POCO F4 5G Review – Kills the Competition Under 30000

The Poco F1 was the first smartphone in the Poco line, and it is still praised by many as an excellent device. And now, the company has launched the Poco F4 5G, with cutting-edge specs at a very aggressive price.

The F4 5G is primarily a gaming and binge-watching device, thanks to its speedy chipset and stunning display. But, will that be enough to stand tall in the mid-range market of 2022? Let’s find out in this POCO F4 5G review.

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The POCO F4 5G starts at Rs. 27,999 in India for the base variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The phone is available in two other variants as well. The 6GB RAM and 128GB storage option cost Rs. 29,999 while the top variant with 12GB RAM and 256GB internal storage will set you back at Rs. 33,999.

The phone is launched in two colour options: Nebula Green and Night Black. You can buy the phone online from Flipkart.

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The POCO F4 5G packs a lot inside the box and doesn’t miss on anything like other brands:

• Handset
• 67W fast charger
• Type-C to 3.5mm converter
• USB Type-C cable
• Transparent Case
• Sim Ejector Tool
• Pre-Applied Screen Protector
• User Guide and Warranty Card

Before we talk in detail about the POCO F4 5G, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.67 inches AMOLED
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 870
• RAM & ROM: 6GB RAM 128GB Storage, 8GB RAM 128GB Storage, 12GB RAM 256GB Storage
• Software: Android v12
• Rear camera: 64MP + 8MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 20MP
• Battery: 4500 mAh
• Weight: 195 grams
• Dimensions: 163.2 x 75.9 x 7.7 mm

The POCO F4 5G is the latest smartphone to join the growing number of green colour smartphones that have been launched in 2022. We received the Nebula Green variant for the review, which has a beautiful frosted matte finish on the back glass. As a matter of fact, I find it pretty neat. It is also available in black colour option.

The Poco F4 uses glass for both the back panel and the front panel, the latter of which is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The smartphone feels premium to hold in hand. You can use it with just one hand thanks to its light 195g weight and slim 7.7mm profile. I have to say that the weight distribution is done very well.

It has a nice grip but can be slightly slippery if you aren’t careful. The rectangular camera bump and the squared-off sides contribute to the boxy looks of the smartphone.

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The right side of the device houses the fingerprint scanner and volume controls. I liked the placement and feel of both the volume rockers and the power button.

The primary speaker and microphone are located on the bottom, along with the SIM card slot and a Type-C port. The top of the phone houses the IR blaster, secondary speaker, and secondary microphone.

In addition to that, it has an IP53 rating for dust and splash resistance, which is a great safety net. In general, the Poco F4 doesn’t have anything particularly noteworthy to offer in terms of its design. However, it is a very practically crafted phone that is suitable for use by the vast majority of people.

The Poco F4 5G features a triple camera setup that includes a 64MP primary camera with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide lens and a 2MP macro lens. The front has a 20MP camera for taking selfies.

If you’re only considering the specs, then there’s nothing about this that particularly stands out. There are a number of phones that feature the same specs. However, when it comes to Poco F4 5G, the camera performance is rather good.

Daytime images captured by the main camera were crisp and detailed. The primary camera did a great job capturing indoor scenes despite the fact that there was not much light inside the room. Sometimes the shots were a little bit saturated, which was especially noticeable when taking pictures of the grass and trees.

In low-light situations, when a longer exposure is required, the OIS technology allows for more steady shots to be taken.

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The 8MP ultra-wide lens’s 119-degree FoV is impressive, but the resulting images are grainy and noisy. Some of these photos taken in bright daylight were good. The wide-angle camera captures usable images with accurate colours but lacks finer details.

Meanwhile, the 2MP macro lens is best left unsaid. It’s not good at all.

Images taken with the selfie camera were quite good and sharp. It does an excellent job of preserving the skin tone and texture. The background blur is not as impressive as it could be when using the portrait mode.

The front-facing camera can only record at 1080p at 30fps, while the rear-facing cameras can record at 1080p at 30/60fps and 4k at 30/60fps. All things considered, the videos were fairly steady and clear. Overall, we were happy with the camera package, and it stands up to the competition.

The POCO F4 5G packs a decent 4500mAh battery which might be a little less compared to the competition. However, you can expect the phone to easily last more than a day on a single charge with light use. Now if you are buying this phone for gaming purpose, for what POCO is known for, you would need to plug it in by the evening.

