two years ago. This is still a respectable score, but out of step with phones from last year.

Stabilization – Google Photos

My voodoo test. This stabilization performance still doesn’t make much sense, but the Black Shark is again scoring in the upper tier of my charts.

I’m still trying to find some common thread that helps explain why some phones perform better in this test than others. The hunt continues.

Compression Test – RAR Lab

RAR has a synthetic benchmark built in, and the Black Shark 4 performs just a little lower than we might expect.

Running an actual compression test, the phones move around a little from the synthetic scores, but overall the placement for the Black Shark makes sense.

This is a longer test, and this shows one of the strengths of the older SOC design over the Galaxy S21, where thermals can be a little harder to tame.

Photo Processing – PhotoMate R3

PhotoMate also has a synthetic test, and the Black Shark performs rather poor in this short test.

Running a brutal batch of 200 RAW files, the overall score is respectable, but maintaining high performance is a bit of an issue. The first half of this test, we’re neck and neck with the RedMagic 5S (which has a built in cooling fan).

That falls apart on the second half of this batch though, as the Black Shark performance drops by the largest performance we’ve seen yet. Phones with SD865s often drop around 2-4%. The Black Shark is almost 17% slower finishing off the second batch.

Gaming – BrightRidge

Exploring the opening to Brightridge, the Black Shark 4 falls behind many other premium phones from last year. Frame rates in the high 30’s and low 40’s are still solid for this game, which has more PC-like graphics options, but we have seen older phones tackle this game a little smoother.

Gaming – Undead Horde

One of the more taxing games to run a phone through, managing a ton of units in Undead Horde displays rather disappointing frame rates over phones like the OnePlus 8T. Not only does the frame rate hover lower, we also see wider swings in frame rate, and more noticeable frame drops and stutters.

The Black Shark 4 is a GREAT bang for buck option!

Ok.

I just got done saying the phone struggled with two of the main games I test, and that seems a little silly to praise this phone for gaming.

There are a couple things happening here which I think are kind of interesting. This is the second “plus” version of last year’s chip. The SD870 is something like an SD865++.

We’re already pushing this chip design harder than it’s original launch, and that might mean we don’t have much room to handle throttling. If the chip is already near its peak, it might SEEM to slow down more aggressively.

Still, in most of our tests here, the Black Shark is hanging with or outperforming more expensive modern options. It shows, that if you’re selective about how you describe your phone use, a MUCH cheaper phone can deliver an INCREDIBLE performance bang for buck.

It’s not ALL roses however.

I truly do believe that app developers need to take a look at these newer SOCs from 2020 on, and optimize better for the unique way they handle high performance applications. At the same time though, it seems the Black Shark 4 could do with a little more polish from the manufacturer.

I’ve played a lot of games on the Black Shark, and there isn’t a consistent metric or test to predict what will play well. My favorite arcade style twin-stick shooters run poorly. Some of my favorite racing games make full use of the high refresh rate screen. Some challenging graphics heavy games keep up a console tier 60FPS.

Just saying “it has an SD870” doesn’t mean we’ll be able to predict where the phone will outperform and SD865 or fall behind an SD888. The Black Shark 4 is mostly in the mix, and wins some surprising victories. When we factor in a price this low, we get a strong option to consider against shopping year old phones on discount.

Moving forward though, as we try to cram more powerful hardware into phones, we’ll need to keep a closer eye on practical performance differences.