It has been 4 years now since the company released its first POCO F1 model. Today, it has a number of loyal customers for this smartphone lineup which has increasingly sprouted into one revolutionary device packed with top-tier specs at a very competitive price point.
Just recently, the company unveiled two new models the POCO F4 and POCO X4 GT equipped with the latest flagship specs for a powerful performance especially on gaming still offering at a budget-friendly price.
For this review, we will check on the features and share our thoughts on the POCO F4. The POCO F4 has two variants priced at PHP20,990 (6GB+128GB) and PHP22,990 (8GB+256GB). Available on all Xiaomi stores nationwide and its e-commerce stores on Lazada and Shopee.
Unboxing
The packaging box of the POCO F4 is made of thick cardboard material with the top cover in color black with the logo and text in yellow accent colors. There’s no image sample printed of the POCO F4 on the box.
The inner box holding all the items are colored in a vibrant yellow. The overall print finishing of the box gets a matte finish and no UV lamination or foiling whatsoever.
In the box the POCO F4 comes with a jam-packed accessories, you have the unit itself, SIM ejector tool, USB C cable, 67W power adapter, clear protective case, screen protector, quick start guide, warranty card and safety information guide.
Design and Display
The POCO F4 will come in three available colors in Moonlight Silver, Nebula Green and our review unit in Night Black.
It weighs 195g having a thickness of 7.7mm and has a flat-frame design that’s comfortable to hold even using it with just one hand only. The frame all-around it is made of plastic getting a matte finish. It also has an IP53 rating for dust and water resistance which we are happy for extra added protection.
The top houses an IR blaster, speakers and microphone while the bottom also has speakers, a USB C port, microphone and SIM port tray. There’s no 3.5mm headphone jack.
On its right side you have the volume rockers and power/sleep button integrated with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner that’s flushed on the edge.
The front panel glass is protected with Gorilla Glass 5 and there’s a slight curvature around the edges for a 2.5D finish. Bezels all around on the front are slightly thin but visible especially on the bottom chin still having a fairly thick bezels. For the front facing camera it has a punch-hole design with just a tiny dot at 2.76mm size.
On the back its cover panel is made of durable plastic with glass sporting that all nice glossy and mirror-like finish which is obviously prone for fingerprint smudges. But, the good thing on the glass cover panel it’s somehow easy to clean just wiping off with your shirt.
I like the Night Black colorway, it is so much simple and elegant with the back surface having a pleasant reflected beaming effect around the camera when you tilt it sideways.
You get a triple camera setup housed in a rectangular camera module located on the top left corner, POCO logo at the bottom left and on the other side are its certification markings.
The display on the POCO F4 sports a 6.67-inch Full HD+ AMOLED screen with a high refresh rate of up to 120Hz, a touch sampling rate at 360Hz offering a smooth and responsive experience as you scroll or play games on this large display.
You also get peak brightness of 1300 Nits, a resolution of 2400×1080 pixels, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, Ambient Light Sensor and awarded with SGS Eye Care Display.
Performance
Under the hood, the POCO F4 boasts of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G chipset running up to 3.2GHz featuring a 7nm processor with 5G support. The powerful chip is coupled with a 6GB LPDDR5 RAM plus an extra 2GB virtual memory and 128GB UFS 3.1 storage with no expandable storage. As for its GPU you get the Qualcomm Adreno 650.
To keep the device cool and stable the POCO F4 has LiquidCool Technology 2.0 using a 7-layer graphite heat dissipation and a 3,112mm super big vapour chamber.
Check out our benchmark scores on the POCO F4.
- Geekbench – 958 Single Core / 3259 Multi-Core Score
- PC Mark – 11647 Work 3.0 Performance Score
- 3D Mark – 4309 (Average frame rate – fps: 25.80)
- Disk Speed Test – Read 1317 MB/s and Write 498 MB/s
As we’ve mentioned, it offers dual speakers with two outlet grille located on the top and bottom with support of a Dolby Atmos feature. The sound coming out from both areas gave us a very good and well-balanced audio quality compared to the other phones out there. It has decent bass, high-mid range, clear vocals, not too high-pitched or too loud but rather span a wider reach sound level.
For gamers, the POCO F4 is equipped with their latest custom gaming launcher called Game Space with a simple user interface with all your games in a side-scrolling format. It comes with
Game Turbo which you can toggle some settings to record, monitor, optimize or boost your gaming performance and experience. You can also alter settings for responses, accuracy, tap stability, and graphical performance.
To test the POCO F4’s gaming capabilities, we played three games with Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty. The POCO F4 also support with the highest graphics setting available on these said games. All games were played very smoothly, at ease and surprisingly the phone did not heat up immediately. It’s just an insignificant warm on the back panel that you feel in your fingers.
Overall the performance of the POCO F4 is impressive it can handle multitasking without no problem or lags. From browsing your social media apps, taking clear calls, multimedia content or up to playing games almost an hour as the experience is very pleasant.
The POCO F4 can supports 5G or 4G LTE dual-SIM standby but no expandable storage. Using a 5G SIM on the POCO F4 was so fast and seamless connectivity and calls are also very clear. But in our area the 5G is not that stable so there are times we will be connected on it or disconnected immediately.
