Poco F4 Review (Should You Buy This Phone) 

Poco F4 GT is the cheapest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phone with 120hz Amoled Screen, 120-watt fast charging, and physical trigger buttons for a very low price of $540. Just to mention the Black Shark 5 Pro with the same chipset will cost you around $760. So that is $220 more. Why is the Poco F4 GT so cheap?

Design and Build

The first time you hold the phone, you’ll be able to feel the difference when compared to other Poco phones, in terms of its luxurious feeling. It comes with an aluminum frame which is the first model in the Poco line with an all-glass back. The Front Glass It is Gorilla Glass Victus but it doesn’t have the resistance to splash or dust, unlike the famous Poco F3.

The design is, well it’s nothing extraordinary, I’m saying Is that the same lightning that was on Harry Potter’s face? It’s true that we’re Filipinos and we’ll be putting an enclosure to it, don’t you think? In all honesty, I’m loving the shade of black that they use here. It’s more on the grey side.

Additionally, it has RGB lighting in cameras. I think it’s a waste of time but the moment you see the breathing light effect when you have a notification, guys you’ll feel happy about it.

So here are the magnetic trigger buttons. So if you switch it, the buttons will pop out. These can be extremely useful when shooting games such as Call of Duty, PUBG, or even Genshin Impact. However, I believe that the Black Shark 4 is more comfortable If my memory serves me correctly.

How does it feel on normal usage?

Actually when you use the free TPU case, the buttons kinda just disappear. So every time you put it in your jeans pocket, you will not be accidentally pressing those buttons. If you’re not in a game. You can assign some functions to the trigger buttons like you can turn on the flash, start a video recording or turn on vibrate mode or silent mode.

Display

The screen is stunning! 6.67-inch AMOLED screen that has a 120-hertz refresh. The colors are accurate and have perfect viewing angles. The display is clear and crystal clear even in outdoor settings. The refresh rate is able to be set to 60 or 120 hertz. Also, it has Widevine level 1 which means that you can stream HD videos on Netflix and HDR 10+, however it appears that Dolby Vision isn’t enabled in any way on Netflix. I’m hoping that they will solve this issue in the next update.

In today’s standard. As long as you have an AMOLED screen. I bet it’s going to be good.

Antutu Benchmark

Poco F4 scored more than 903,000 for the Antutu Benchmark and compared it with other phones I have reviewed previously. The phone runs really buttery smooth when you are like opening apps or when you’re browsing through Facebook or when you switching apps or using your camera Actually when you typing, it feels like the letters show right away even if you’re just about to press it.

How about gaming on Poco F4?

when it comes to gaming, in general, I’m not simply going to talk about the speed or the smoothness of how the phone runs. It is important to have quantifiable data to determine if the device is running well or poorly. If you’re familiar with the word FPS then you’re able to skip this part and proceed to the next. If this is your first time hearing FPS keep reading and I’ll go over the explanation. This can be helpful when it comes to picking your next gaming device.

Mobile Legends	LOL Wildrift	PUBG	Marvel Super Wars	Call Of Duty Mobile	Genshin Impact
60.33	59.57	59.49	58.69	39.58	34.05

FPS basically is telling us how many frames the phone can render in one second. So the higher the number, the better. So 30fps is the bare minimum. This is playable already and you can somehow enjoy the game. But in today’s standard. It’s really 60 fps. You can feel that the animation is running smooth, no lags. So keep that in mind. 60 FPS. On mobile gaming, 120 FPS is kinda starting already. Even the Poco F4 GT is capable of running games in 120fps however it comes with a lot of compromises.

If the FPS score is close to the 60 fps target like 55 or 51 then we can say that the game is running smoothly. No stuttering, not choppy or it’s not lagging. However, if the fps is a bit far apart from our target of 60fps to like maybe 40 or even 24 or 23. Then we can say that the game is lagging and we are experiencing stuttering.

Mobile Legends on Poco F4

Let’s begin with mobile Legends, in reality, this game is able to be played on numerous smartphones right now. Some phones even cost ($100) (or ($140).

Poco F3	Black Shark 4	Poco F4 GT	Realme GT	S21 Ultra
60.42	60.41	60.33	60.27	59.30

Based on the data. We scored excellent scores with the Poco F4 GT. If we change the phone to Ultra Framerate which is the 120 FPS mode. It’ll actually be running at 120 FPS for a couple of minutes, however, as soon as the phone is hot. It’ll Throttle Down to 90 FPS. Based on my tests, I was able to get an average speed of 73.84 FPS. However, when you enable the performance mode in Game Turbo. It can run at 120fps. in my testing, I was able to get an average of 100.65 However, the phone can get very hot. The temperature can go up to 44 Celsius. It is also recommended to use 60 FPS as the optimal frame rate. Even if the frames go down from 120 to 77. We’re still seeing an incredibly smooth framerate since we’re still above 60 FPS.

