Just when I said that in my previous video, and I was just going to work on my comparison video between the POCO F4 GT versus the POCO F3, POCO has decided to hear you all out and released the POCO F4 and here is my unboxing and my first impressions of this long-awaited smartphone!

 

Unboxing

So let’s unbox the phone. Similar to the previous POCO series, the box comes in black, now with the POCO F4 logo towards the left, the 5G logo and text on the right, and the POCO logo towards the bottom right.

Opening the box, there is a smaller yellow box which has the SIM ejector pin on the outside.

And there is a nice little surprise that POCO has given us because inside that yellow box, there is also the 3.5mm headphones to USB-C dongle, so that was really nice to know!

Then there are the manuals and the soft clear TPU case. Next, you’ll find the phone itself. 

Underneath, there is the USB-A to USB-C cable and a 67W Turbo Charging Brick.

 

Design & Build

Next, looking at the phone’s design and build quality, my first impression was how it felt and even looked like a Redmi device. Yes, I know that you are going to say that it is China’s version of the Redmi K40S, but let’s just concentrate on this global variant ok?

So the body had a more squared-off design on the sides of the frame, so you are looking at a different feeling on the hands compared to the likes of the POCO F3 or even the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE, especially on the huge differences in their finishes.

But that’s not to say that it didn’t feel good in the hands, because it did, but I’m just personally not a fan of the glossy fingerprint-attracting finish at the back compared to the matte ones on the previous POCO F3, or even if you want to compare, with the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE, but yes, this does come down to a personal preference.

Now, the camera arrays also got a refreshed look with a squared shape with a circular camera bump on top, once again looking very close to a Redmi design. Still, overall I have to say that if you look at the POCO F4 this year, it looks a bit more of a premium flagship, as opposed to looking like a mid-range smartphone like how the POCO F3 looked. So this could be the new direction that POCO is going with the F Series.

Now because the camera bump is little on the medium size thickness, the bottom of the phone does sit very well on the table, so you will have no wobble towards the bottom of the phone when you type the phone’s keyboard on a surface, so that was nice to know.

As for the color options, the review unit that I have is called the Night Black, which is more of a low-profile black color finish, and then it is also available in Moonlight Silver and Nebula Green, which might have been my choice of the color option since there is no white like how the POCO F3 had. Yeap, quite sad about that…

I have always appreciated smartphones weighing below the 200 grams mark, it is nice that the POCO F4 weighs at 195 grams, which made the phone nice and light; even though the rear was glossy, as mentioned earlier, but because the frames had a matte finish, it did help with the overall grip of the phone where it had a thickness of 7.7mm.

Next, looking at the ports and buttons; besides the USB-C port at the bottom, there is the SIM ejector slot with support of a dual SIM and no micoSD card slot as usual.

Then on the right, besides the volume rockers, there is the side fingerprint and power button, and it’s nice that the fingerprint side button is looking more like a regular button, so it is nice that this particular button is evolving looking into this.

Then finally, on top, there is the IR Blaster.

So overall, I would give the build quality an A, but the design maybe just a B+ because based on my personal preference, I liked how the previous POCO F3 looked. Again, perhaps that’s just me.

 

Display

As for the phone’s display, holy mother of God, guys, this is hands down the best-looking display that I have ever seen on any mid-range smartphone and yes, even beating the Samsung Galaxy A73 which I just recently reviewed.

And speaking of comparing, just for fun, I even took out the Galaxy S22 Ultra and put it side by side, and I was shocked at how very similar that both displays looked.

This is because this 6.67” AMOLED Display uses Samsung’s very own E4 AMOLED screen, which has a peak brightness of up to 1300 nits and 1080 x 2400 FHD+ resolution.

Color accuracy on this is also stunning with the TrueColor DCI-P3 wide color gamut and a contrast ratio of 5 million to 1.

Playback on Netflix was at Widevine L1 at highest Full HD playback and HDR 10 with Dolby Vision support, which has been pretty consistent on the F series.

