Verdict
The Poco F4 GT is a play earpiece with a top - tier processor , and be significantly less than some in this class . However , its assault and battery liveliness is passably poor , the level of performance strangling is disappointing and it gets quite red-hot in normal use – which helps explain why that throttling is necessary .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Poco F4 GT is part of a series from Xiaomi that appeals principally for techies and nomadic gamers . former Poco phones were nigh - on unbeatable in the performance they provide for the money .
This phone is a petty different . The Poco F4 GT cost £ 699 , more than aGoogle Pixel 6but – deed over – still significantly less than something like the Asus ROG Phone 5S.
I make that comparison because the Poco F4 GT is a consecrate play telephone set ; it has a “ gamer ” invention , and interesting buttons that emulate the feel and function of a gamepad ’s triggers .
These are nicely mastermind but not hugely comfortable to expend , making aRazer Kishia better resolution for those who want the gamepad experience on their phone . There are also questions over the Poco F4 GT ’s performance .
While it uses the top - tierSnapdragon 8 Gen 1SoC , performance ends up throttled heavily and fast . And comparatively short battery life means you ’ll have to list on the , avowedly super - nimble , 120W charge .
Like other Poco phones , the Poco F4 GT does not have a great camera array either . While the chief one is intelligent , and rattling to use , it descend behind the criterion at £ 700 with limited lowly - light performance and fine grain detail retention .
A topnotch - powered mid - price gaming telephone is a good idea in possibility , but it does not pan out perfectly here thanks to fairly severe execution throttling and mediocre battery life .
Design
The Poco F4 GT is made in the panache of dedicated gaming phones , like those from the Asus ROG series . It is not what many would define as attractive , but for those in for the drive , Xiaomi has nailed the style .
Triangular indent sit in the television camera housing , the finishing on the rearward cover version , while the camera flash light-emitting diode sits inside a lightning strike - shaped cutout .
This pod - sincerity is exactly what we see in some of thebest play laptopswe test . I did n’t encounter the look all that appealing , but have the same reaction to LED - packed gambling PCs with jumbo fan retail store , so that makes sensory faculty .
However , there are plenty whowillappreciate the Poco F4 GT ’s style , and this French telephone carry through the brief just as well as pricier phones . The materials used are excellent too .
The Poco F4 GT ’s back is meth , and its side are atomic number 13 . The only plastic on show here is a lilliputian band of the stuff between the display glass and the metallic element sides . You could n’t enquire for a good grammatical construction . Pricier phone may have curved glass front , but this is arguably not a smashing fit for a gaming sound . curving front glass get to a phone find smaller , but also pools reflections , making creating bright stock down the side for the display in certain lighting condition . There ’s none of that result here .
Prepare yourself for a tumid phone , though . The Poco F4 GT weighs 210 g and is 8.5 millimeter deep and 76.7 mm wide , making it a bit stumpy than batch of its less - nerdy coevals .
The Poco F4 GT does not have an in - screen fingerprint digital scanner , alternatively using the more scotch side - loaded pad , and it does n’t have a 3.5 mm phone jack either . However , the stereophonic system speakers are loud and beefy - sounding , which is far more important in a gaming phone .
One purpose queerness of this equipment is its extremely unusual “ magnetised ” side buttons . Two Pseudemys scripta sit down on the right side of the Poco F4 GT , and each airlift up a push button that dissemble a bit like the trigger on a gamepad . These do not mimic the inputs of such a pad though , and instead are used to copy touchscreen presses . You set the zone , in effect convey over the role of on - filmdom practical controller .
It ’s a groovy idea , and zones are set per game . I play Fortnite , using them to jump and shoot , and retro favourite Hill Climb Racing to manipulate the entire secret plan . They work well and experience sturdy . That they retract into the soundbox avoids accidental jam , and you may set them to act as shortcuts when not bring a game . That say , the ergonomics here are n’t even at the same story as something like the Razer Kishi , which plugs two halves of a gamepad onto your phone .
The idea is intelligent , and so is the execution . But extra buttons mount up onto a tenuous telephone set often are n’t much of an upgrade to the practical on - screen control design for the purpose .
Screen
The Poco F4 GT has a 6.67 - column inch Full HD 120Hz OLED screen . This is the best we could enquire for at £ 700 , and while even more expensive phones have sharper displays , this phone would merely have to be importantly more if it used one .
Vivid mode is used by nonremittal . This is an “ thinking ” vibrant mode , in that while the app icons on your home screens will have eye - protrude colouring , when you go to the Photos app to bet at shots take with the camera , they wo n’t appear comically oversaturated .
This is vibrant colour done correctly , and there are other colour modes if you ’d prefer a more reserved expression . The Poco F4 GT declare oneself possibly the most versatile , geek - friendly showing tuning I ’ve seen so far this yr .
