The Poco F series have always had always occupied the sweet spot in the midrange arena due to their terrific pricing and specifications. This still remains true with the Poco F4, which packs a 6.67-inch 120Hz AMOLED screen, a Snapdragon 870 chip with up to 8GB RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage, and a 64MP f/1.79 main lens with OIS at the back, among many others.
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 |
| Screen | 6.67-inch AMOLED, 2400 x 1080, 120Hz, 100% DCI-P3, HDR10+, Gorilla Glass 5 |
| RAM | 6GB, 8GB LPDDR5 |
| OS | Android 12, MIUI 13 |
| Rear Camera | 64MP f/1.79 Main, 8MP f/2.2 Ultrawide, 2MP f/2.4 Macro |
| Front Camera | 20MP f/2.45 |
| Storage | 128GB, 256GB UFS 3.1, MicroSD |
| Network | Dual-SIM, 5G |
| Connectivity | WiFi 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.2, USB-C, NFC |
| Battery | 4,500mAh, 67W Turbo Charge |
| Others | Side-Mounted Fingerprint Sensor, AI Face Unlock, Dual Speakers |
| Dimensions | 163.2 x 75.95 x 7.7mm |
| Weight | 195g |
| Colors | Moonlight Silver, Night Black, Nebula Green |
The Poco F4 arrives in a black box with its name embellished in bright yellow. It is bundled with a silicone case, a screen protector, a SIM ejector pin, a 67W wall adapter, a USB-C to USB-A cable, and documentation.
The Poco F4 employs a minimalist design language for its aesthetics. The rear is a slab of shiny glass. The brand, however, has applied a fingerprint-resistant coating so smudges won’t ruin its simple look. The Poco 5G branding is embossed at the bottom and it does have a rather sizeable camera bump at the top.
All its buttons are clustered at the right-hand side. The power button has an integrated fingerprint sensor, which is fast enough for seamless access. All of them don’t have rattle and offer decent tactility.
At the bottom are its USB-C port for charging and data transfers and a dual-SIM tray. The smartphone can house two SIM cards at the same time with 5G support but it does not have a MicroSD card for storage expansion.
At the front is a 6.67-inch 2400 x 1080 AMOLED screen with Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. The screen is a pleasure to use as it delivers vivid colors, deep blacks, and good contrast as anticipated from an upper midrange AMOLED smartphone.
The brand is promising 100% DCI-P3 coverage on the display and nearly true at around 96.90% when measured. Colors do prefer slightly greener hues but this shouldn’t be detectable in average use. Brightness is terrific at just above 500 cd/m2 allowing for easier use while outside or any other bright areas.
The F4 might only have a single bottom-firing speaker but the audio experience is augmented by the earpiece acting as a secondary speaker. Audio performance is okay but not excellent. The speakers can get loud but details tend to be drowned at higher levels. Bass lacks punch but vocals remain clear even at max volume.
MIUI 13 is automatically installed on the Poco F4 upon startup. It is based on Android 12 and focuses on performance and style. The UI feels light and responsive but still packs quite a bit of extras. The sidebar allows quick access to select apps while privacy is being addressed with additional features like watermarks on scanned copies. The AMOLED screen also supports always-on display with various effects for customization.
There is some bloat and shortcuts pre-installed on the device but they can be quickly removed with a few swipes from the home screen. The only inconvenience on the MIUI 13 is that it can’t quickly switch from its notification screen to the command center. It seems that you’ll need to swipe up first before switching to the other.
A total of four cameras reside on the Poco X4 – a 64MP f/1.79 main lens with OIS, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide, a 2MP f/2.4 macro, and a 20MP f/2.45 selfie camera. Its camera app is familiar to anyone who have used a smartphone using MIUI. Camera modes can be switched easily via the tabs and users are given access to a slew of modes including Portrait, Short Video, VLOG, Clone, 64MP, Time Lapse, Dual Video, Night, Panorama, Slow Motion, and Long Exposure on top of the standard modes.
The camera app also comes with several filters like color filters and beautification. Its video mode supports up to 4K60fps for its main camera, 1080p30fps for the ultrawide lens and selfie camera.
Its 64MP f/1.79 main camera is powered by an OmniVision OV64G40 sensor and natively takes 16MP photos. Resolution can be bumped up to full by using 64MP mode on the camera app. Photos taken in daylight are sharp and vivid but HDR performance is somewhat lacking. The camera struggles a bit in high-contrast scenarios with bright areas remaining detailed while darker areas have less detail than we had hoped.
Low-light performance largely has the same behavior. They still look good with decent color rendition. HDR, however, is still lacking as photos tend to overexpose some areas while darker areas lack detail.
The 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide secondary is backed by an OmniVision OV8856 sensor and takes native 8MP snaps by default. Photos look good and comes out with okay colors and detail especially in bright conditions. Darker areas, however, remain lacking in detail especially in low-light scenarios.
The Poco F4 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 with 8GB RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. General performance is smooth as expected from a performance chip and there’s minimal lag although out the experience.
Benchmark figures are pretty good with the Poco F4 scoring more than 660,000 in AnTuTu Benchmark and around 11,000 in PCMark Work 3.0. The smartphone makes easy work of most benchmarks and positions itself just below flagships at the higher-end of the pricing scale.
Performance in games is pretty much a non-issue. The smartphone will be able to run most games at their highest settings with smooth framerates. Some games will also support 120Hz like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang for an even smoother experience. Genshin Impact remains a hard game to run even at its highest settings but the Poco X4 allows more than 30fps in most cases.
The smartphone runs on a 4,500mAh battery. It should be able to power the device throughout the day within average use with some light gaming every now and then. Running PCMark Work 3.0 at its default display and power settings yields about 13 hours of usage with medium volume and brightness.
Charging is pretty fast with the smartphone reaching the 80% mark at around 30 – 40 minutes thanks to its support for 67W Turbo Charge. It can get pretty hot, however, as expected with such large wattage running to the battery. The last 20% to fill the battery is a slightly longer wait but its fast charging is pretty helpful if you don’t have enough time to wait around for the device to be fully charged.
The Poco F4 is offers a solid feature set for an upper midrange smartphone. It is priced competitively starting at PhP 20,990 and performs decently in all areas. Its Snapdragon 870 will should be able to handle most workloads even heavy gaming, its AMOLED display is fast and beautiful, and its cameras will be able to capture reasonable snaps regardless of condition. Its speakers also deserve an honorable mention delivering a decent audio experience.
Battery life could be better if only it had a 5,000mAh battery. Fortunately, its 67W Turbo Charge is fast enough to alleviate the wait while charging. It also doesn’t have a MicroSD slot so users are stuck to the storage version they have chosen.
The 2MP f/2.4 macro camera remains useless and we wish that the brand stuck a depth lens or even a telephoto camera instead. MIUI 13 also has some quirks like its refusal to quickly switch from its command center and notification area by swiping on their respective side.
Taken as a whole, the Poco F4 might have some kinks in some areas but it is a super midrange smartphone for the money. Those who are looking for good overall performance without getting into the flagship market should have this on their shortlist, which is why we are giving it our seal of approval.
The Poco F4 is now available in the Philippines in two variants: 6GB/128GB for PhP 20,990 and 8GB/256GB for PhP 22,990. Both are currently exclusive to the Poco Official Global Store on Lazada.
