BlackShar3S USB

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I recently reviewed the excellent Black Shark 3 and the massive Black Shark 3 Pro. Since then Qualcomm has updated their flagship chipset, launching the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ offering even more power than before. Subsequently, Asus and Lenovo launched their gaming phones based on the chipset.

Not to be left out, Black Shark are now updating their model with a new Black Shark 3S, though it is not clear if this will include the Pro and standard models.

Launch Date

The phone is set to launch tomorrow (31st of July), in China with no word on an international launch, yet, but I would expect this to land in the UK later on in the year.

USB 3.0 Screen Mirroring

One of the issues with the Black Shark 3 was that there was no video out via the USB port, because it was limited to USB 2.0. It is rarely something I pick up on with most phone reviews, but with gaming phones there will no doubt be some demand from users allowing them to play games on a bigger screen.

This is now set to change, the Black Shark 3S will have USB 3.0 and is confirmed to support screen mirroring, and I would also assume video output via a USB to HDMI cable.

Black Shark has shown a demo of the screen mirroring, which is more advanced than the typical video out. With this, you can use a USB cable to plug into your laptop, or desktop PC then run the Black Shark app which will give you full control of the phone over the PC. The advantage of this is that it will then allow you to use a keyboard and mouse. The app will even allow you to customise the controls.

Unfortunately, it will limit the output to 60fps. For some reason, this is lower than the 120 Hz the phone is capable of, but it is better than nothing.

They don’t mention video output, but it is not much different than the above, you would just use a USB to HDMI cable to plug into your monitor or TV. You would then control the phone either as usual or pair it up with a Bluetooth controller.

Gyroscope Control

On top of this, the phone will now feature a gyroscope, so when playing on the phone itself, it will track the movements of the phone allowing you to perform up to 6 gestures flicking the phone in a certain direction. This frees up your fingers by letting you assign, say, switching weapons or crawling to one of these gestures.

Game Barrage

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Another new JOYUI 12 feature is the so-called “Game Barrage”. This shows notifications from SMS, WeChat, QQ and others overlayed on the game screen. Unlike chat heads, these actually show the full message. You can control the text colour and the opacity of the messages.

The software also accepts voice commands so you can take a screenshot, start recording the screen, answer calls and more without taking your fingers off the controls.

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