call of duty mobile on touch screen monitors free sample

Step 1: A quick download and installation are all it takes to get in on the action. Keep in mind, you can play other PC games using Gameloop, like PUBG Mobile, Arena of Valor, or Mobile Legends.

Step 2: Now, one thing to keep in mind is why Tencent allows people to play its touchscreen-focused games with a distinct hardware advantage. Call of Duty Mobile detects who’s using which control scheme. Players are matched only with those playing the same way, eliminating the risk of having hardcore PC players stomp those sliding their thumbs around a 6-inch display.

Step 4: Click the Call of Duty: Mobile banner or image under Recommended (you can also find Call of Duty: Mobile by using the search option in the top right).

At that point, the download and installation should begin automatically. It might even auto-launch, too, so adjust your speaker settings if you don’t want the whole office finding out why you"ve knocked off work 3 hours early. Your Call of Duty: Mobile PC experience should kick off from there, but there are a few things you can do to cater the whole thing to the machine you’re playing on.

Step 1: Within the Gameloop software, you can tap the three horizontal line icon in the top right to find some essential settings like screen resolution, screen capture location, and even which rendering method to use.

Step 2: The settings under Engine tend to relate to the Gameloop window and the physical size of game windows. To change the active resolution of Call of Duty: Mobile, you’ll need to go into the Game tab beneath and tweak things from there.

Step 3: With a competitive game like Call of Duty: Mobile, we’d recommend lowering the settings as much as your eyes can handle for the smoothest experience. If you’d rather witness just how clean and crisp a mobile game can look these days, feel free to crank things as high as you think your PC can take them. Just don’t go expecting miracles — it’s still at the mercy of Android optimization. You"ll probably want to change a few settings within the game itself, too.

There are various gamepads to pick from when you want to play Call of Duty: Mobile on your PC. You can use the Xbox controller or the DualSense. And you can do this in a couple of different ways by using a controller or connecting to Bluetooth.

Step 2: After you connect your controller, click Key Mapping using Gameloop (you"ll see this on the right side of your screen). You must select Gamepad instead of Keyboard. Lastly, check that you have selected the proper method for you. This could be either Multiplayer, Battle Royale, OB, or Bar.

Step 3: A critical step is to also double-check the secondary keys beneath the method options. Make sure you choose both Direction (left joystick) and Camera (right joystick).

Step 4: After you"ve gone through this step, you can start using your mouse to map buttons. From here, right-click on your screen. A blank selection will pop up. Once this happens, you"re free to use any controller button to map it to the game.

Step 5: Continue mapping until you"ve configured every single control input. Even though it"s not necessary to map all buttons, it"s essential to make sure that you"ve successfully mapped all aiming, shooting, reloading, and jump buttons — all the essentials.

Call of Duty is a first person shooting game against the background of World War II. Over time, the series is set in the Cold War, future worlds, and outer space. The main series provides on Windows, PS4, PS5, XONE and XSXS.

GameLoop is the official emulator for Call of Duty mobile. I highly recommend you use this emulator to play Call of Duty on your computer. You are allowed to use it without your account being banned.

If you need to live stream your game from your phone to a PC. iMyFone MirrorTo can help you with it. It is an easy-to-use screen mirroring app that allows you to live stream your game, video conferencing and many other live on social media likeTikTok and YouTube.

NoxPlayer is another emulator that allows you to play mobile games on the computer. It’s lighter than BlueStacks and requires less usage of CPU. You can try it as well.

Call of Duty mobile needs about 1.6GB of storage to install on your phone. You will have to download the gaming files, so it requires more space to play the game fluently.

When you play Codm, you are advised to turn on the gaming mobile on your phone or to turn off the background notifications to avoid being disturbed when gaming.

Some gamers said the volume of Cod is so high that their ears are about to get deaf. However, it’s a shooting game, so you need to hear the gunshot or the footsteps to make the game easier. So adjust the volume to the best level.

