Black Shark 4 Gaming Phone: Premium Performance, Mid Range Price

Black Shark 4 Review!

Gaming phones are an interesting segment. The phones to get if you care about powerful performance, high refresh rate screens, and features like headphone jacks. The Black Shark 4 is a budget friendly options with some powerful internals, but how does it compare against premium phones from last year?

Black Shark 4 By The Benchmarks https://somegadgetguy.com/2021/05/04/black-shark-4-by-the-benchmarks-a-monster-mid-ranger/ Continue reading “Black Shark 4 Gaming Phone: Premium Performance, Mid Range Price”

Black Shark 4 By The Benchmarks: A Monster Mid-Ranger!

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! Continue reading “Black Shark 4 By The Benchmarks: A Monster Mid-Ranger!”

OnePlus 9 Pro Camera Conclusion: Living up to the Hasselblad hype?

Ok. The Hasselblad labeling is a bit overdone, but I can’t fault a company for wanting to make a little noise.

It’s not about giving OP a pass though, these cameras still need to tested against the manufacturer’s claims. The nice thing for OP fans this year, the 9 Pro is starting off with a SOLID hardware advantage… Continue reading “OnePlus 9 Pro Camera Conclusion: Living up to the Hasselblad hype?”

OnePlus 9 Pro THROTTLED Gaming! Premium Performance?

ONEPLUS IS THROTTLING YOUR GAME!

Dang. Performance testing is hard enough, but it’s been REALLY challenging THIS year on premium smartphones. We definitely seem to be dealing with SOME kind of GPU limiter on the OnePlus 9 Pro. That makes comparing phones a LOT more complicated…

Sigh…

This one needs a bit of explaining… Continue reading “OnePlus 9 Pro THROTTLED Gaming! Premium Performance?”

Samsung vs OnePlus: Who built the better phone this year?

Galaxy S21 vs OnePlus 9? S21+ vs 9 Pro?

It’s time for a showdown! Samsung cut hardware to reduce costs, while OnePlus is moving up to a more premium tier! Which phone is the better bang for buck? Let’s discuss! Continue reading “Samsung vs OnePlus: Who built the better phone this year?”

Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G: I finally get to play with a Xiaomi!

Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite review!

I’m getting up to speed on Xiaomi! It’s been YEARS since I last got to play with one. Happily, looking at proper mid-ranger phone, this is a REALLY nice smartphone to start with! Continue reading “Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G: I finally get to play with a Xiaomi!”

OnePlus 9 Pro By the Benchmarks: Better Performance for the Price!

Sometimes it’s ok to NOT be first.

OnePlus is following the CRAZY early launches from Xiaomi and Samsung. This generation, we’ve seen some concerning tests using Qualcomm’s newest SOC, the Snapdragon 888.

After testing the Galaxy S21, we definitely needed to compare against other phones using this SOC. Were the performance issues the fault of Qualcomm? Samsung? App developers? There are a LOT of moving parts here to consider.

The OnePlus 9 Pro gives us another data point to compare, and OnePlus is making some important claims about their phone. Not only are they using the top of the line SOC, they’re also claiming to do a better job cooling that SOC.

A premium tier phone is an incredibly powerful mobile computer. Someone buying at this price tier might want to know they really can replace some of their laptop or desktop use with their phone.

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 OnePlus 9 Pro: By The Benchmarks! Continue reading “OnePlus 9 Pro By the Benchmarks: Better Performance for the Price!”

OnePlus 9 Pro 8K Vlog! Let’s Really USE This Camera!

OnePlus 9 Pro 8K video samples!

Why show a couple little clips when we can try to shoot a whole video ALL from the phone! This is the best quality footage the phone can produce, so let’s do a little walk and talk vlog.

Sharing my first day impressions, show some samples, and we can take a listen to the mics on the OnePlus 9 Pro! Continue reading “OnePlus 9 Pro 8K Vlog! Let’s Really USE This Camera!”