My most potent takeaway from the Poco F4 GT ’s projection screen is how much it is uncoerced to push display brightness in normal outdoors conditions . Many speech sound with top - quality mid - range displays will only expend their true peak luminousness when displaying HDR content , not when vie with super - bright sunlight .
The Poco F4 GT is remarkably clear outdoors , because the OLED is allowed to give nigher to its unfeigned peak brightness outdoors than most . Outdoors clarity is therefore very skillful .
This video display also sway 120Hz , meaning it refreshen itself that many sentence per mo , so you ’ll get A-one - smooth scrolling around the Android operating system .
Software and Performance
The Poco F4 GT has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor . While Qualcomm has foretell theSnapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 , this is presently the most powerful SoC in this series actually available in earphone you may bribe at the time of exit .
Its general public presentation is just as peachy as you ’d hope , with apps and multi - tasking transitions being far faster than those of the OPPO Find X5 Lite I used before the Poco , getting you the flagship experience I ’d have a bun in the oven from a phone with this kind of power .
However , I do n’t think the Poco F4 GT delivers the kind of gaming phone performance the design seems to assure .
top gaming performance is fantastical , clear 10140 point in 3D Mark ’s Wild Life bench mark . This is even more abstracted from real - world than a benchmark score usually is , though , as exponent is massively throttled during successive runs .
The Stress Test version of Wild Life go the same GPU - maxing scenes 20 times to see how the resolution change . They drop almost straight off , down to 45.6 % of its peak world power ( 4628 points ) .
This kind of choking happens in every phone I ’ve used with the Snapdragon SoC , but it is worse there than in most . Perhaps the most important Book of Job of a gambling phone is to maintain sound performance . But after a few minute the Poco F4 GT ’s dips below that of the Realme GT 3 Neo , for example , a headphone with much less of a gaming focusing .
This is an bill of indictment of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 as much as the Poco F4 GT itself , but the phone ’s cool down organisation clearly ca n’t keep up despite using vaporisation chambers . There is a solvent . It ’s just not a practical one . I re - be given the stress test but put the telephone in the freezer , which brought the minimal political campaign account up to 8807 points .
Test Data
The processor ’s tip play performance is terrific , but you only get to experience it for minutes at a time . Well , unless you were to play outside in the snow .
It does not take much to make the Poco F4 GT warm up either . Just download a single file or take in some YouTube , and the back will get noticeably warm .
On a more overconfident note , the Poco F4 GT ’s worldwide performance is fantabulous . It has the flagship zip that lets you skip from app to app snappily , and despite my reservation about performance , games run very well .
Fortnite ’s 60fps mode is unlatched for the phone , as is the “ heroic ” graphics preset . However , I did detect more stutter dips after a few minutes of play , by which time the top of the headphone — the parts near your left bridge player — were almost uncomfortably hot .
The Poco F4 GT run Realme’sMIUI 13software on top of Android 12 , the latest version at the time of review . It looks good , but this is one of the quirkier usance interface around . For good example , messes with the apprisal throw away down , using left - right swipe to let you switch between the function toggles and your notification .
A few months ago I used a duo of MIUI phones in a quarrel and got used to this style . Having used a couple of others earpiece since then , this modification seems plaguy and unintuitive all over again . Still , you will get used to it in meter .
Unfortunately there is a serious software program issue that appear to affect some Poco F4 GTs at launch , which makes the earpiece hertz between recognising and not recognising the SIM menu when inserted , causing it to dash so hard the phone reset after a handful of seconds .
I had to factory readjust the Poco F4 GT to solve this job . And after letting the battery run down whole , the problem return — this is something Xiaomi desperately needs to sterilize .
Camera
The Poco F4 GT has three rearward camera . A 50MP Sony IMX686 ( 1/1.7 - in ) with f/1.9 lens is the primary coil , back up by an 8 - megapixel ultrawide and a 2 - megapixel macro .
Its macro photographic camera is unfit , just like all tertiary cameras of this spec . Theultrawideis mediocre too , produce icon with moisten - out mid - tones and importantly different color character to the main camera ’s photos . There ’s a very obtrusive pace down in quality from the main camera , and trope do n’t bear up too well when you zoom along in .
That is normal for a mid - range speech sound , but as this sits towards the top of what I ’d consider “ mid - scope ” , you might hope for better performance .
The Poco F4 GT ’s primary television camera is much skillful but , again , does not quite correspond up to what you could get elsewhere for the money . Tight natural textures like leaves and Gunter Grass can look unnatural up close , especially in anything less than capital firing .
Far - away forage becomes fuzzy in some scene , night photo quality is not as just as that of some importantly cheaper phone . shadow contingent is not ameliorate as much as I ’ve seen even at £ 400 when using the Night mode and results can be inconsistent , which may be thanks to the want of OIS .
While the 2x zoom mode is useful for composition it does n’t reveal significant excess point not project in standard pixel binned 1x shot . I used it to rupture pics or some ducklings at one point , and the rendering of their downy feathers was average .
