Earlier this year, Xiaomi joined the gaming-centric club with the launch of Black Shark phone. We've seen many other phone makers get in this niche segment, thanks to the growing mobile phone industry. While handheld consoles have been around for decades, our phones are now taking over all the responsibilities. 

For years, brands have concentrated on the camera, display, and connectivity of phones. Now, it's time to bring in mobile gaming. In an effort to strengthen its foothold in the niche, Xiaomi has now launched a successor, called the Black Shark Helo. 

© Xiaomi

To start with, it brings loads of optimisations under-the-hood to handle graphics intensive games and other resource draining applications. This includes a dual liquid cooling system for heat dissipation. The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 845 SoC along with a whopping 10GB of RAM. 

In terms of software, the phone has a dedicated hub called Gamer Studio that allows users to adjust the performance and other key elements of the phone. 

The Black Shark logo on the rear and the two side streaks boast of RGB LEDs, which are dependent on an AI to show different colours when the player is taking damage or winning. 

© Xiaomi

It also has dual Smart PA chips drive speakers near the display edges, along with a three-mic array for in-game communication. Yes, the phone skips the 3.5mm headphone jack and compensates it with a USB-C port. 

Back to the basics of every phone today, the front has a 6-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The display supports DCI-P3 colour gamut and SRGB mode for better colour accuracy. The fingerprint scanner is now on the back, near the camera setup. 

© Xiaomi

On the rear, it sports a 12-megapixel primary sensor, aided by a 20-megapixel secondary. The front has a 24-megapixel selfie camera. Backing these internals is a 4000mAh battery, that supports Quick Charge 3.0. The phone boots Android 9.0 Pie-based MIUI ROM out of the box. 

The phone is available in China at the moment, and priced at CNY 3,199 (Rs 34,000) for the 6GB+128GB variant, CNY 3,499 (Rs 37,000) for 8GB+128GB variant and finally CNY 4,199 (Rs 41,600) for the Sports Edition with 10GB+256GB configuration. 

At the beginning of this month, Xiaomi opened Black Shark's global website, indicating that the brand will soon go international. Though, it still remains unclear when the sub-brand will come to India.