Poco F4 GT review: A fast-charging flagship-class gaming phone

Poco is a consumer-focused smartphone maker spun off from parent company Xiaomi in January 2020. Recent reviews on ZDNet include affordable 5G handsets, such as the Poco X4 Pro 5G and Poco M4 Pro 5G. Next is the flagship-class Poco F4 GT, which costs €599 with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or €699 for a 12GB/256GB version. Poco phones are not officially available in the US and UK pricing has yet to be announced at the time of writing (mid-May 2022).

The Poco F4 GT runs on Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset and has a 120Hz refresh rate as well as 120W fast charging which it claims will charge the handset’s 4700mAh battery in 17 minutes . There are several features designed specifically for gamers, including contextual triggers. But is it a handset with appeal beyond gamers?

The 6.67-inch Poco F4 GT has a footprint of 76.7mm wide by 162.5mm deep, 8.5mm thick and weighs 210g. There are three color options: Knight Silver, Cyber ​​Yellow and Stealth Black, which were sent to me. All three have the camera’s LED light in a Harry Potter-style zigzag window that sits outside a dramatically protruding camera diamond. A narrow stripe running the length of the back plate and two angular patterns halfway down the long back edge reflect the light of the otherwise matte finish. Go for the yellow variant and you get orange and black highlights on the back.

Whichever color variant you choose, the glass back and Gorilla Glass Victus front provide some degree of drop protection and make the phone feel heavy and solid in the hand. It’s a pity that there is no IP rating noted in the specifications.

The sides of the handset reveal features designed to appeal to gamers. One of them is a pair of contextual triggers – buttons used as game controllers that sit on the far left and right of a long edge. They default to flush with the edge of the chassis and a pair of sliding knobs are used to extend and retract them.

Triggers can be assigned to specific actions in games and receive sounds when pressed to enhance the gaming experience. They can also receive single or double press actions when not playing. Triggers are taken out individually, so you can leave one active all the time and use its non-game functionality for day-to-day tasks.

The speakers are located on the short edges, positioned so that they don’t cover them when you hold the phone with your index fingers on the two triggers. The four speakers – a tweeter and a woofer at each end – pump out high-quality sound, which is as welcome when watching video or listening to music as it is when gaming. There’s no 3.5mm audio jack, but you do get a USB-C to 3.5mm headset adapter in the box.

There’s also what Poco calls a “gaming mic” design. In addition to the mics in the usual locations, there’s a third in the center of the long edge opposite the triggers. This is specifically placed so that it isn’t obscured when the phone is held in game mode, responding to any voice action.

Gaming support even extends to the charging cable which is L-shaped so it can be tucked away if the battery needs recharging while you’re in the middle of a game.

Elsewhere there’s an IR blaster on the top edge, and bundled Mi Remote software means you can use the phone to control devices like a TV. The main power button sits on the long right edge, with an in-display fingerprint sensor, while the volume rocker is hidden on the opposite side where it’s unobstructed from the triggers. Here you’ll also find the SIM caddy, which can accommodate a pair of SIM cards but cannot accommodate a MicroSD card slot for storage expansion.

The 6.67-inch AMOLED display with 10-bit color support and a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels (20:9, 395ppi). The pixel density is a bit low, but in use I found the screen to be perfectly clear and bright – it maxed out at 800 nits. With a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, a touch sampling rate of 480Hz, support for HDR10+ and DCI-P3 color gamut, the display might appear to tick all the boxes, but in fact, the refresh rate seems to be 60Hz or 120Hz, set manually or settable automatically. A more advanced LTPO refresh rate setting, which can adjust in finer gradients and rattle down to 1Hz to save battery life, is now reasonably commonplace on flagship phones.

TO SEE: The best Android phones: better than the iPhone?

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset is pretty much the norm for high-end phones these days, and in my review handset, which was the top-end model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage , it turned out Geekbench 5 average CPU scores 1247 (single-core) and 3725 (multi-core). This puts the Poco F4 GT as the number one Android handset on this benchmark.

Out of the box, 28GB of storage was already used, leaving 228GB for apps and data. As already indicated, the storage is not expandable via a MicroSD card, the SIM slot can only accommodate two 5G SIMs.

Poco augments Android 12 with the MIUI 13 overlay, which adds a number of apps, features, and settings tweaks. These include duplicates for some of the Android staples like a music player and gallery app, third-party apps like Spotify, TikTok, and Facebook, and some extras like a notes app, compass, wireless sharing app and a comprehensive themes app as well as the previously mentioned Mi Remote app. It’s far from a clean Android experience, but that’s the Poco way.

The Poco F4 GT has three rear cameras: 64MP f/1.9 wide angle, 8MP f/2.2 ultra wide (120°) and 2MP f/2.4 macro. The front camera, which is integrated into the display, is a 20MP f/2.4 unit. Both main cameras are fine for point-and-shoot photography, but the macro lens isn’t particularly impressive, limited by its fixed focus and 2MP resolution. Selfies with the front camera were perfectly acceptable.

The Poco F4 GT has a 4700 mAh battery which allowed the phone to run for 11 hours and 13 minutes under the PCMark for Android Work 3.0 battery life test. When asked to stream a YouTube video for three hours from a full charge, it lost 18%, suggesting a total battery life of around 16.7 hours.

Charging is exceptionally fast when the included 120W charger is used. Poco says a full charge can be achieved in 17 minutes. For a test in a real situation, I connected with the battery at 21%: after five minutes it had reached 53%, after 10 minutes it was at 79% and after 15 minutes it was at 98%. .

conclusion

While the Poco F4 GT offers features aimed specifically at gamers, that shouldn’t put off potential buyers looking for a powerful, solidly built, and relatively affordable phone. Indeed, these features can improve usability for everyone. Additionally, the battery life is good and the 120W fast charging really impresses.

However, if you need MicroSD card expansion, bloatware is an issue, or high-quality cameras are needed, this might not be the phone for you.

Poco F4 GT Specifications

Alternatives to consider

If you’re looking for a phone specifically designed for gaming, the Nubia Red Magic 7 Pro, from ZTE’s gaming arm, is ZDNet’s top pick right now. There are plenty of flagship-class Android phones at a similar price, and we’d point out that the OnePlus 10 Pro is one of the best.

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