Hands-on with the POCO F4 GT: The Best Affordable Gaming Phone?
Today we have the POCO F4 GT, which promises mobile gaming on a budget. We’re going to do a quick unboxing and specs overview of the device, and see just what exactly you get with this handset. Let’s get started!
Packaging, Design and Display
The handset comes in a nice box with the typical yellow and black colours for the POCO range. You get the phone, along with a huge 120w charger, manual, a silicone case, a USB Type-C to 3.5mm adaptor, and a USB Type-C cable.
Taking a closer look at the F4 GT, you do get a 6.67-inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, Gorilla Glass Victus, and a 20-megapixel camera in a hole-punch embedded in the display.
Unfortunately, you don’t get the option for 90Hz, but you do get the option for an “adaptive” refresh rate which should help with conserving battery power. Scrolling through the interface feels and looks smooth, which is always a welcome addition to the user experience. Colours on the display are vibrant thanks to the OLED screen, with deep blacks and great-looking contrast.
Perhaps my only criticism so far would be the rather thick bezels around the display. It would have been nice to see smaller borders on the side, as with a lot of newer phones these days.
Built for Gaming
The side features magnetic pop-up triggers, which are of course ideal for intense gaming scenarios. The triggers do work, although they’ll probably take some time to get used to, depending on how large your hands are. There’s also a 4700 mAh battery which should be great for long gaming sessions, paired with a cooling system which should keep the phone from getting a tad too warm.
The phone has a glass back with aluminum sides, although at first glance you’d think that the back panel was also made of aluminum. There’s a camera module on the back which houses a 64MP main lens, an 8MP ultrawide lens, and a 2MP macro sensor. Another cool and rather gaming-centric feature is the LED light, which is integrated into the camera housing. You can actually choose to turn it off or on, and it provides a nice visual touch when receiving notifications, calls, and such. You can also assign it to work with certain apps, and change the colors as well.
The sides of the F4 GT feature dual speakers, and a SIM card tray located on one side of the phone. There’s also a power button with an integrated fingerprint sensor located on one side of the device.
Internals and Software
As for performance, the phone comes equipped with a flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, liquid cooling technology, and 128GB of internal storage and 8GB RAM, or 256GB storage and 12GB RAM, depending on the region. The inclusion of the 8 Gen 1 chip is a terrific choice for sure, which means the phone will be able to keep up with a lot of new handsets. Performance was great, as expected. The generous amount of RAM combined with the ultra-fast Snapdragon chip means that the phone will be able to handle whatever games you throw at it.
When it comes to software, the POCO F4 GT comes with MIUI 13 on top of Android 12. There are a lot of pre-installed apps, which depending on your preference, may or may not be your cup of tea. Of course, you do get in-depth customization options with MIUI, as well as a few more software features not usually found in “stock” Android. It is a subjective matter, and clearly a lot of people are fine with the functionality that MIUI offers.
Additional Thoughts
It’s clear that a lot of thought was put into the POCO F4 GT, and it’s certainly catered to users who’d like to experience top performance without spending too much coin. Of course, compared to more expensive premium devices like the ROG phones from ASUS, it still has a ways to go especially in terms of design.
However, we do think that the premium chipset, additional buttons, impressive 120Hz display, as well as 4700 mAh should suit the taste of mobile gamers set on a budget for their next potential device.
In addition to our unboxing, we also have a few photo and video samples, as well as an early performance test which you can watch here. Stay tuned for more tech and Geeky stuff, as well as more POCO F4 GT content!