POCO F4 Review – A decent powerhouse

While we see many models today is well equipped with the latest processor, one known offering from POCO is always fits what’s affordable in the mid range segment to be competitive in the market bringing in decent offering to the mass users.

Today we will look at the POCO F4, a step that is not back but using what’s decent to keep the performance that is still pretty much relevant on a smartphone

Design

From the size perspective, the POCO F4 is the same as POCO F3, but from the design which you can look from the back, its flatten all the way to keep the look sleek with shining back cover when it is under bright light or sunlight. It still maintains the look of a flagship phone that you mostly seen today with a block form factor which is also curved on four sides adequately without sharp edges around it. The material used on the phone is matte plastic with glass like back, meaning it is still durable on day to day use and fingerprint smudges towards the body is at a very minimal rate.

Grip and comfort remains good with IP53 rating and less slippery compared to POCO F3. The rear camera island placement is kept to a slim height, making it sleek compared to the bigger island bumps you can see from other smartphone models, keeping things ergonomically simple.

So over to the right, you have power button which also doubles as a fingerprint scanner and a pair of volume button. At the bottom you got the dual SIM tray, microphone, USB C port for data and charging, and a down firing speaker. Finally at the top you have an IR Blaster, a speaker and finally a noise cancelling microphone. The overall weight of the POCO F4 is 195 grams which is a standard weight for mostly available smartphones.

For the color choices, it is available in Moonlight Silver, Night Black and Nebula Green.

Display & Audio

The POCO F4 took the approach of putting in a flat 6.67 inch FullHD+ display with dynamic AMOLED 120Hz panel, that has Dolby Vision, wide color gamut with brightness that can peaked up to 1300nits under bright sunlight within standing environments. To put into day to day perspective, the POCO F4 is able to display at a remarkable color with quality and smooth scrolling with up to 360Hz touch sampling rate, making it your gaming experience much responsive with a reasonable price point. Gorilla glass 5 is there as a protection for your front display.

Audio wise, the POCO F4 has a pair of speakers that will sound up together when comes to playing your games or movies, or streams you love, with the inclusion of Dolby Atmos sound. This will also work on your phone’s speakers and headphones via USB C port and wireless via bluetooth. Other audio features includes HiRes Audio and all the Audio Codec commonly found on most higher end phones.

Camera

POCO is known to have camera in the phones to be absent from OIS, but this time POCO had included the F4 with a rear 64MP OIS camera, 8MP ultra wide and 2MP camera followed by a dual tone LED flash. This gave the ability for the users to take a good stable shots in automatic mode especially with moving objects, wind blowing over leaves and moving subjects. The results is satisfying with good color balance and contrast with occasional soft colors, which is considering the price point, its a good camera setup. Over to the front camera, it came equipped with a 20MP wide angle shooter that is capable of capturing portrait photo.

We have included a sample recording of 4K 60FPS short video that shows the POCO F4 is able to do a really decent job in recording with the rear camera with clarity and details all together, and stabilization is fairly good with some minimal stutters as well when it is moving.

Performance & Interface

Time for the specifications, the POCO F4 uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 Octa Core SOC, which is the same SOC used on the POCO F3, with 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM, and a choice of 128GB or 256GB of UFS fast storage options. It is understandable for a few facts that the SD870 SOC is being used for this phone, mainly is this SOC is pretty much still pack power for today’s standard which is still being very relevant even with gaming or day to day use with it, second being it’s much affordable towards the user as well, and you still have 5G communications and WiFi 6 MiMo protocol standard support in it. Interface side, you still enjoy the latest MIUI 13 with Android 12, bringing in an updated refresh customization like game mode, better camera interface, homescreen UI and faster app and games load time, to name a few.

Over to the gaming side, it is best to be set around medium mixed with high on the graphical settings which is the right spot for the SOC and GPU, where games like Genshin Impact and Mobile Legends for example will just run with a very minimal stutters, yet this will also maintain the temperature and battery life to last longer during gameplay. Idle temps are recorded around 32 to 37 Celsius over surface.

Benchmarks

Benchmark performance still stands strong in score as a formidable mid ranger phone, which translates to a good work, games and social companion. Since it houses a higher mid tier processor with adequate amount of memory in it, switching apps and games back and forth will enable users to resume and switch tasks quickly without issues, even with our 6GB RAM review unit he have on our hands.

Battery performance wise, you will get around 8 hours of it, a mix of calls, surfing, email, streaming, and a few Mobile Legends matches . Turn on the battery saving mode under 20% will get you around extra 4 hours of conservative usage. Charging up with the supplied 67w adaptor can get you from empty to fully charged in less than 50min with 4500mAh capacity battery in the phone.

Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion 

The POCO F4 can be easily said a refresher to the POCO F3, but with a better camera module and cooling system that makes things even appealing towards entry level mobile gamer that loves to take photos and videos with quality and upload with fast speed, which during review, we find the processor is still very strong, and will still be one even in the near future. On top of that you still get a very fast charger and POCO’s commitment of constant software updates and security fixes.

The POCO F4 is now selling from RM1599 and you can buy yours HERE