And similar to the POCO F4 GT, not only it has a refresh rate up to 120Hz, but it also has the Dynamic Mode, hence you can save battery in the long run. However, there is only an option to choose between 60Hz to 120Hz, so there is no option to go to 90Hz, which I would personally prefer. So I would just go with the overall Dynamic Mode all the way when I use the phone daily.

And the touch sampling rate is at 360Hz instead of the typical 240Hz that you might have seen on other mid-range smartphones.

So yes, my friends, the display on the POCO F4 has to be one of the biggest strengths that the phone has, beating every mid-range smartphone that I have personally reviewed on this channel thus far, even the POCO F3 as well.

 

Cameras

So POCO has obviously decided to upgrade its main camera lens, as we are looking at a 64MP f/1.79 aperture with OIS where the POCO F3 did not have an OIS, and then there is also the 8MP f/2.2 Ultrawide lens, and a 2MP f/2.4 Macro lens.

And funny enough, the macro lens is a “downgrade” compared to the 5MP on the POCO F3; not sure why is that, but I don’t use the macro lenses anyways, but I know some of you all who do, so keep that in mind.

Then the front camera is a 20MP f/2.45 aperture, similar to the POCO F3.

Looking at some of the quick test shots during the day, the images looked very similar to the POCO F3, with overall great photos for the rear camera lenses, and the front camera lens also produced some great selfie shots and portrait mode images.

The highest resolution for video is up to 4k 60 frames per second for the main rear camera lens and 1080p 30 frames per second for the ultrawide lenses.

And since the main lenses have OIS, hence the image stabilization was really great when I tested them, and even though the ultrawide lenses were at 1080p but the footage looked great with also pretty good image stabilization.

And of course, the front video camera is the outdated 1080p resolution up to 30 frames per second, the usual case for Xiaomi and POCO smartphones even now.

But yes, I will be testing out the cameras further as usual during my full video review, so subscribe to the channel if you guys haven’t done so, and if you are watching this video for the very first time, hello there!

 

Specifications

As for the other specs, the POCO F4 ships with the same Snapdragon 870 7nm Chipset, which I don’t mind and prefer over the hot volcanic Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Chipset. Ok, it’s not as hot as a volcano, but you guys know what I mean…

So in my humble opinion, I think that this 870 Chipset has always given the balance of great performance and also great thermal capabilities, pairing with the Adreno 650 GPU and the LiquidCool Technology 2.0, I assure you that not only you will be having a smooth gaming experience but overall a “cool” experience as well.

Speaking of smooth, it comes with the LPDDR5 RAM, with UFS 3.1 Storage, for fast loading times and overall great experience when using the phone daily, with a configuration of either 6GB of RAM + 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM + 256GB of storage.

As for the phone’s software, it is shipped with Android 12, so thank God for that, with MIUI version 13.0.1, so it is not currently on 13.0.2 like how it was on the POCO F4 GT, but I am very sure an update will be coming really soon.

And during my first impressions of using the phone for several days, the software was great with no issues with multitasking, quick camera shutter clicks, and no delay or lag in touch responses.

Then as for the phone’s battery, it has 4500 mAh of battery, which is 20 milliamps lesser than the POCO F3. Again, I’m not sure why this is happening, but there is the updated 67W fast charging compared to 33W on the POCO F3, which can get you from 0 to 100% in about 40 minutes, and it is using the same MMT Technology as Xiaomi flagships and also some of the newly released smartphones from POCO.

 

Price & Availability

As of the recording of this video, there’s no official price for the phone that has been announced yet here in Malaysia, so stay tuned for that, where I will either update that in the pinned comment below on the pricing or I’ll let you all know during my full video review.

So guys, with this, do let me know what you would like to specifically know about the new POCO F4 in the comment section of my YouTube video. Or would you like for me to immediately do a comparison between the POCO F3? Do let me know once again in the comments section!