Yes. You can choose from the above 3 emulators to play Cod mobile on PC. And I advise you to use the GameLoop first because it’s the official emulator for Cod.

If you want to play Call of Duty mobile on your PC. You can try these 3 emulators. I advise you to try GameLoop first because it’s recognized as the official emulator of Codm. If you want to live stream your game on PC. You can try iMyFone MirrorTo easily. It’s a great screen mirroring app that will help you a lot. Enjoy Call of Duty mobile on PC now.

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Call of Duty: Mobile was officially released worldwide on October 1, 2019. Everybody wanted a piece of Activision and Tencent’s game, especially since the beta was regionally locked and the game is free to play. The devs sure knew how to tease their audience. After we jumped through hoops to bypass geo-restrictions for several months, we were now on the edge of our seats to finally play CoD: Mobile on BlueStacks without any obstacles.

Update: BlueStacks now supports UHD Graphics in CoD Mobile and smartly switches in and out of shooting / cursor mode for the mouse depending on the actions being performed on screen. To know more about this update, read this article.

Unfortunately, Tencent decided to take our happiness away and restrict most emulators from being able to run the game. Soon enough, hundreds of other BlueStacks users experienced our disappointment and took to the forums to express their discontent. Ever since the initial launch, our team of developers have been working tirelessly to come up with a solution.

Oops! How did that picture get there? It just happened that we were MVP of our first game after the official launch and we landed more than 60% of the required kills to win the game. If you want to know how we managed to play this well from the get-go, it’s actually no secret. The enhanced control we get from BlueStacks increase our accuracy exponentially. The Keymapping Tool, for instance, gives us complete mastery over our CoD character.

We can easily switch between weapons, aim down our sights, crouch, run, and pretty much do anything we need to do in a combat situation without any delay. Every action is assigned a shortcut intuitively. Our reaction times are fast enough for us to just run around our opponents and knife them left and right.

Well, what are games for if not to have a bit of fun from time to time? Of course, our enhanced controls would be of no use if our game was stuttering or lagging. Fortunately, the performance we get from the latest BlueStacks out-matches what we could otherwise have on a OnePlus 6 and S9+. In a game that is all about moving swiftly and reacting on the spot, even several milliseconds of a warning can help us win engagements.

Thse are the basic advantages that any CoD player will instantly have access to when playing the game on BlueStacks. But BlueStacks users will also have access to a few other more advanced features. For example, the recently introduced Script feature makes it possible for you to record a series of actions and then assign them to just one keyboard shortcut.

By default, you already have two extremely simple, yet useful CoD scripts written by our dev team. If you press M, the map opens up and shooting mode is simultaneously toggled, while if you press Tab, you can see the scoreboard in the same manner. As seasoned FPS players, these two shortcuts are ingrained reflexes for us and it was nothing short of amazing to see them carry over to this emulator’s controls. Yet this is just the beginning of what you can do with BlueStacks Scripts, what you do with the feature is only limited by your imagination.

The better you play, the more scorestreaks you can unlock and the more power you can give to your team. If you’re strategic about your positioning and engagements, you will be able to use things such as the UAV or Predator Missile to give your entire team a positional and momentum advantage. Another amazing aspect of playing CoD on BlueStacks is the ability to document your playthrough with the help of the screen recording feature. Since there is no match replay feature, this is an invaluable tool to improve your own playstyle.

Once you enter a game, press the Record Screen button on the right-hand side of the BlueStacks emulator window and select where you’d like the video to be saved. Once you’ve stopped the recording, you can edit and upload it to your social media channels or show off your mad skills to your entourage. Seeing is believing, they say. More importantly, being able to review your own performance will give you an invaluable opportunity to reassess and improve your decision-making.

As you’ll see in one of our later guides, looking over your past games is an integral part of becoming a better player and progressing through the ranks. After all, you can’t really improve if you don’t know what is wrong to begin with. Without objective evidence to back your opinion, you’ll be shooting in the dark.

