Review: Poco F4 GT – Pure speed for gamers

Just announced, but we were already able to get started with it for a week. The Xiaomi Poco F4 GT is a lightning-fast gaming smartphone with LiquidCool Technology 3.0, magnetic pop-up triggers and lightning-fast hardware. Is this the gaming smartphone of the moment?

Poco likes to be seen as an independent brand, but still falls under the flag of Xiaomi. Or at least, the product, sales and marketing teams operate independently of Xiaomi, but certain aspects are nevertheless shared. Think of supply chain and production, after-sales and procedures for quality assurance. That is why you will also find the name Xiaomi on the back of the Poco F4 GT. Anyway, the Poco F4 GT once again promises to do what Poco is known for. Lightning-fast specifications at a low price.

For example, the Poco F4 GT has a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2,400 by 1,080 pixels, variable refresh rate up to 120 Hz and a touch sampling rate up to 480 Hz. On board we find the super-fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 8 GB or 12 GB RAM, 128 GB or 256 GB storage memory, a 4,700 mAh battery that you can charge with no less than 120W (charger is included) and a 64-megapixel main camera. , eight-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens and a two-megapixel macro camera. On the front is a selfie camera of twenty megapixels. There is also 5g support and bluetooth 5.2.

Naturally, this device is equipped with various functionalities for gamers. Firstly, LiquidCool Technology to keep the smartphone nice and cool under the most demanding games. In addition, there are real shoulder buttons that you can pull out magnetically, special haptic feedback and quad speakers with Dolby Atmos. The Poco F4 GT costs 599 euros (8 GB/128 GB) or 699 euros (12 GB/256 GB) and will be available from May 9. Are you pre-ordering the device? Then you get a 100 euro discount.

Design and build quality

Are you looking for a small smartphone? Then the Poco F4 GT is not for you. The 6.67-inch flat screen makes for a hefty device that you can’t easily operate with one hand. If you take a quick look, you just see a normal smartphone in terms of design, but do you look a little better? Then you will see some unique properties. On the right side of the device you see the on/off button in the middle, which also serves as a very responsive fingerprint sensor. Above and below you see a slider. Use these slides to let the trigger buttons (shoulder buttons) come up from the housing. The same slides also allow the buttons to disappear back into the housing. It works very smoothly. The volume buttons can be found on the left. The USB-C connection for the supplied 120W charger can be found at the bottom. Above and below we also find the quad speakers. What is also unique is that we seem to spot three microphones, so you have to be clearly understood during game sessions.

The device is quite heavy with 210 grams, but very solidly built. You will not find any annoying rattles. The Poco F4 GT is equipped with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, so it seems to be able to take a beating. We have the silver version as a test device, but there is also a black and yellow/black version available. We can clearly see that we are dealing with a gaming smartphone at the back of the device, where the silver surfaces seem a bit garish. It suits such gaming smartphones, so you have to love it. In the top left corner on the back we find the camera module. The selfie camera on the front is located at the top of the screen in a hole in the display. It is nice that a screen protector has already been installed and a transparent cover is also included. You are immediately ready with the purchase of this device.

Display and sound

What do you need on a gaming smartphone? In addition to showing beautiful graphics, screen speed is also very important. You want to be able to react as quickly as possible to the events in a game. Fortunately, that is perfectly fine on the Poco F4 GT. The device has a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2,400 by 1,080 pixels. The refresh rate is 120Hz and the touch sampling rate also goes up to 480Hz. So the speed is definitely there! And then it is also a bonus that the images shown are generally well displayed. It is not a top display compared to the really expensive flagships, but the AMOLED screen provides good sharpness, clear contrast and bright colors. It is true that the screen reflects quite quickly, so you should not sit too close to a light source. The screen is also HDR10+ certified and it is a ‘TrueColor Display’ for the true entertainment experience. You also screw up the brightness considerably, but gaming in bright sunlight will not be so easy. During sunny days you will have trouble reading the screen properly, but we actually see that with almost all smartphones.

The Poco F4 GT is equipped with four Dolby Atmos speakers. Now that is of course a little bit exaggerated on a smartphone, but it does show that Poco is serious about entertainment and wants to make it come across as well as possible. And that sound is fine. You can turn up the volume nicely and the quality remains quite good. Do you notice that Dolby Atmos effect with spatial sound? No, but the speakers present support the good display and the fast hardware more than enough to bring entertainment convincingly.

Performance

The Poco F4 GT has the fastest hardware at the moment, so the performance is of course incredibly fast. Buying this smartphone just to enjoy Facebook or WhatsApp, you really do this model short. This raw speed has to be let go and so it is very interesting for those who want to play demanding games on the smartphone. The lightning-fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in combination with the 12 GB RAM on our test device can really handle anything.