The Poco F4 GT can take poppy , ready - to - portion moving picture , but a camera phone on the stratum of thePixel 6would still pass over the flooring with this one . That said , I ’d still be happy to use this earphone as my solar day - to - twenty-four hour period photographic camera ; it ’s responsive , tight to shoot , and can take enough pictures . It just is n’t close to the best you’re able to get for your money , and I ’d hope for at least slightly better results look at the heavy 1/1.7 - inch sensing element size .
The ultra - wide tv camera ( above ) tends to denigrate strong light generator .
The principal photographic camera ingest pleasant pictures ( above ) , but they do n’t always harbor up well when you zoom in
Above is a demonstration of the potential lens flare from the camera .
As you may see above , the 2x soar does not handle natural textures particularly well .
The above video was shoot using the Portrait modality , those blob in the ground emulating lens bokeh .
Up - close focal point can be tricky with the Poco . The above image was the best resultant we could get , following several attempts .
Even though the 2x zoom is n’t the effective , it still often comes in useful for composing better shot like the one above .
As you could see in the preceding image , guileful textures such as fur and features can just come down apart when the lighting is sub - optimum .
The level of item can still hold up to some extent even when deal with the 2x zoom , as in the shot above .
Thankfully there are no immense technical roadblocks for video . you may shoot at 4 K solvent , 60 frames per second , and footage is still right stabilize . I did observe point shimmering in time with your footfall , which propose the frame exposure metre is a fiddling too long to avoid in - physical body blur .
The Poco F4 GT also has a ace stabilised mood , but I intend the stabilisation at 4K/60 is upright enough in most case . It ’s what I would suggest using by nonpayment , as the added stabilisation circumscribe you to 1080p/30fps capture .
A 20MP selfie camera sits up front , and it is decorous . Its resolution is a bit gamy for the 1/2 - column inch sensing element size , which conduct to only OK detail unity , but selfies in general are good . Make trusted you engage the Auto HDR mode when taking backlit pic , though , as otherwise adult parts of the image will appear blown out . HDR is switch off as criterion , for some reason .
Battery Life
The Poco F4 GT is not a long - last phone . It has a 4700mAh battery , which is a little minor than the 5000mAh used in many mid - range Xiaomi phones and far smaller than the 6000mAh of the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro .
Its actual - world stamina seems to be further lowered by how the phone operates . The fashion it capture warm with little incitement propose magnate management could be better , and its gamy display brightness outdoors , while great for clarity , will do the barrage fire lifespan no prefer .
On one sidereal day of testing , a day when I used the phone as normal rather than subject it to stress or performance tests , it was at 5 % explosive charge by 6 Prime Minister . It was used to teem podcasts for a few hours earlier that day , but nothing else too taxing , and it was specify to the stock “ balanced ” performance profile , which is what most buyer are likely to use on a daylight - to - day footing .
The battery level neglect quickly enough to become a regular thwarting for those who like to charge their phone overnight and not have to worry about it running out each mean solar day – which this phone may well do .
Fast charging is the fond solution we ’re offered . The Poco F4 GT has 120W fast charging , which is superb . While it dips to 100W by its quaternary minute on charge , 75W by the five minute mark , and dip further subsequently on , its speed is still excellent .
You get from monotone to 50 % commission within 10 minute . It ticks over to 100 % at 24 minutes and — a cheeky fashion to make charge seem even faster — Chicago drawing important force at 30 minutes 22 second . There ’s no radio charging , belike a budget - relate cut .
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Should you buy it?
, bright and punchy display and high memory capacitance . It ’s also a glass and metal design ,
as it suffer from just as severe — or worse — performance confine as “ normal ” headphone with the same SoC. Relatively short battery animation signify it wo n’t last through the day if you play any games .
Final Thoughts
The Poco F4 GT is a knock-down gaming earpiece that has the correct looking at and components for the Book of Job , incuding punchy stereo speakers . Its superlative carrying into action is excellent , but living with this earpiece take the radiancy off an Android that looks dandy on newspaper publisher .
Its battery life is comparatively short , while it also gets strong frequently , and quite hot when playing games . This leads to very significant carrying into action strangulate that create you query how effective a gaming telephone this really is .
Xiaomi offers up the Poco F4 GT ’s magnetized triggers as further justification . These are intelligently carry out but are n’t all that comfortable to use for any length of time , so you are still good off with a pad accessory if you require that console table - style experience .
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every mobile telephone set we retrospect good . We apply diligence stock test to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main twist over the review period . We ’ll always separate you what we obtain and we never , ever , bear money to go over a product .
FAQs
The Poco F4 GT does not support wireless charging , only cabled charging .
The telephone set has not water immunity military rank , so should be used carefully around water .
There is no headphone jack on the phone .
Full Specs
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