The amazing graphics and game modes of the newly released CoD: Mobiledeserves a computer screen and a high-end emulator. It’s a pity to run such a well-designed game on a device with a tiny display. You might be able to do it flawlessly on flagship phones that cost a lot of money, but why would you when BlueStacks is free?

Furthermore, FPS and TPS games are all about being able to react, shoot, and move with precision. We’ve tried our best to experience them on smartphones, but the pleasure of playing is just not the same. Granted, we’re very competitive and losing is not something we can just brush off.

If you also want to be a CoD master, your best bet is to play the game on BlueStacks and enjoy the host of features you get from this nifty emulator. If you’re already playing CoD: Mobile on BlueStacks, let us know in the comments section below.

I"ve moved up 3 phone models since using this, an A21, A42, now a Samsung Z Fold 4. This app still works wonderfully! I don"t get noticeable lag, however after running this I notice a differece. I tap (or swipe) with one finger, but crazy fast with a light touch. I run this once a month or so, then it always feels better, smoother, and even quicker. I wouldn"t say this is a "last resort" app, but a great maintenance app. Kudos! Been using a while now, very happy! (only a 5 second ad at end too!)

+ Advanced optimization technology, improve sensitivity, reaction speed, loading speed, do not affect the performance of the device battery optimization, give the game a fast response.

STEPS: It seems to measure the movement of your arm and not actual steps. I wake up in the mornings having walked about 50 steps in my sleep. I don’t rely on it for accurate reporting.

SLEEP: You can’t set your sleeping time; it is preset but somehow knows when you wake up. Could be all the arm movements. It doesn’t allow you to check your sleep by the hour, you only see the full night with indications of your sleeping pattern. I would like to see down to the hour how I slept. Plus, there are nights where it didn’t record so I am just going to assume I died and came back to life during those times.

BLOOD OXYGEN: This isn’t monitored continuously or intermittently as far as I can tell. I have not found a setting that will do that. You have to manually access that part of the APP or watch APP and tell it to check the oxygen level.

If you have the phone enabled on the watch, then anything you play on your phone will automatically start playing on the watch instead. It has to be manually turned off and on via the watch. It’s a nuisance so I just keep the phone disabled on the watch.

If it happens to disconnect from Bluetooth, the only way I have found to get it to reconnect is to disconnect all other devices such as earbuds, etc. and remove the watch as well then turn off Bluetooth. Then you can turn it back on and scan for devices and reconnect everything. It’s a pain and has only done this to me twice in the past 2 weeks.

Another super annoying issue is when I get in my car my phone suddenly starts pinging me every 15 seconds to see if I want to pair the watch to my vehicle. That happened twice and was SUPER annoying. Now when I get in my vehicle, I know to disconnect the watch or just turn Bluetooth off on my phone altogether.

Bottom line, it’s my first smart watch and I like having this information available to me. But when I decide to upgrade, I will definitely look for one that uses GPS for steps, has more detailed information along with more continuous monitoring options.

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Gaming on phones has been popular since the days of Snake, long before the likes of Candy Crush Saga took over our commutes. But these days smartphones are becoming viable gaming devices for more than simple distractions on the go, and mobile gaming is a giant industry in its own right.

Eventually cloud streaming will level the performance playing field, but until then committed mobile gamers need to pick up smartphones designed for the purpose. The best gaming phones deliver maxed out performance, great displays and audio, and often designs that incorporate extra trigger buttons or other gaming-specific features.

The big brands here aren’t the same ones you’ll see elsewhere. Asus ROG undoubtedly leads the pack – so long as you’re happy to pay a premium for the brand – while Xiaomi’s Black Shark line and ZTE’s Red Magic series provide serious competition.

You may instead find that you prefer a ‘regular’ phone, albeit one with top performance, so we’ve included a few of those in this ranking too. That includes the iPhones we think are best suited to gaming, along with a few Android options that prioritise performance without going all-in on the gamer aesthetic.

