Review of the Poco F4 GT: the good, the bad, and the confusing
Our Verdict
The Poco F4 GT is an excellent gaming phone, offering really impressive performance and good quality triggers that can make a handful of games better. While some design choices are a bit odd, and the camera is nothing to write home about, it does a good enough job to become the new phone of choice for any game liker who doesn’t care how good their Instagram looks.
Still, it's not really clear what constitutes a top gaming phone. You can see that there are undoubtedly some excellent gaming phones available by reading our Asus ROG 5s Pro review. However, it doesn't seem to be simple to determine what you need from a mobile gaming phone—at least not for me. It seems more difficult to describe than console gaming, but I suppose you never know unless you try it.
Even though I like the Poco F4 GT, I don't believe this is the perfect one if it's true that you can tell it when you see it. The newest flagship device from Xiaomi's gaming division has a stunning screen, large speakers, and a plenty of power all housed in a stylish design with decent front and rear cameras. Even better, it's a lot less expensive than other phones with the same chipset, beginning at just around £600.
The changes Poco has made for the gaming community is this twist. This phone is ideal for shooters right away since it features triggers, which is the first and most obvious feature. Moreover, RGB lights in the camera bump, a specific cooling mechanism, and a distinctive right-angle charger make any gaming enthusiast feel completely at home.
The Poco F4 GT excels at all it attempts to achieve. Commence with the specifications. There are two storage/RAM configurations: 128GB/8GB and 256GB/12GB, paired with a Snapdragon 8 CPU that is comparable to the best Samsung phones at almost twice the price. I went over the latter.
This item is extraordinary in its potency. I was completely amazed when I ran mobile classics like Genshin Impact and CoD Mobile. In some situations, I could unlock framerates, push their settings to their maximum, and surpass 60 frames per second. All of this is accompanied by Poco's exclusive game boost software, which allows the phone to run on less battery life for improved performance. These titles, in any case, looked very nice.
However, the screen also contributes to the presentation's effectiveness in addition to the power. It has a 6.67-inch AMOLED with 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, and a maximum brightness of 800 nits. Although it's not always as bright as I would like and has a PPI density of around 400, which is a bit lower than others on the market, it has never really been a problem in use. It's large, brilliant, and exquisite.
A 4700 mAh battery powers all these beautiful visuals, more than enough to last you a complete day. That's simply your typical gaming activities, like browsing, snapping, playing a little Coin Master, and so on—not a whole day of gaming, mind you. The power departs the phone much faster once it does begin to demonstrate its capabilities.
But that's all perfectly OK. I didn't even realize I needed to charge the device for a few hours before I could still use CoD mobile. After that, it takes around 20 minutes for it to fully charge when you plug it in. I still find it difficult to understand how a phone can be plugged in, some toast and tea made, and then returned to almost full charge. It works like magic and eliminates the fear of running out of battery life (also, the phone comes with a 120W quick charge, which is great).
Everything is contained in a tastefully constructed aluminum body with a glass rear. It is somewhat heavier than other phones on the market at 210 kilos and 8.5 mm. Overall, the size is a touch larger than I'm accustomed to and requires some getting used to with one hand, but that's to be expected from a gaming phone. It must be somewhat larger since it must have a large screen, but that's okay with me.
Three colors are available for the phone: cyber yellow, knight silver, and stealth black. I've handled both the black and the silver, and I strongly suggest the black. Even if the glass back of the phone always attracts fingerprints, it's difficult to see on the black model and quite noticeable in silver. Even so, a few fingerprints don't really matter.
In relation to fingerprints, the phone's lock button on the right side has a great fingerprint sensor. The fingerprint scanners on these phones are really good, and they seem more reliable than the few higher-end scanners I've seen, as I noted in my Poco X4 Pro 5G review.
The phone's 5G capabilities, which prepare it for fast speeds should they become available in your region, round out the positive features. In London, it's not really constant enough to matter, but things could be different where you are. Additionally, there is a quad-speaker arrangement that is placed such that music is not muffled. Although I still have to cover them sometimes, they are generally loud, broad, and in a decent location.
