The Poco F4 5G offers a good balance of specs for its retail price as we have seen in first impressions. However, this smartphone faces stiff competition from brands like OnePlus, iQooand even its close cousin Xiaomi. It’s time to find out if the F4 5G is worth buying or if you’d be better off with something from one of the other manufacturers at this price point.
Poco F4 5G price in India
The official retail price of Poco F4 5G starts at Rs. 27,999 for the variant with 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. For Rs. 29,999, you get 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Finally, for Rs. 33,999 you get 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and this is the configuration I tested. Remember that with promotions and online sales, you can get each of these variants for a lot less cost. The F4 5G is available in Nebula Green and Night Black colors.
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 heavier, weighing in at around 195g, but it’s not a very thick phone at 7.7mm. Although the phone’s frame is flat, it has beveled edges so it doesn’t get stuck in the palm of your hand when holding it.
One thing I can’t get used to are its buttons. Both the volume and power buttons are on the right edge of the phone and are a bit concave and stiff for my liking, requiring you to put in more effort. They all have the same texture, which makes it sometimes a bit hard to tell which one you want, especially since the power button houses the fingerprint sensor.
Poco F4 5G’s display supports Dolby Vision HDR playback
The Poco F4 5G doesn’t have a headphone jack, but you do get stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos and an infrared transmitter. The retail package includes a carrying case, a 67W power adapter, a data cable, and even a USB Type-C to 3.5mm headphone adapter, which is very thoughtful.
The display is one of the main attractions of the Poco F4 5G and will appeal to those who use a lot of media on their smartphones. It’s a 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED display with a 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 resistance. Poco F4 5G comes with a pre-applied screen protector which tends to leave a lot of smudges and fingerprints.
Poco F4 5G Specifications and Software
The Poco F4 5G uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC and, in India, supports up to 10 5G bands. There’s also dual-band Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, and the usual range of sensors and satellite navigation systems. Poco claims they used a vapor chamber and graphite wafers in the F4 5G, to keep the SoC running cool under load. The phone also has an X-axis linear vibration motor for a more precise feel.
Poco told Gadgets 360 that the F4 5G has an IP53 rating for dust and water resistance, although I couldn’t find any explicit mention of this feature in any marketing materials or website listings. which of the brand. The phone packs a 4,500mAh battery with support for fast wired charging up to 67W.
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 several updates, the last being the June 2022 Android security patch. MIUI Overall a rather clunky skin on Xiaomi smartphones with lots of first-party apps that are notorious for spamming you with annoying notifications. On the F4 5G you still get most of the bloatware but no notification spam even though similar apps like GetApps and Themes are pre-installed. On the other hand, Poco has not committed to a long-term update (yet) for the F4 5G.
Smooth and flexible user interface with lots of options for customization. The always-on display can be adjusted to your exact will, and on the F4 5G you can turn it on all the time or schedule it for certain times, unlike on some of Poco’s other offerings like X4 Pro 5G (Review). All the usual MIUI shortcuts and gestures are also available.
Poco F4 5G . Performance and Battery Life
The Poco F4 5G ran pretty well during the review period and I didn’t experience any performance issues. The fingerprint sensor is very reliable for authentication, and I love the fact that you can choose between a single tap and press of the power button to activate it. Facial recognition also works well as long as there’s enough ambient light.
HDR media transmitted over the Internet looks great on the Poco F4 5G’s display. Vivid colors and adequate brightness. Dolby Vision shows on Netflix look good, and HDR video is generally enjoyable. The stereo speakers can be very loud and sound good. Games also run very well on the F4 5G. Popular games like Asphalt 9: Legends and Call of Duty: Mobile run very smoothly.
The performance of Poco F4 5G is very good, especially when playing games
Poco F4 5G can stay cool quite well even after 20 minutes of gaming. The benchmark numbers are strong, and it scored 684,474 points in AnTuTu and 50fps in GFXbench’s ‘Car Chase’ test.
Battery life on the Poco F4 5G is quite good. On average, with moderate to light usage including a bit of gaming, watching videos, browsing the web, the F4 5G can still last more than a day. The phone charges very quickly thanks to the included high power adapter. In our battery loop test, the Poco F4 5G ran for 18 hours and 14 minutes, which is pretty good.
Poco F4 5G . Camera
The main camera on the Poco F4 5G has a 64-megapixel Omnivision sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilization (OIS). You also get an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a 2-megapixel macro camera on the back. Selfies are handled by the 20-megapixel front-facing camera. The camera application must be familiar to those who have used Xiaomi smartphones recently. There are a variety of shooting modes for both stills and video. The main rear camera supports video recording up to 4K 60fps, but the ultra-wide and selfie cameras are limited to 1080p 30fps.
Poco F4 5G main camera sample (tap to see full size)
Poco F4 5G ultra-wide camera sample (tap to see full size)
Poco F4 5G main camera sample (tap to see full size)
Landscape shots taken in daylight looked good, with vibrant colors and decent levels of detail, but textures on subjects were smoothed out and weren’t very clear when I looked close enough. The ultra-wide camera has more natural tones but details are noticeably weaker, and I noticed some very obvious chromatic aberration along the edges of some subjects. Close-ups look good, but I often have to tap the screen to make sure the focus is properly locked. Again, images look good but sharpness is a bit lacking. Macro shots taken in full light look surprisingly good.
Poco F4 5G main and ultra-wide camera sample (tap to see full size)
Poco F4 5G selfie camera sample (tap to see full size)
The rear cameras really struggled with exposure in low-light landscape shots. Lack of detail, objects with poor texture quality, and darker areas appear as black patches. Night mode has very little impact on improving exposure or detail. The ultra-wide camera is even weaker in low-light situations, and while Night Mode did help a bit, it still wasn’t enough to get a usable photo.
Selfies look good in daylight with good skin tones, details, and exposure. Portrait mode also works well, blurring the right parts of the image.
Videos shot at 4K 60fps look good. There’s no stabilization but the autofocus is steady, details are good, and colors look vibrant. The 4K 30fps video has stabilization, but the footage is a bit jerky if shot while walking, even slow. There’s a ‘Stabilized Video’ toggle that will limit you to 1080p recording when enabled, but footage is still choppy and heavily cropped. Low-light video has noise and shake due to stabilization.
Identify
Poco F4 5G is a beautifully designed smartphone that looks and feels premium. It offers very good gaming performance, above-average battery life, fast charging, and a very nice display that supports Dolby Vision HDR playback. The IP53 rating is also a nice bonus. This phone offers better value than Xiaomi Mi 11X (Review), basically the same device but slower charging. The 12GB RAM version is well worth buying if you can find it on sale for under Rs. 30,000, however at Rs. 33,999, you’ll be better off with Nothing Phone 1 (Review).
If you are looking for good camera performance, phones like Realme 9 Pro + (Review) and OnePlus Nord 2T (Review) would be a better choice. Recently released Oppo Reno 8″ (Review) should also be a smartphone with a good camera as it is similar to the Nord 2T, however, we will reserve our final judgment on that until we are done with our review.