It excels at the fundamentals, delivering stellar performance, a stunning display, and great battery life. With decent cameras, two USB-C ports, and even a headphone jack, there’s a lot to like here.

However, it’s not perfect, with a lack of wireless charging and poor software update commitment the most prominent problems. You’ll also need to connect a fan for long gaming sessions.

But none of these are dealbreakers for most people, and the ROG Phone 6 provides such a well-rounded experience elsewhere. If you’re serious about gaming on your phone but just want the best core experience, this is the phone to buy.

Nubia’s Red Magic smartphones have a reputation as having some of the best gaming-focused displays around, and that’s just as true with the latest in the collection, the Red Magic 7.

At its heart is a fast 6.8in 165Hz OLED panel with an impressive 720Hz touch sample rate that beats practically every other smartphone on the market. Though you might not notice much of a difference in real-world performance, it’ll certainly satisfy the need for gamers to have the best of the best.

That’s paired with the flagship specs including Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, up to 18GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and an updated three-fan cooling system to keep things running smoothly during longer gaming sessions.

There’s also a plethora of gaming features including side-mounted touch-based shoulder triggers, advanced haptic feedback and the ability to control performance on a per-game basis, and it’s all presented in Red Magic’s ‘Game Space’ mode.

The only real disappointment is battery life: it’s smaller than that of its predecessor at a rather average 4500mAh, and combined with a 165Hz display it drains much more quickly.

The 120W charging, while unchanged, provides some of the snappiest charging times around achieving a full 100% charge in under 30 minutes, though the downside is a smaller battery than alternatives.

Unlike the touch-based triggers of some rivals, the Black Shark 5 Pro has magnetic triggers that pop up from the body of the phone for a more traditional controller experience, making for a great portable gaming experience without the need to carry additional accessories.

Though not usually a focus for gaming phones, the Black Shark 5 Pro has an impressive 108Mp rear-facing camera that’s capable of taking decent snaps, though the decision to include autofocus capabilities to the macro lens and not the more popular 120-degree ultra-wide is an odd decision that leaves some ultrawide shots looking a little soft.

It is more expensive than the competing Red Magic 7 Pro, but the magnetic triggers, in particular, make the Black Shark 5 Pro a compelling gaming smartphone that negates the need for a controller in many games.

It also features a unique PMOLED screen on the rear of the phone, used to indicate incoming calls, notifications, and charge state, and like all the ROG Phones it ships with a range of optional extra accessories.

The only problem is the price: it’s more expensive than all its rivals, which in some cases cost half the price but offer similar performance. It’s a great high-end bit of kit, but there are plenty of gaming phones that’ll give you the same bang for less buck in 2022.

The F4 GT packs the hardcore hardware you’d expect: a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, 120Hz AMOLED display, and up to 12GB of RAM – not to mention almost absurdly fast 120W charging. It even includes pop-up magnetic shoulder buttons similar to those found in the Black Shark 5 Pro.

But the restrained design means this won’t scream ‘gamer’ to everyone who sees it, and the shoulder buttons double up with extra functions outside of games – a camera shutter button, for example.

The Red Magic 7S Pro is an unusual phone. It’s a small upgrade on the 7 Pro – chiefly to include the newer Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip – but it’s also not a clear upgrade on the regular Red Magic 7 in every respect, and in fact we’d recommend that phone to most people (the non-Pro 7S never got a global launch).

The changes here are mostly in the display. The first is that the 7S Pro comes with the most responsive display in any phone right, registering touch input at 960Hz – i.e. it can detect touches 960 times a second. That’s literally a game-changer, but it brings a drawback: the screen refresh rate is ‘only’ 120Hz, down from the 165Hz of the regular 7.

