Black Shark's next gaming phone could be about to launch soon. The Black Shark 4 has popped up on Chinese certification site, TENAA. 

In the images we see a phone with a vastly different rear design to the previous models

Rather than have a rear panel featuring triangular and diagonal protrusions and recesses, the back on the pictures from TENAA seems completely smooth. Going somewhat against the trend for having a visually busy back panel design we've seen in so many other gamer phones

The camera housing is quite different too. Rather than have that three camera triangular cluster, this camera unit is a centrally-placed extended hexagonal protrusion. 

Black Shark 4 gets certified in China photo 2

Looking closely we can see a number of buttons on the sides. From the front, the left side appears to host the volume rocker, while there are two other buttons on the right: likely a power button and a dedicated switch to launch the gaming mode interface. 

There also appears to be a very slight recess, which could be for a physical fingerprint sensor built into the side. We're not sure why Black Shark would adopt this approach instead of the usual in-display option. It could be down to switching to an LCD display, but that's just an educated guess, not a prediction. 

The listing was originally found by PlayfulDroid in a report which speculates that this is the 'Pro' model in the Black Shark 4 line up, due to its model number: PRS-A0. It's expected to be joined by KSR-A0, which could be the regular model. 

With the devices having shown up on TENAA, it's likely the new generation of Xiaomi-backed gaming phones will launch soon. The Black Shark 3 launched in March 2020, so it's around the right time for a new family of gamer mobiles to show up from the company.