I managed to get about 6-7 hours of screen on time with some social media scrolling, web browsing, texting and of course some gaming. A 5000mAh battery would have been better but it’s okay.

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Now coming to charging, POCO has made up here for giving us less battery capacity. POCO F4 5G supports 67W fast charging which can fully charge the device in about 45 minutes. A quick charge of about 20 minutes will juice up the battery to 50 per cent. I really appreciate that Xioami bundles the charger in the box, unlike recent Samsung phones.

The POCO F4 5G boasts an E4 AMOLED display measuring 6.67 inches with a 120Hz refresh rate. The Poco F4 has a fairly modern-looking display, despite a minimal bezel at the bottom. With the 120Hz refresh rate, the Poco F4 5G provides a silky-smooth experience for web browsing and apps that take advantage of it.

The colours on the screen are vivid and clear, making for a visually satisfying experience. With a maximum brightness of 1300 nits, the display is so bright that it maintains its brilliant colours even when viewed in direct sunlight.

Reading your feed, playing games, sending texts, and juggling multiple windows at once is all smooth and lag-free. It doesn’t just feel snappy; it actually is snappy, and it gives a good impression of performance.

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In addition to this, the smartphone comes with WideVine L1 certification, which implies that you will be able to watch high-quality content on OTT platforms such as Netflix, Prime and more. The display on the Poco F4 is completely flat with a circular cutout in the middle of the top panel to accommodate the 20-megapixel front-facing camera.

Display quality is great for the price, and the inclusion of Dolby Vision and stereo speakers make for an unparalleled multimedia experience.

The performance of the Poco F4 5G goes hand in hand with its display. It runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 870, arguably the company’s most dependable high-end chipset. The chipset is paired with up to 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 internal storage.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 is a fast processor, making it a top choice for smartphones in this price bracket. What really blows my mind about the smartphone is how well it handles multiple apps at once without any trouble.

Whether you’re stressing it out with resource-intensive games or just using it to browse your favourite social media platforms, you won’t notice a single hiccup in the experience. You also get to see the RAM expansion feature which can further expand the RAM by 3GBs.

We did some heavy gaming on the side of our regular use to push the limits of the phone. It’s not surprising that the Poco F4 5G can breeze through demanding games like BGMI, Apex Legends Mobile, Genshin Impact or Call of Duty: Mobile, thanks to its powerful processor.

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I played Apex Legends and it ran at high graphical settings without any performance issues. I noticed some frame rate drop, but I think it’s because the game is new in the market and not optimised properly. Better performance was seen in games like BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile. BGMI could run in high graphics settings and 60fps, with minor shutters as expected in this price segment.

What really took us by surprise, though, was that even after 45-minute sessions of heavy gaming, the device did not significantly overheat or lose performance. POCO is utilising the second gen of its LiquidCool technology in order to keep the temperatures in control.

The POCO F4 5G runs on MIUI 13 skin which is based on Android 12. The default skin is POCO Launcher 3, which is one of our favourites. The company has also announced the launcher’s fourth generation, which will include some new features but is still in development.

MIUI 13 is, without a doubt, one of the most customisable Android skins available. The launcher stands out from its competitors thanks to its extensive customization options and well-organized app drawer.

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Xiaomi and Poco phones still have the problem of bloatware apps that do nothing but send out annoying notifications. Thankfully, the majority of the applications that come pre-installed on the smartphone can be removed.

Poco has announced that the POCO F4 5G will receive two major software updates which means it will get Android 13 and Android 14 updates in the future.

The smartphone comes equipped with a stereo speaker setup that can get pretty loud. Similarly to other mid-range smartphones, the audio is punchy and clear. Moreover, the audio quality does not deteriorate at high volumes either.

While it does not feature a 3.5mm headphone jack, you will find a USB-C to 3.5mm converter in the box to use with your existing earphones.

As far as connectivity goes, POCO F4 5G has 5G support (as the name suggests) with support for 10 5G bands. These include N1, N3, N5, N8, N28, N38, N40, N41, N77, and N78. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi and NFC. However, you do not get to see Wi-Fi 6 which was a tad disappointing.

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Now coming to biometrics, you get to see a side-mounted fingerprint scanner which works well and quickly unlocks the phone. Likewise, the face unlock feature also did a good job of unlocking the phone swiftly.

Some people would be expecting an in-display fingerprint scanner since POCO has used an AMOLED display here, but for some reason, the company decided to go with a physical scanner instead. And being honest, I have no complaints about this decision.