The other change is the inclusion of an under-display selfie camera. This helps keep the 7S Pro compact and gives you a gorgeous full-screen experience, but again there’s a trade-off: your actual selfies won’t be all that great, with a soft, over-processed look to them.

This packs plenty of power and delivers on battery life too, but with a hefty price tag consider carefully if you really need the upgrade from the Red Magic 7 – or if you’d be happy with the slightly cheaper Red Magic 7 Pro, which is essentially the same phone with the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

When it comes to gaming on iOS, the 6.7in iPhone 14 Pro Max is the one to beat. Apple’s A16 Bionic is one of the most powerful chipsets on the market right now and can handle just about anything you can throw at it without a hint of stutter or lag – and our benchmarks back that up too.

Importantly, the iPhone 14 Pro Max sports a gorgeous Super Retina XDR display that makes games look incredible on the iPhone, whether they’re free-to-play titles or the latest Apple Arcade exclusives.

It’s also one of the few iPhones to make the jump to a variable 120Hz refresh rate, offering the buttery-smooth refresh rate – and improved response time – that make Android rivals so strong.

There’s also up to a whopping 1TB of storage available, so you can carry an entire library of mobile games in your pocket, and the battery life is among the best of any iPhone for longer play sessions.

iQoo is the gaming-focussed sub-brand of Chinese phone giant Vivo, though it’s approach is a little different. There are no extra triggers, RGB lights, or built-in fans here – instead this is simply a standard smartphone, but one built first and foremost for performance.

The biggest edge the iQoo 11 has right now is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which for the time being is tricky to find in other phones. The biggest downside is that the phone itself might be tricky to find depending on where you live – it’s out in several countries in Asia, but so far hasn’t had a widespread European release.

It’s powered by Qualcomm’s top-tier Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 with 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of storage, making it an impressive device able to take on dedicated gaming phones. There’s also the 6.7in AMOLED display to consider, with a gaming-grade 144Hz refresh rate – pretty much the only non-gaming phone to go that fast.

Gaming prowess aside, it also boasts absurdly fast 125W charging that’ll get you a full charge in well under 30 mins, and a triple rear camera that’s better than any you’ll find on a gaming phone. Oh, and did we mention that the battery lasts for two full days of typical use?

So, while you might not get built-in triggers or cool gaming-focused software enhancements, you’ll certainly get all the benefits of a flagship smartphone, plus the power you need to play.

Battery life is a bit better too, but the only other real change is the introduction of the ‘AeroActive Portal’: a small cooling flap that opens up when the official cooling accessory is attached, theoretically improving airflow even further.

That usually means a focus on performance, with a powerful chipset and lots of RAM to ensure it can play the latest mobile games smoothly. Most gaming phones also have big, responsive displays and powerful speakers – or even a headphone jack.

Some go further than that though, with distinctive designs built for gaming. That can mean extra cooling and larger batteries to ensure performance in long gaming sessions, built-in buttons and triggers to supplement touch controls, and in some cases even tricks like side-mounting the selfie camera and charging port to better suit using the phone in landscape.

The main downsides are that gaming phones tend to be bigger, bulkier, and heavier than most other options. They also usually have distinct ‘gamer’ designs, often including RGB lighting or extra displays, which may not be to your taste.

Absolutely. Dedicated gaming phones have their place, but the actual performance gap between a gaming phone and a top ‘regular’ flagship is pretty small.

Gaming phones use the same chipsets as other high-end devices, they simply bolster them with improved cooling, bigger batteries, and usually more RAM. That can give a slight edge while gaming, but in practice any high-end iPhone or Android device will keep up.

Cloud gaming is better than ever, but it’s not there yet. While numerous cloud game streaming services are available, they’re really only suited to single-player gaming – and even then, only while you’re on Wi-Fi or reliable 5G.

Since many mobile gamers prefer to play competitive online titles, cloud gaming isn’t really an option, as it introduces too much lag. The cloud also won’t work for you if you don’t have reliable access to fast internet.

