Science & Technology

On June 23, Xiaomi showed off its latest and greatest in the mid-range wing POCO: POCO F4 via a live stream. The phone is an upgrade in the already popular POCO F3 line-up. Popularly known as the flagship killer, this phone offers the ‘latest technology’ in the budget friendly package.

Snapdragon 870 processor, an AMOLED screen with fast refresh rate, stabilized main camera, and fast wired charging remained a major focus throughout the live stream.

Design

Design wise it is the rebranded Redmi K40 that launched in China. With exactly the same looking screen with a punch hole camera, glossy plastic back, same back camera bump but with a different main camera inside that bump, 64 MP in F4 compared to 48 MP in K40. The 7.7 mm phone with Corning® Gorilla® Glass 5 on screen is what POCO claims its thinnest offering. They are offering three different colours for the devices which they name as: Moonlight Silver, Night Black and Nebula Green.

Still 870(?)

The Snapdragon 870 processor on F4 is a borrow from its old F3 series. Fans and enthusiasts who were expecting a newer generation of the chipset were disappointed with this year-old tech.

However, when put to the test, this chipset is still capable of easily putting other midrange line-up of phones to the dust.

With 5G capabilities and a flagship-ish processor, the phone is future proof for at least 2 years.

Screen

POCO has been a little reluctant for an upgrade to the screen as well which is same as last year’s 6.67 inches. With 120Hz refresh rate and 1080p resolution screen, the touch sampling rate of 360Hz, the screen is as vivid as previous version. The HDR10+ and Dolby VISION certified AMOLED screen is capable of putting out 1300 nits of peak brightness with a contrast ratio of 5 million:1 for better content consumption.

Camera:

They spent a good chunk of the time discussing about the camera during their live stream. The huge upgrade on the phone that sets it apart from the F3 is the camera itself. This time POCO is putting an Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) which was just limited to the flagship phones to its main camera of 64MP (mega pixels). This allows users to take stable videos and also what POCO claims: “reduce image blurring without scarifying image quality” on photos.

The other two cameras put on the bump are: ultra-wide and macro. The ultra-wide is 8MP with 119 degrees of field of view and the 2MP macro is a niche feature that people rarely use.

POCO on the product page states that the camera is able to record 4K videos at 60fps (frames per second) which was capped to 30 fps in F3.

The front facing 20MP camera on the punch-hole display has 119 degrees field of view.

Battery and Charging

POCO F4 offers a battery of 4500mAh, a mere 20mAh downgrade from F3, which can easily give you a day with light use. But the biggest upgrade in the battery is the charging speed, 67W turbo charging compared to 33W of F3 with 67W included in the box. This technology was carried over from the last year’s POCO F3 GT.

Other Specs:

Other specs are similar if not same to the last year’s model. They still use the same X-axis haptics motor for vibrations which is still a good choice in mid-range phones. The dual speakers are capable of Dolby Atmos® output and an what they claim ‘‘ultimate stereo sound experience’’. The phone comes with MIUI 13 and Android 12 straight out of the box. The phone also has an IR blaster for an easy remote.

The phone comes with two variants of RAM and storage: 6GB+128GB and 8GB+256GB, both being LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 fast storage. This coupled with the processor they offer is hard to beat for other mid-range phones.

POCO F4 specifications:

Should you upgrade to POCO F4?

There has not been a lot of upgrades in F4 from F3, a lot of the features are simply the carryover from F3, the last year’s model. The major differences are the main camera, charging speed and the designs.

Differences:

POCO has basically rebranded the old tech with a new name and a new camera technology. The charging speed can be a game changer in situations but at other times they will be a marginally better feature. If you are holding on a really old phone and need a new device in hand, you can go for POCO F4, but if you have POCO F3 on hand, you might not find worth in upgrading. Someone who is looking for a value for money, this phone will be of your choice.

Upgrading is always a personal call!

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