The speakers aren't that fantastic for music, but they work wonderfully for gaming and watching YouTube. Although they are louder than the speakers on my iPhone 11, their high-end distortion is rather bad, even at 50% volume. They're excellent for listening to podcasts loudly because of their loudness, although certain songs lose their appeal at greater levels due to poor quality. Who, after all, uses their phone speakers to listen to music?
The operating system of the phone is one thing you will need to utilize every day, however. With Xiaomi's MIUI 13 overlay on top of Android 12, the Poco F4 GT essentially looks more like an iPhone, which is great with me. Although the OS is very useable, a few issues make it less than ideal, particularly when it comes to the 120Hz screen. Some options are also buried under strange categories, and customizing your home screen is rather difficult. With the Poco X4 Pro, I had the same problem and anticipated that further software upgrades would fix it. In order for this to feel like the high-end product it is intended to be, that really has to happen.
The phone camera is another item that people use often, so I'm going to have to disappoint you if you were hoping for anything exceptional. The primary 64 MP wide lens, an 8 MP ultrawide, and a 2 MP macro make up the three cameras in the configuration. Under ideal lighting circumstances, the primary wide lens functions well, but the other two are low-quality, dull, and washed out. The primary camera has a lot of trouble in poor lighting situations.
It's OK, however. Poco is able to produce a phone with superior performance at a lower cost than its competitors because they do not place a premium on having expensive cameras. However, it truly isn't a cheap all-around player, if that's what you were wanting. For around the same price, you may get the iPhone 13, which has a better camera than this one. Not very impressive, but adequate as well is the selfie camera.
The primary camera bulge on the Poco F4 GT also conceals one of its more peculiar features. But no, it's simply two words: "FREEZING" and "SPEEDIEST"—not some weird technology. I have no clue what it is about at all. Although I find it hilarious and understand that they're trying to convey a dual message of cooling as well as performance, I would much prefer it didn't exist. Thank you very lot; I don't need words printed on my phone.
The pop-up triggers, the focal point of the Poco F4 GT, are the last item on the party. These are located on the phone's right side and are turned on via flick switches. Although they're a lot of fun and allow you to program various sounds and colors to show when you activate them, I find them to be very perplexing all around.
First of all, it might be a little tricky to map them in a game. Since it's not automated, you must ensure that the game is included in Poco's game boost system. If so, you may access the game boost side menu by swiping from the upper-left corner. After that, you may map the triggers by pressing a button and dragging floating cursors around the screen to indicate where you want the trigger to touch. It's somewhat of a hassle, but whatever.
They function really effectively in some games. Since I can move and fire without fully covering the screen, I believe I have an instant edge over any shooter. In the majority of mobile shooters, you aim by pressing the button and then moving to modify your direction. I could still aim normally with this, and I could respond to opposing attacks faster.
Their application is a little bit more indirect in other games. For Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, I turned them on, but it didn't really make a difference. Then there are all the games you never play in landscape mode, such as Mario Kart Tour, which is another game that theoretically could utilize the triggers, but I don't see why you would ever want to.
Therefore, even if they're quite useful, I don't believe their design makes sense. In a down position, they are perfectly flat with the phone's body; nevertheless, the activation switches on each side are inherently protruding. They protrude somewhat more than a lock button and are around the same size. These, in my opinion, ought to have been placed a little closer to the phone's edge and left there as constant triggers.
Whatever arrangement you choose, there will always be something that sticks out, but in my opinion, the pop-up feature doesn't really improve usefulness other than the potential for wear and tear over time. The triggers are still fantastic to use, so this is by no means a deal-breaker, but I find the design choices to be utterly nonsensical. You could disagree, however, since it is really a minor quibble. My experience with this phone will never be ruined by anything that doesn't make sense.
In summary, the Poco F4 GT is a great gaming phone at a reasonable price. Not much else really needs to be said. I wish the operating system was more user-friendly and some of the design choices are incredibly confusing, but I was expecting this phone to be an all-arounder and it doesn't really seem like that. The most important thing to keep in mind is that, despite a few minor compromises in other areas, this phone really delivers on its promises. Oh, and don't forget that, for some reason, it reads "FREEZING" and "SPEEDIEST" on the back.