The main one is the core chipset. Look for a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip that begins in ‘8’ – the latest are the 8 Gen 1 and 8+ Gen 1, but the previous 888 series will do great too – or a similarly powerful MediaTek Dimensity chip. You’ll also want at least 8GB of RAM to make the most of the chip – more is better, but there are diminishing returns beyond 12GB or so.

The display matters too. You’ll probably want a fairly large screen to game on – at least 6.5in – and look for one with a 120Hz refresh rate or higher, and the fastest touch response rate you can find. Spending more for AMOLED tech over LCD will deliver better contrast and colours, but don’t worry too much about resolution – gaming phones rarely go beyond Full HD.

One extra perk of buying a gaming phone is that they usually offer a range of accessories to go with them. These vary by manufacturer, so there’s no hard-and-fast rule on what to pick up.

Strap-on coolers and fans are a good way to maintain performance and reduce long-term damage to the phone’s chip from overheating. If you find it fiddly to play on the touchscreen, you might also want to grab a Bluetooth controller. As with any phone, a protective case and screen protector are always a good bet too.

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A few weeks with this phone, and its changed my perspective on mobile gaming. I’ve never enjoyed mobile games as much as I want to. The biggest thing that"s been holding me back, especially for MOBAS and shooters, is the notoriously hard-to-use and imprecise touch-screen controls. With Black Shark"s latest release of the Black Shark 4, they’ve got a couple of tricks to fix all that, the two biggest being, a highly responsive touchscreen, and physical buttons.

To celebrate the launch, Black Shark is offering $30 off the purchase price of $479 at AliExpress - use coupon code 30BSSELL. This is valid until May 11th. Also, the first 200 orders will get a bonus original fluorescent case, and a Black Shark "Gaming Finger Sleeve" (we are just as clueless about that one, I promise you). If you"d rather order from the official site, the first 100 orders get a free case and fan cooler.

We"ve been testing the Shark 4 for the past few weeks and were really surprised with not only how much more enjoyable games were compared to our non-gaming phones (an iPhone 12 mini and a Google Pixel 4a) but also how much better we actually were. In just two days, we quickly ranked up in games like Call of Duty Mobile, where we reached the master tier. We weren’t just playing better, we were outperforming everyone else. Coming from someone who doesn’t generally do all that well at shooters, that’s saying something. I used to be pretty skeptical about gaming phones, and for the most part, still am.

Of course, this phone does more than just game, but for this review, I’ll be focusing on the key features that make the Black Shark 4 not only stand out from other gaming phones but fundamentally changes the way you game with it.

The Black Shark 4 uses the Qualcomm 870 processor, which is commonly found in many upper mid-range and affordable flagship devices. The Shark 4 Pro on the other hand, sports the beefier Qualcomm 888 which is currently Qualcomm’s most powerful processor.

The standard model is equipped with 6GB of RAM, which can be upgraded to 8GB or 12GB. Storage starts at 128GB UFS 3.1, which is very speedy, and can be upgraded to 256GB.

The Shark comes in 4 color options including Magic Black, Black, Blue, and Silver. In the test box, they’ve included a case as well which covers most of the phone’s rear but has a few cutouts, which I assume are for improved heat dissipation.

Important connectivity includes 5G, Bluetooth 5.2, USB Type-C 2.0, and (thankfully) a headphone jack, which can be handy for a latency-free audio experience while gaming.

It also has a fingerprint reader in the middle of the right side. It responds quickly and is situated at a reasonably good height to reach it easiest when holding the phone with one hand. Smaller hands might struggle, however, as it is still a bit of a stretch given how big this screen is.

Equipped with a massive 6.67-inch AMOLED screen that supports HDR10+, you"ll see impressively deep blacks and vibrant colors. Everything has a very punchy pop and combined with its size, this makes it great for watching movies and browsing the web. You definitely have a lot of screen real estate to work with here.

