Xiaomi Black Shark 4 review

Synthetic benchmarks

The Snapdragon 870 is a fairly new SoC, which is a slightly altered version of the Snapdragon 865+ SoC. Connectivity has been downgraded (supposedly to keep the costs low), but the same Snapdragon X55 5G-capable modem is on board. The chip is based on the 7nm manufacturing process and has an octa-core CPU with 1x Kryo 585 core @3.2 GHz, 3x Kryo 585 cores @2.42GHz and 4x Kryo 585 cores @1.8 GHz. The Snapdragon 865+ has the same CPU configuration, but the Prime Cortex-A77 core is ticking at 3.1 GHz. In both cases, the Adreno 650 GPU is on board, clocked at 670 MHz.

The available memory variants go from 6GB/128GB all the way up to 12GB/128GB, while a separate 12GB/256GB version is also available. The UFS 3.1 standard has been used for the storage solution. No storage expansion is possible, unfortunately.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 5
  3710
• Asus ROG Phone 5 (X Mode)
  3709
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 6
  3586
• vivo X60 Pro
  3490
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  3448
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  3386
• Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
  3294
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  3238
• OnePlus 9R
  3117

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 6
  1124
• Asus ROG Phone 5 (X Mode)
  1121
• Asus ROG Phone 5
  1110
• vivo X60 Pro
  1034
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  1032
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  1029
• Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
  988
• OnePlus 9R
  969
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  927

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  720352
• OnePlus 9R
  676913
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  605569

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 5 (X Mode)
  72
• Asus ROG Phone 5
  71
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 6
  63
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  60
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  59
• vivo X60 Pro
  59
• OnePlus 9R
  57
• Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
  57
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  54

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 5
  59
• Asus ROG Phone 5 (X Mode)
  59
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  54
• vivo X60 Pro
  51
• Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
  51
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  50
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 6
  50
• OnePlus 9R
  49

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 5
  43
• Asus ROG Phone 5 (X Mode)
  43
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 6
  40
• vivo X60 Pro
  35
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  34
• OnePlus 9R
  34
• Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
  34
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  29

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 5
  40
• Asus ROG Phone 5 (X Mode)
  40
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  38
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 6
  37
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  34
• vivo X60 Pro
  34
• Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
  34
• OnePlus 9R
  31

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 5
  5744
• Asus ROG Phone 5 (X Mode)
  5740
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 6
  5714
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
  5412
• Xiaomi Black Shark 4
  4212
• vivo X60 Pro
  4203
• Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (Snapdragon)
  4194
• OnePlus 9R
  4154

As we already mentioned, the Snapdragon 870 offers little improvement in the clock speeds compared to the Snapdragon 865 and 865+, which has affected the overall single and multi-core performance. As you can see from the charts above, the Snapdragon 870 comes out on top of the most Snapdragon 865 and 865+ handsets in multi and single-threaded scenarios and falls short of the Snapdragon 888 just as expected.

Sustained performance

Sustained performance is particularly important for gaming-oriented phones. Since there's no built-in active cooling solution (the nubia Red Magic series are an exception to the rule), the hardware has to keep the internal temperature in check while still providing sufficient performance for those long gaming sessions.

And since the CPU is the main heat producer, we ran our standard stress test that utilizes 100% of the CPU's performance and assesses the drop in performance over time. Keep in mind, though, that games don't necessarily push the CPU to 100%, so this test isn't a representation of real-life usage, but it gives us a good idea of how the phone handles long sessions of peak loads.

CPU stress test without the external cooling fan

As you can see from the screenshot above, the Black Shark 4 was able to retain 95% of its performance during the hour-long CPU torture test, while the graph suggests that there are no sudden drops in performance, ensuring smooth gameplay. It's an excellent result indeed.

However, you should know the phone gets pretty warm during the test, with the side frame probably being the hottest part. Still, that doesn't mean it's uncomfortable to hold during normal gameplay.

Which leads us to our next point - the cooling solution. Xiaomi doesn't really go into details about what exactly makes this cooling system better than the rest, but the tech has allegedly been patented. From what we gather, dissipating heat from the SoC is a "sandwich" formation of two vapor chambers. One is placed between the motherboard and the display panel, and the other one is placed between the motherboard and the back panel.

We also got the chance to test out the so-called Funcooler 2 - an external cooling fan for the handset. It can be paired using the phone's Shark Space software via Bluetooth and also requires an external power source to its USB-C connector. This can either be from a nearby power outlet or from the phone itself.

The cooler has nice-looking LEDs and a tiny LCD panel that gives you temperature readings. More importantly, it brings down the surface temperatures quite a bit and helps the chipset run at maximum capacity without having to throttle down. We ran the same CPU stress test, and the app didn't detect any performance throttling at all. Zilch.

CPU stress test with the external cooling fan

The only drawback is that at maximum speed, the fan is a bit on the loud side, so you might want to tinker with the fan control in the Shark Space.

Gaming performance and HRR handling

It's needless to say that the Snapdragon 870 is fully capable of running every game on the Play Store with ease. It's a beast of a chipset and can handle pretty much everything you throw at it. However, we found that 144fps gaming is not possible on this phone yet.

Although we couldn't make the phone run at 144Hz in system menus and apps, we managed to force 144Hz in games, which is arguably more important. But there's a catch.

To run a certain game in 144Hz, you have to slide open the in-game drop-down menu and set the refresh rate to 144Hz. A pop-up message will appear suggesting that the game might not run as smooth as it should be because forcing 144Hz on a game that caps at 90 or 120fps, for example, would produce stuttering. And this is where the catch is. We found that even if you force 144Hz on games such as Dead Trigger 2, Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG Mobile and Sky Force: Reloaded, the FPS will cap at the game's native framerate. The discrepancy between the game's maximum allowed FPS and the display's 144Hz produces stuttering. There's no actual benefit from forcing the 144Hz mode.

However, we found that this is a working solution for games that support a higher refresh rate, the Real Racing 3 is one example. We've tested the game on other handsets and confirmed that it runs at 144Hz so it does utilize the phone's panel to the fullest. Having said that, leaving the refresh rate toggle to "Intelligent Switch" is probably your best bet at smooth gameplay as the system will check the game's maximum HRR support and run at that.

In-game refresh rate

Surely, you may find other games that are able to run at 60fps+, but we tried the more popular titles that we know for a fact to be HRR-compatible. Just don't expect wonder because if the game doesn't support HRR, it beats the purpose of forcing 144Hz.