Black Shark 5 series Malaysia: Everything you need to know

Following some teasers from them, the Black Shark 5 series of gaming smartphones has indeed officially launched in Malaysia. There’s going to be two entries in the series this time around, the Black Shark 5 and the Black Shark 5 Pro, and both come with its usual array of gaming features such as physical trigger buttons and gamer aesthetics.

Black Shark 5 series Malaysia pricing and availability

The Black Shark 5 and Black Shark 5 Pro are already available for purchase in Malaysia, with the former coming in Mirror Black and Explorer Grey while the latter will come in Stellar Black and Nebula White. Here’s how much they’ll cost:

• Black Shark 5, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage – RM2,299
• Black Shark 5, 12GB RAM, 256GB storage – RM2,699
• Black Shark 5 Pro, 12GB RAM, 256GB storage – RM3,699
• Black Shark 5 Pro, 16GB RAM, 256GB storage – RM3,999

On top of that, Black Shark Malaysia also revealed a plethora of gaming accessories that they’ll be selling in Malaysia too. These include the Black Shark Sixgill K1 and Sixgill K2 gaming keyboards at RM239 and RM299 each, their Black Shark Manta line of gaming mousepads starting at RM35 as well as three new TWS earbuds which are the Black Shark Lucifer T6 at RM189, the Black Shark Lucifer T10 at RM179 and the Black Shark Joybuds Pro at RM399.

You’ll be able to purchase them from the Black Shark official store on Lazada, Shopee and their TikTok page, as well as their authorised retailers nationwide. There’ll also be some early bird deals too, which include a free screen protector and the Black Shark Lucifer T2 for Black Shark 5 purchases on Shopee, with Black Shark 5 Pro buyers getting the Black Shark Lucifer T4 TWS earbuds instead. Meanwhile, those who purchase the Black Shark 5 and Black Shark 5 Pro from the Black Shark TikTok store during the promotional period won’t be getting the screen protectors but instead get a free 360 Robot Vacuum C50 instead.

Black Shark 5 Pro specs and features

Starting off with the Black Shark 5 Pro, you’ll almost immediately recognise it as a gaming smartphone thanks to the edgy design and RGB lighting on the upper right of the back of the device, which lights up when you’re using it. The display itself meanwhile is a 6.67-inch, FHD+ AMOLED display capable of up to a 144Hz refresh rate with a 720Hz touch sampling rate too. You’ll also find Black Shark’s Magic Press feature here as well, which is a dual zone pressure sensitive technology allowing you to use the display as two additional buttons too. Simply map Magic Press to actions in your favourite game, and press on each half of the display to act as an additional trigger, with up to 7 level of pressure sensitivity.

Under the hood meanwhile you’ll of course find the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, complete with the Adreno 730 GPU. It comes with up to 16GB of LPDDR5 6400MHz RAM with 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The Black Shark 5 Pro will come with JOYUI13 out of the box based on Android 12, which MIUI users will be quite familiar with. Cooling meanwhile gets taken care of by an anti-gravity dual VC liquid cooling solution, which is basically two large vapour chamber plates on each side. You can also tweak performance modes in the settings too, allowing for up to a ‘Ludicrous Mode’ to enable maximum performance.

The cameras meanwhile may not be class leading here, but there’s still a triple rear camera setup on the Black Shark 5 Pro. The main camera itself is a 108MP, f/1.75 camera using the Samsung ISOCELL HM2 sensor. There’s also a 13MP, f/2.4 ultrawide camera and a further 5MP, f/2.4 telephoto macro lens. For selfies meanwhile you’ll find a 16MP front facing camera.

As for its battery, the Black Shark 5 Pro has a dual cell 4,650mAh battery with 120W fast charging, and Black Shark is also putting the 120W charger in the box too. Black Shark says you’ll be able to charge it to 100% in just 15 minutes, though if you’re planning on a long gaming session you can choose to bypass the battery and play directly off wall power too. There’s no 3.5mm audio jack which is a bit of a shame, but you do get stereo speakers that DXOMark has rated as one of the best they’ve heard on a smartphone before. It’ll also support WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC and 5G connectivity too.

On top of that, you’ll also find physical magnetic trigger buttons on the side. You can pop them out or keep them down flush with the device with a flick of a switch. Black Shark has rated them for a million presses, and just like Magic Press you can configure them to act as additional buttons and triggers in each game. You can even configure the triggers to act as macros for other shortcut functions too, such as to be a physical shutter button for your camera.

Black Shark 5 specs and features

As for the Black Shark 5, you’ll be hard pressed trying to find a difference at first. It has almost everything the Black Shark 5 Pro offers here, such as the 6.67-inch, FHD+ AMOLED display, the physical trigger buttons, Magic Press and the 4,650mAh battery with 120W fast charging too. However, there are some small yet crucial downgrades in the Black Shark 5.

For starters, the Black Shark 5 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 rather than the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The RAM has also been swapped out for lower speed 5500MHz LPDDR5 RAM, with only up to 12GB of RAM available. The base model Black Shark 5 in particular will come with just 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Cooling meanwhile gets taken care of by a ‘sandwich cooling’ system, while the display is no longer rated for 10-bit colour.

The camera system on the Black Shark 5 has also been tweaked. Gone is the 108MP main camera, as the Black Shark 5 comes with just a 64MP, f/1.79 main camera flanked by a 13MP, f/2.4 ultrawide camera and a 2MP macro lens. You do however still get the 16MP front facing camera for selfies.