Holding the Black Shark 4 with one hand is ultimately not very comfortable, and I most often found myself using both hands. Likewise, even though the phone is relatively thin at only 0.39 inches (10mm), it’s 6.42 inches (163mm) tall and 3 inches (76mm) wide. It’s not very pocketable and will likely stick out a bit.

The plastic build helps keep the weight relatively low at just 7.41 ounces (210g), which is slightly less than the similarly sized 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max.

The screen is actually very special in some key areas. For starters, it has a 144Hz refresh rate compared to last years’ 90Hz. You can keep up with fast movement more easily whether gaming or just scrolling because more frames are shown each second compared to lower refresh rate screens. It can actually make the phone feel snappier and more enjoyable to use because of how fluid everything feels.

For mobile gaming, a higher refresh rate screen can be great so long as the CPU/GPU can keep up. There are a good number of games that now support 144FPS or uncapped FPS, though many of the more popular titles like Genshin Impact, Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG do not. Those are capped at 60FPS. Moreover, even if they did support it, you’d likely be hitting GPU/CPU bottlenecks unless you were playing at lower graphical settings.

While there are a growing amount of games and applications that support 144Hz, more graphically intensive ones still might not hit 144fps. Playing Genshin Impact, for example, with more demanding environments which had a lot going on, could easily dip the FPS to the low 40s and even 30s, with graphics set to maximum quality.

I don’t necessarily think fast refresh rate screens are a gimmick for phones, as they still have their advantages for certain games, apps, and the overall navigation of the phone. But they aren"t as fully utilized as you might think. This is more of a limitation to the optimization of current games and the performance of current mobile chips.

What’s more impressive, however, and in my experience actually more beneficial to gaming, is its 720Hz touch sampling rate. Black Shark claims this to be “the most responsive smartphone touchscreen ever”. This high pressure-sensitivity makes it super easy to get precise movements for even the most competitive games.

Unlike with modern iPhones which have a 120Hz sampling rate, the slightest movements across the screen register more accurately. Higher sampling rates, as with the Black Shark, let the phone register your taps, flicks, and movements more quickly and frequently. This was immediately noticeable to me.

I"ve never been a huge fan of mobile gaming, primarily because the touchscreen controls never felt precise. With shooters=, I could never point and aim where I wanted to, making it overly frustrating. Movement and aiming with the Shark’s touch screen is a day and night improvement, but it doesn’t stop there.

Introduced with last year‘s model, the magnetic pop-up triggers make their return with the Shark 4. The two top sliders reveal a left and right trigger button which can be custom mapped, via their Shark Center app, to any two A and B points on the screen. Having highly responsive physical buttons helped transform me from one of the worst at mobile shooters, to crushing the leaderboards.

At heart, I’m a PC gamer. Especially when it comes to first-person shooters and MOBAS, nothing has really come close to a mouse and keyboard in terms of fast and precise controls for me. That is until this phone arrived.

Honestly, at times it felt like I had an unfair advantage. Comparing the gameplay of just using the onscreen controls vs having the physical buttons is a huge difference. For shooters especially, being able to map your triggers to aiming down and the other to firing, makes you much more competitive. Your thumbs can focus on movement and aiming while your index fingers can handle shooting.

Combined with that high 720Hz pressure-sensitive screen, it actually gave me more precision and comfort compared to using an Xbox controller. While I don’t think I’m as good using this phone compared to my PC controls, it"s by far the second closest thing.

Keeping temperatures cooled is especially important with gaming phones. For the past few weeks, I’ve tested a number of long gaming sessions to see if the phone ever got hot to the touch or uncomfortable. Black Shark has upgraded their liquid sandwich design cooling system, which it claims is 30% more effective at heat dissipation. More graphically intensive games like Genshin Impact do stress the phone more and after a few hours, it can still get too hot.

But, that’s where you then attach the optional "FunCooler 2Pro". Atrocious product naming aside, the heatsink and seven-bladed fan cools the phone noticeably in seconds. You can even see the temperature drop with its built-in display on the front. Of course, this has customizable RGB lights, because what doesn’t these days?

