Product test
Review: the Nothing Phone (3) is hot on the heels of top-of-the-range smartphones
by Jan Johannsen
Xiaomi Black Shark: Fortnite! Now!
14.12.2018
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
Gamers need more power in a smartphone. Xiaomi fulfils this need with the Black Shark. The device even comes with a gamepad. However, a test with Fortnite shows: Game stupid, gamepad incompatible, phone great.
I'm not a patient person. But as I'm writing these first few lines, my Xiaomi Black Shark is downloading Fortnite to the right of my mouse. Game editor Phil Rüegg says that the game is the new action-packed super title mobile gaming A-list something. I'm not a gamer. I haven't been since Unreal Tournament 99. But every now and then I can get excited about a mobile game. So Fortnite should be it.
And why exactly the Xiaomi Black Shark? I not only like the specs with its 20 megapixel camera, but also the look. Black and green always looks good. The fact that the green symbol on the back also lights up pulsating when the phone is started up is an added bonus. Finally, no rectangle with rounded corners.
The back has a non-slip rubber coating that is almost like a rugged phone, so it feels good in the hand. But I can't say any more than that, because you can only fiddle with a phone and look at a download screen for so long before you feel stupid. So if you want to play Fortnite, download the game somewhere where you can do something else to kill time.
One way or another, the Black Shark is one of the most interesting phones of the year. Hardly any other phone has given me so much to think about or ask myself. This makes life as a phone tester really fun.
A look at gaming phones in winter 2018
The Fortnite download is at around 1.7 gigabytes as I write these lines here. In total, the download is 2.73 gigabytes in size, which is coming to my Black Shark via the Swiss 4G network. Time to take a closer look at the gamer phones.
But now Fortnite
Download ready. I am ready. Time to play Battle Royale in bright colours.
If only it were that easy.
In addition, the store on Android is almost useless in this form. If you want to download Fortnite, it's quicker to google "Fortnite Android Beta APK site:epicgames.com". Then download an installer file in APK format that is not the game APK. This is generated by the installer APK.
The game itself is almost 3GB in size. Therefore: Maybe don't download the game via the chronically overloaded antiquated 2.4GHz WLAN in the office or the mobile network. Use your stable 5GHz WLAN, which is connected to a glass fibre. Then it works for a few minutes and you're good to go.
Interlude I: A typical update in pictures
Practically every time you launch Fortnite, something needs to be updated. The following photo love story shows that Epic Games needs to think about an auto update mode that can be switched on and off manually. Or rather: not think about it, but implement it. Because the game is currently almost broken.
As a non-gamer and former first-person shooter fan, the game itself is too boring for me. I'm not going to traipse around the countryside for seven hours only to be killed within a few seconds by an Italian shouting at me. And what the hell is "Auto Fire"? A shooter game that shoots itself? You're all out of your minds!
Interlude II: Dominik plays games
Colleague Luca Fontana asks me what I'm doing when he sees me pressing buttons like a madman and getting visibly upset about my wanderings. I describe it to him. But what I don't know is that he's taking notes. So here's a best-of of my comments from the first quarter of an hour of Fortnite on Android.
"So now I can jump here. Can I even do that here? I have jumped. Huaaa! I have jumped. Luca, I've jumped!"
Aurel: "Are you playing something right now?"
Dominik: "I'm playing against the Italians right now, who are beating me up. I usually have Luca for that sort of thing."
"Now I've got a minigun. I actually want to shoot someone with it, but no, I have to go on a seven-hour hike on a vitaparcours. Can I shoot now? Okay... okay. Asshole machine."
The game itself runs smoothly once the 100 players have been sorted into a level. Even on 3G, the performance is still okay. That was initially my biggest concern, but it was then lost with all the loading and info screens. In other words, when you finally start playing, the game runs quite smoothly.
The thing with the gamepad
The Xiaomi Black Shark comes with a gamepad. This is supposed to help with gaming. It may be good, but the device is currently not compatible with Fortnite. Hopefully that will come, because the joystick could really help in the game. One less hand on the screen allows more visibility and - should you ever find an opponent, screaming Italian or whatever - more visibility is better for opening fire.
Attaching the gamepad to the Black Shark is quite amusing. Before you can mount the directional pad with the one shoulder button on top of your phone, you have to mount the case. I don't understand the case at all. As a rule, the case supplied is there to protect your new phone. From drops and so on. The Black Shark case is made of wobbly hard plastic that is too thin to be stable. I highly doubt that the case is capable of protecting anything from anyone.
Shark Mode: Where the work went
Aware observers have already noticed that there is one more button on the Black Shark than on some other phones. As with Apple's iPhone, this is a slider. On the iPhone it is "Sound on/off", on the Xiaomi it is "Shark Space on/off".
Fortnite not only needs a lot of graphics performance, but also constant data transfer. The Snapdragon 845 doesn't reach its limit for a long time, but the Black Shark gets a bit warm while playing and the battery drains quite quickly. But it doesn't slow down. Impressive. Gaming on the charging cable is a bit complicated, though, because your right hand can no longer hold the phone properly.
Where are you, future victims?
In the end, with the Xiaomi Black Shark you have a highly interesting and high-performance phone that looks really smart and is not just a rectangle with rounded corners. Xiaomi has thought beyond the limits of the device and delivers peripherals that really make a difference. However, it is also obvious that the gaming phone concept still needs to be refined a little to make it truly practical and universally compatible.
Fortnite is still boring. It would probably be better if I could find someone to shoot for once and not just wade through the pampas.
So that's it. Incidentally, the Black Shark is also a very good everyday mobile phone. Above all, it looks very smart. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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