We download Call of Duty Mobile on the Poco F4 GT and get started. Games are supported on this device by a special overlay where you can adjust everything and, for example, you can also see the temperature of the CPU and the number of frames per second. The LiquidCool Technology 3.0 should keep the device cool, but you will still feel some heat under considerable pressure. However, it remains manageable. Via the gaming overlay of the GameTurbo app you have programmed the shoulder buttons in a jiffy and so we can jump and shoot with the shoulder buttons. And that this is really an added value is clear, because the control is so much smoother than when you do everything on the screen. You feel much more like playing with a real controller in your hand now. Actually it is legal to cheat, because you are immediately a lot better than most of the players in your lobby because you can react much faster. Incidentally, you can also program those shoulder buttons outside of gaming, for example to record a video or open the camera.

Of course, the lightning-fast charging also provides that feeling of pure speed. That very heavy block in the box of this phone is the supplied charger with which you can get the phone from 0 to 100 percent in 17 minutes with a speed of 120W. You have two speeds. Normally it goes a little slower, but you can also switch on the boost to get those 17 minutes. You will receive a warning that the device will heat up. It’s probably Poco’s way of saying “at your own risk.” You can also safely charge while gaming. The speed then decreases slightly, but from 0 to 100 percent in 27 minutes is still very fast. Wireless charging is unfortunately not available.

Camera

Those blazing-fast specs for such a price? Then something has to be handed in, right? That’s right. The camera is not quite up to date anymore. In fact, the main 64-megapixel camera features the Sony IMX686 sensor. We even came across this in the Poco F2 series two generations ago. The Oppo Reno 5 series also has this camera sensor.

The main camera is therefore quite behind on the rest of the specifications. However, make no mistake. Quickly taking a picture somewhere is just fine with this device. In daylight you get reasonably sharp photos and the device sometimes even surprises you. However, the problems are particularly present with the color fastness. Do you take a photo of the same subject three times? Then you get three times completely different color palettes. There is probably something wrong with the white balance and it will get better with an update. Still, it is very difficult to get true-to-life photos. Even if you turn off the AI ​​and HDR as much as possible, you will continue to see a software-contrived photo. Probably to compensate for the old sensor, but it regularly causes some strange photos.

As soon as it starts to get dark, the performance quickly drops due to the small sensor. Where the main camera sometimes still manages to surprise, the ultra-wide-angle camera is quite mediocre with again a whole new color palette. The consistency in terms of color is therefore still hard to find at the moment. In terms of sharpness, however, the ultra-wide-angle camera is below par. In terms of video performance, the device is better equipped. You can just film in 4k with a maximum of 60 frames per second and that produces pretty good videos, thanks in part to the stabilization. The camera is sufficient for on the road when you want to quickly take a picture of something, but that is not what you buy this device for. You do that for the lightning-fast hardware.

Software

Earlier this month we also started working with MIUI 13, when at the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro. However, where that device ran on Android 11, we simply welcome Android 12 with the Poco F4 GT. So more up-to-date, but still almost the same software shell, even if it would now be used in combination with the Poco Launcher. You see almost no difference.

MIUI 13 is quite messy, but luckily you can adjust many things. Customize the display completely to your liking, choose the animations or choose themes to display. You can personalize a lot. It’s certainly not the best software shell, but you’ll definitely be able to get used to it. We do, however, find a lot of pre-installed apps here that you can remove, but which of course should not have been there. We can do that very well ourselves. As a gamer, GameTurbo remains a great app. We find such a game mode on many smartphones, but with this gaming smartphone I have the idea for the first time that it is really useful. From CPU temperature to fps and from do not disturb functions to configuring the shoulder buttons. The GameTurbo app is your great friend with the Poco F4 GT.

We checked the update policy, but no real promises were made. For example, the team would still have discussions with Google and the MIUI team about the update policy. The aim is to provide this device with three years of Android updates and four years of security updates. So subject to reservation.

Poco F4 GT – Conclusion

Poco devices are cheap smartphones? That’s not how we can describe the Poco F4 GT. It is a full-fledged gaming smartphone that is more than worth the price of 599 euros or 699 euros, depending on the configuration. The Poco F4 GT does a lot of things right. This gaming smartphone with lightning-fast hardware will appeal to almost all mobile gamers, thanks in part to the programmable trigger buttons. These shoulder buttons are a real added value on a smartphone and will give you a big advantage during intensive multiplayer games.

The device is completely built around gaming and that means that the camera is the neglected child. You do not buy this device for photography. The display, sound, lightning-fast charging, fast hardware and special gaming functions ensure that the Poco F4 GT is one of the best gaming smartphones of the moment.