When paired to your phone’s Bluetooth, it can even be programmed to change colors based on the game you’re playing. At full “Frozen” speeds, it can get pretty audible, but it genuinely feels like a freezer is attached. Quieter fan speeds are available for when you don’t need that arctic cool. For less than $30, if you plan on gaming hard with this phone, it’s a no-brainer. Props to them for also making this compatible with other phones too, even iOS.

I would have liked to see a more integrated way of connecting and powering the cooler, however. Now you’ve got to remember to pack an additional charger and cable for the cooler if you take this on the go. Instead of having to power both the phone and cooler individually, a single charging solution would have been more convenient and easier.

Cameras are more of an afterthought on gaming phones but are still worth mentioning. The Black Shark 4 has a triple camera system on the back and a front selfie camera.

The main shooter is a 48MP f/1.8, while the other two rear cameras are an 8MP ultra-wide and a 5MP macro. Compared to the iPhone 12 Mini (which sports a 12MP f/1.4 main sensor and a 12MP f/2.4 ultrawide) photos and videos overall weren’t nearly as polished and punchy as I"m used to, but by no means does that mean the Shark 4 was bad.

Most daytime side-by-side comparisons for stills were pretty close in fact. High contrast scenes, though, highlighted (pun intended) the weaknesses of these cameras and their processing. Switching between the 3 cameras and their modes, too, was much slower than I was used to. There was a noticeable delay before you could snap a photo and it wasn’t as seamless as iPhone’s and other implementations which allow you to tap to zoom in and out to switch between the cameras.

Low-light shots were actually pretty decent if you held still for long enough. Most impressive, it seemed to retain the dark blacks, instead of making them bright purples like some cameras with their night modes often do.

That said, more cameras and higher megapixel counts do not give you the full picture (pun also intended). The 48MP images never looked sharper than 12MP iPhone shots, even when cropped in. Taking photos with the full 48MP was also a slow experience which required switching to a different mode as well as taking longer to actually capture the image.

I don’t see much practical use for the 5MP macro camera, given the niche use case and low resolution. It feels like an easy way for them to advertise having more cameras, while not necessarily having a single great one.

Video recording is decent but also has some quirks. The OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) is best for slow panning or tilting movements—anything too fast and it came off as very digital. 4K recording is limited to the main camera only;  switching to the ultra-wide lens brings the resolution down to 1080p.

Between all that, you have a 4500mAh battery that supports 120W charging (and that"s not a typo), whcih can charge the phone to full in less than 17 minutes. That’s fast. Even using the standard 67W charger, you’ll charge to 100% in less than 25 minutes.

If you’re like me and frequently forgetting to charge your phone overnight or use your phone heavily for longer sessions, the combination of a long-lasting and quick charging battery is great.

One downside, though, is the placement of the USB-C port. While yes, the bottom middle is the most obvious and commonplace for the port, charging the phone and gaming at the same time can be very awkward, causing your hand to cramp as you try to hold and play around it. Moving the port to say the middle left or right side would have been a unique feature and way for a gaming phone such as this to distinguish itself from a “traditional phone”.

I used to think gaming phones were more of a gimmick without any noticeable benefits compared to their non-gaming variants. In a lot of ways, this is still true, especially with those potential bottle-necks I mentioned earlier holding the phone back from taking full advantage of their higher refresh rate screens and being stuck with the same clunky touch-screen controls.

The Black Shark 4 has addressed the biggest issue with mobile gaming, giving you a more responsive screen as well customizable triggers. This is the first phone I actually enjoyed playing more competitive mobile games on. Not only that, I was actually really good at them, which I think is reason enough to get this for most people.

Even if you’re not that big into gaming, you’re getting some pretty killer specs in an awesome package for less than $500 that are hard to match, let alone beat.