Call Of Duty Mobile on Poco F4

The game will be running at 60 FPS however when the phone heats up it will reduce the speed by 30 FPS. Based on my experience I scored approximately 39.58 on an average FPS. The low framerate is evident due to the day and night difference between the 60 FPS and the 30 FPS. However, if you enable performance mode within Game Turbo, you will be able to enjoy performance mode on the Game Turbo app. 60fps can sustain 60fps. However, the phone will start to get hot. It’s the same when you switch to Battle Royal mode. The same problem occurs. The phone get’s extremely hot. So, it dragged me in. at 60 FPS, but it drops to an insane 24 FPS. Again if you enable performance mode. It’s the same as before. it can keep the smoothness, but after a while, the phone can get very hot. Additionally, the FPS counter on the Poco F4 GT does not provide a precise reading. It is at 60, but when you turn on performance, it will increase to 120 FPS.

Genshin Impact on Poco F4

First few minutes on the highest setting at 60 FPS. It will run really smoothly. But guess what. It’s the same behavior. Once the phone gets hot. It will throttle down and you can see the frame rate drop from 60 FPS.

why is this happening?

It’s the Snapdragon 8 Generation 1 an extremely hot chip for one thing. It’s an extremely powerful SOC but it’s also very hot at the same time. Another factor is the Poco F4 GT’s cooling system. It might not be enough. Therefore, after cooling it down, we tried playing it for 30 minutes. The frames stabilized and we achieved an impressive 49 FPS on average.

The same thing happened when we used an external cooler Poco F4 able to run Mobile Legends with 120 frames per second or Call of Duty mobile. The frame rate improves which results in a more enjoyable overall experience. It is highly recommended to utilize a cooler if you’re playing using your Poco F4 GT. With Marvel Super Wars, League of Legends, and PUBG. In default settings, and with no fan. We had very stable FPS scores, which is great. It appears to be the norm with thermal throttling in the Poco F4 GT phones. It is essential to use cooling fans in order to stop the thermal throttle. The reason for this is that it is the Samsung 4nm process Qualcomm utilizes.

That’s why on their next SOC Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. They actually switch to SMC because of the heating issues.

Poco F4 Camera Photos

The 64-megapixel Sony IMX 686 sensor is great. It offers vibrant colors and amazing quality, however, I found the images to be soft. You might need to shoot many shots or be able to hold a steady hand in order to get that perfect shot.

It can also get worse if you don’t have sufficient lighting in your space. Its 8-megapixel Ultra wide sensor is not great. It’s just like similar to other mid-range phones. It has a slight color shifting. Also, it has a Macro lens. It is essential to have a steady hand. A lot of light and your subject must not be moving.

I know, it’s not as simple to label it a Triple Camera phone. It’s not that I’m in any way complaining. The camera isn’t really the main focus of the handset. The 20-megapixel selfie camera on the Sony IMX 596 is actually very excellent. You’ve heard of it. It’s pretty decent for videos and even selfies. Be sure to remove the beautification effects to ensure that your selfies won’t appear fake.

Poco F4 Camera Videos

For videos that are 30 FPS in both 4k and full HD, you’ll feel like the video is blurry when you move your camera left and right. If you switch it to 60 FPS, you will see that there is an improvement however, you could still feel the jitter, but only rarely. The gimbal effect is also present in the videos.

It’s not OIS but there is definitely some kind of digital stabilization in this case. Smooth! It also has an even more vivid color when in comparison to what you can experience in real life.

Speakers

Poco F4 has quad speakers. Dual tweeter and Woofer. As you can observe that both channels are separated. When comparing it with the S21 Ultra, I find it to be slightly louder. However, the clarity and vocals are more expressive and more lively. better separation of instruments. My experience is that the Poco F4 GT is superior.

Battery

The battery life is average, with medium use all day long, around 20% charging this phone. Poco says that the phone takes only about 17 minutes for you to completely recharge the phone. Based on my experience. Yes. But you’ll only be able to do this if you shut off your mobile and make use of the cooler. Also, using Call of Duty, you will have around an hour and a half hours on the full charge.

Conclusion

Flagship build quality. Flagship display. speakers Flagship. overall performance Flagship. Very tempting price but well except for gaming.

Is this the right gaming phone for you?

Poco F4 GT is catered for Enthusiast Gamers who feel comfortable with adjusting settings to optimize the gaming experience on their smartphone. It is also possible to find the use of a phone cooler. or someone who just really wanted to try a Snapdragon 8 gen 1 SO. If you’re someone who simply wants to play. Do not want to mess around with the phone’s settings. Or maybe you don’t want the inconvenience of using a phone cooler. You should consider you go with the Poco F3 or the Black Shark 4 instead.

Would I recommend this phone?

No! Well, the phone is designed for purely gaming. You have trigger buttons. Quad Speakers. RGB! Gaming Aesthetic Design. And look at these benchmark scores together with Poco F3 and Black Shark 4. So no cooling has been used on both phone. No special setting to tinker. And if you’re going to compare their scores with Poco F4 GT. That is running on a phone cooler. You’re going to be really disappointed.

So why still buy a more expensive phone?

I mean. I guess you get my point.