Black Shark 2 gaming smartphone is now up for grabs in Europe

Xiaomi's Black Shark gaming-focused sub-brand announced its latest smartphone earlier this month. And today the Black Shark 2 is available to purchase in Europe, straight from the official Black Shark website.

You'll have to pay €549 or £479 if you want the version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or if you need 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage then prepare €649 or £559.

David Li, VP of Black Shark Global says this device will provide "an unmatched experience for European gamers". The company chose to establish a presence in Europe because mobile gaming is apparently now generating more consumer spend than consoles and PC gaming, so obviously people should also have an appetite for gaming-focused handsets - right? Well, that hypothesis remains to be tested.

And you can help - by ignoring this phone altogether, or by purchasing one of course. The Black Shark 2 has a 6.39" 1080x2340 HDR AMOLED pressure sensitive touchscreen with low (43.5ms) latency and a typical brightness of 430 nits.

The device also has two front-facing speakers, an X-shaped antenna setup to ensure you don't lose signal no matter how you hold it, an in-display fingerprint reader, and a 4,000 mAh battery with 27W fast charging.

The Snapdragon 855 chipset unsurprisingly sits at the helm, aided by a vapor chamber cooling system which promises to reduce SoC temperature by up to 14 degrees Celsius. The dual rear camera system has a 48 MP main sensor with pixel binning, and a 12 MP 2x telephoto zoom lens, while for selfies you get a 20 MP unit.