Poco F4 5G Offers a good balance of specifications for its retail price as we have already seen in our first impressions, However, this smartphone has to face stiff competition from brands like oneplus, iQooand even his close cousins Xiaomi, It’s time to find out if the F4 5G is worth buying or whether you’d be better off with one of these other manufacturers at this price.
Poco F4 5G Price in India
The official retail price of Poco F4 5G starts at Rs. 27,999 for the variant with 6GB RAM and 256GB storage. 29,999 for Rs. 29,999, you get 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Finally Rs. 33,999 gets you 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and this is the configuration I’m testing. Keep in mind that promotional offers and . with online sales, you can get each of these variants for very little. The F4 5G is available in Nebula Green and Night Black colours.
Poco F4 5G Design
The Poco F4 5G looks like a premium smartphone thanks to its frosted glass back and matte frame. It’s a bit heavy, weighing in at around 195 grams, but it’s not a very thick phone at 7.7mm. Even though the phone’s frame is flat, it has chamfered edges, so it doesn’t get stuck in your palm while holding it.
One thing I wasn’t used to was its buttons. Both the volume and power buttons are on the right side of the phone and are a bit recessed and stiff for my liking, requiring extra effort to get used to. They all also have the same build, which makes it a little difficult sometimes to tell which one you want, especially when the power button has a fingerprint sensor.
Poco F4 5G display supports Dolby Vision HDR playback
The Poco F4 5G doesn’t have a headphone jack, but you also get stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos and an infrared emitter. The retail package includes a case, 67W power adapter, data cable, and even a USB Type-C to 3.5mm headphone adapter, which is discreet.
The display is one of the highlights of the Poco F4 5G, and it should appeal to those who consume a lot of media on their smartphones. It is a 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate. Dolby Vision HDR playback is supported in the Netflix app. The display also supports HDR10+ playback. You get a full-HD+ resolution with a relatively high pixel density of 395 ppi and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for scratch protection. The Poco F4 5G comes with a pre-applied screen protector that picks up a lot of smudges and fingerprints.
Poco F4 5G Specifications and Software
The Poco F4 5G uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC, and in India, there is support for up to 10 5G bands. There’s also dual-band Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, and the usual array of sensors and satellite navigation systems. Poco claims that it has used a vapor chamber and graphite sheet in the F4 5G to keep the SoC cool under load. The phone also has an X-axis linear vibration motor for more precise haptics.
Poco told Gadgets 360 that the F4 5G has an IP53 rating for dust and water resistance, even though I couldn’t find any explicit mention of the feature in any of the brand’s marketing materials or website listings. The phone packs a 4,500mAh battery that supports up to 67W of wired fast charging.
Poco F4 5G has premium build quality and classy design
Poco F4 5G runs on MIUI 13 (v13.0.3) based on Android 12. During this review, the phone received a few updates, the last being the June 2022 Android security patch. MIUI is generally quite the bloated skin on Xiaomi smartphones, with many first-party apps notorious for spamming you with annoying notifications. On the F4 5G, you still get most of the bloatware, but no notification spam even though apps like GetApps and Themes are preinstalled. On the downside, Poco hasn’t committed to any long-term updates (yet) for the F4 5G.
The user interface is slick and fluid with lots of options for customization. The Always-on display can be tweaked to your liking, and on the F4 5G, you can enable it all the time or schedule it for a certain amount of time, unlike some of Poco’s other offerings, such as X4 Pro 5G ,review) All the common MIUI shortcuts and gestures are also available.
Poco F4 5G Performance and Battery Life
The Poco F4 5G ran quite well during the review period and I did not face any performance issues. The fingerprint sensor was very reliable for authentication and I like the fact that you can choose between a touch and a press of the power button to activate it. Facial recognition worked well as long as there was enough light around.