Camera
The POCO F4 is equipped with a triple-camera setup consisting of a 64MP primary camera with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), an 8MP ultra-wide camera and a 2MP macro camera. As for the front camera you get a 20MP for your selfies at f/2.45 aperture.
With the built-in OIS you need not worry taking photos on the phone if you got shaky hands.
You have four default shooting modes consisting of a Pro, Video, Photo and Portrait ready on the camera app. You have another extra 12 set of shooting modes to make more creative shots or depending on the situation like Night, 64MP, Short Video, Panorama, Documents, VLOG, Slow Motion, Time-Lapse, Movie Effects, Dual Video and Clone.
There is also a long-exposure shooting mode if ever you need to shoot fancy-looking low-light photos of the light trail, fast moving crowd, and the night sky.
The camera performance for us is pretty decent especially on the main camera. You get sharp and not too over saturated colors if taken in bright conditions but indoor shots add a slight noise to your quality. However, low light conditions with a fair lighting conditions makes the quality of your photos a bit hazy still with a bit of noise present on it which is still acceptable unlike other phones having an abundant of noise level. We also have shots that are too dark during night making it so difficult to get decent shots on the main camera if you’e not using the night mode.
Here are sample photos taken using the POCO F4.
1x Main Camera – Outdoor
1x Main Camera – Outdoor
0.06x Ultra-wide Camera – Outdoor
10x Main Camera – Outdoor
Macro – Outdoor
Main Camera Night mode – Outdoor Low-light
Main Camera – Outdoor Low-light
Selfie Portrait mode – Outdoor
Selfie camera – Indoor well-lighted
Selfie Camera – Low Light
Selfie Camera – Low Light Flash On
Record your videos with the following available resolutions on the POCO F4 using either 720P, 1080p or 4K quality at 30 fps or 60 fps. On the front facing camera you can only capture at resolutions of 1080p or 720p only.
If you want to capture more distance or area you can opt for the ultrawide camera however, it will set your quality to the 1080p resolution at 30 fps.
Below is our sample videos using the POCO F4.
Software
The POCO F4 runs on Android 12 with the latest MIUI 13 version 13.0.1.
You have some tons of pre-installed apps like Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Spotify including a few online games and Xiaomi’s proprietary apps.
The home screen already has apps on it ready to be used as well as shortcuts, widgets and folders. Swiping from the left most pane will open the Google Discovery a type of feed that shares online contents that might be useful for the user.
Battery
The POCO F4 has a 4500mAh battery with 67W fast charging and they also included in the package a 67W power adapter that’s a bit bulkier.
Charging the phone is very rewarding as the 67W charger took the battery from 0% to 44% in just 15 minutes only. After 20 minutes it already has an 88% charge. It took us only 47 minutes for the POCO F4 to have it fully charge which is quite impressive.
Under the battery settings you have some power saving feature like battery saver, ultra-battery saver, 5G battery saver, app battery saver and battery drain notification. You can also see the battery temperature and how much battery the app consumes.
What We Like
- Large AMOLED display
- LiquidCool Technology 2.0
- Amazing Audio Quality
- 67W Fast Charging
- Nice Quality on Main Camera with OIS
- Price
- Processor, RAM and Memory
- Stereo Speakers with Dolby Atmos
- Built Quality and Design
What We Want
- Expandable Storage
- Less Pre-Installed Apps
- 5,000mAh Battery
Conclusion
The Poco F4 still maintains to be one of the best mid-range smartphone today starting off from its design without sacrificing with its build quality. Then you get these amazing top-tier specs from the latest Snapdragon 870 processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, large AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, and decent 4500 battery.
I’m impressed with the great screen display the POCO F4 has to offer as I spend most of the time watching video content on it. Colors are vibrant with details of each image really stands out and it gets more immersive thanks to its dual speakers making the audio quality much better.
Aside from videos, the POCO F4 also is perfect for gaming. All games that I played ran very smoothly although I could feel the back panel warming a bit the cooling technology it offers can subdued the temperature down.
With the built-in hardware specs, it is coupled with a very smooth software with the MIUI 13 making it to enable faster data access and great for multitasking between demanding applications.
So, that’s my review on the POCO F4 another remarkable device we recommend if you’re looking for a phone to watch your favorite video content on an AMOLED display, a decent camera to take your photos and play your favorite online games.
POCO F4 Full Specifications
- PHP20,990 6GB+128GB, PHP22,990 8GB+256GB
- Moonlight Silver, Nebula Green, Night Black.
- 67-inch AMOLED DotDisplay
- 2400×1080 pixels
- 120Hz Refresh Rate
- Corning Gorilla Glass 5
- HDR10+, Dolby Vision, SGS Eye Care Display
- Snapdragon 870 Octa-core up to 3.2GHz
- Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU
- 6GB+128GB / 8GB+256GB
- MIUI 13 based on Android 12
- Rear: 64MP f1.79 main camera OIS + 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide + 2MP f/2.4 macro
- Front: 20MP f/2.45
- Video: 4K, 1080p, 720p
- LiquidCool Technology 2.0
- 5G-Ready
- Dual Speakers, Dolby Atmos
- 4500mAh battery
- supports 67W turbo charging
- Side fingerprint sensor, Face unlock
- Network: 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G
- Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6
- NFC
- Proximity sensor, Ambient Lighsensor, Accelerometer, Groscope, Electronic compass, Linear motor, IR blaster