HDR media streamed over the internet looked great on the Poco F4 5G’s display. Colors were vivid and brightness was more than enough. Dolby Vision shows on Netflix looked good and HDR videos in general were pretty entertaining. Stereo speakers can get very loud and good sound. Games played very well even on F4 5G. Popular titles like Asphalt 9: Legends and Call of Duty: Mobile ran smoothly.
Poco F4 5G performance is solid, especially with gaming
The Poco F4 5G is able to maintain its cool quite well even after 20 minutes of gaming. Benchmark numbers were strong, and it scored 684,474 points in AnTuTu and a solid 50fps in GFXbench’s ‘Car Chase’ test.
The battery life of Poco F4 5G was quite good. On average, with moderate to light usage that includes a bit of gaming, video watching, web browsing, the F4 5G still managed to last more than a day. Thanks to the bundled high-wattage power adapter, the phone charges very quickly. In our battery loop test, the Poco F4 5G lasted for 18 hours and 14 minutes, which was good.
Poco F4 5G Camera
The primary camera of Poco F4 5G has a 64-megapixel Omnivision sensor with f/1.8 aperture and Optical Stabilization (OIS). You also get an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a 2-megapixel macro camera on the back. Selfies are handled by a 20-megapixel front-facing camera. The camera app should be familiar to anyone who has used a Xiaomi smartphone recently. There are plenty of shooting modes for both stills and video. The main rear camera supports video recording at up to 4K 60fps, but the ultra-wide and selfie cameras are limited to 1080p 30fps.
Poco F4 5G Main Camera Sampler (Tap to View Full Size)
Poco F4 5G Ultra-Wide Camera Sampler (Tap to See Full Size)
Poco F4 5G Main Camera Sampler (Tap to View Full Size)
Landscape photos captured in daylight looked good, with bright colors and a good level of detail, but when I looked close enough, the textures on objects were smooth and not very distinct. The ultra-wide camera had a more natural color tone but details were quite weak and I noticed some very obvious chromatic aberrations along the edges of some objects. Close-up shots looked good but I often had to tap the screen to lock focus properly. Once again the image looked good but there was a slight lack of sharpness. Macro photos taken in adequate light look surprisingly good.
Poco F4 5G main and ultra-wide camera samples (Tap to see full size)
Poco F4 5G Selfie Camera Sampler (Tap to See Full Size)
The rear cameras really struggled with exposure in low-light landscape shots. Details were lacking, the texture quality of objects was poor, and dark areas appeared as dark spots. Night mode had little effect on improving exposure or detail. The ultra-wide camera was even weaker in low-light scenarios and while Night Mode helped a bit, it wasn’t enough to get a useful photo.
Selfies looked good in broad daylight with good skin tone, details and exposure. Portrait mode also worked well, leaving the right side of the image blurry.
Videos recorded at 4K 60fps look good. There’s no stabilization but autofocus was steady, details were good and colors looked punchy. 4K 30fps video had stabilization but footage felt a bit jerky when recorded on the go, even slowly. There’s a ‘steady video’ toggle that will limit you to 1080p recording when enabled, but footage still looked jerky and heavily cropped. Noise and jitter were visible in low-light videos due to stabilization.
Decision
The Poco F4 5G is a well-designed smartphone that looks and feels premium. It offers great gaming performance, above-average battery life, quick charging and a very nice display that supports Dolby Vision HDR playback. The IP53 rating is also a nice bonus. It offers better value than the phone Xiaomi Mi 11X ,review), which is essentially the same device but with slower charging. The 12GB RAM variant is worth a go if you can sell it for less than Rs. 30,000, although Rs. 33,999, would be better off with you phone 1 ,review,
If you are looking for good camera performance, then a phone like realme 9 pro+ ,review) And OnePlus Nord 2T ,review) would be better options. recently launched Oppo Reno 8 ,review) should also be a good camera smartphone as it is similar to the Nord 2T, though we’ll reserve our final judgment on that until we finish reviewing it.