The message that POCO F4 GT tries to convey is quite simple: the best performance at the lowest possible price, in order to create a satisfactory user experience for any type of user but in particular for those who, with the smartphone, want to play first.
If you look at it from the perspective of the gaming phone market, the new top of the range POCO (which elsewhere came out as Redmi K50 Gaming Edition) is an interesting product: inside the same smartphone coexist the latest arrival of Qualcomm, or the system on chip Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, a screen capable of giving satisfaction, a control system not new but curious and some comforts, such as 120 Watt charging, which can change (for the better) the user experience.
At 599 euros for the 8/128 version and 699 for the 12/256 version, net of the launch offers that you find in the conclusions, POCO F4 GT is a valid choice for enthusiasts, even if we must make some important distinctions that concern, above all, the photographic sector.
Taken out of the box, the POCO F4 GT does not hide its gaming phone nature. The dimensions of 162.5 x 76.7 x 8.6 mm, the 6.67-inch screen and a weight of 210 grams make it a device that certainly does not rank among the most portable ones ever.
The silver color that has been provided by the brand is not in itself too flashy, certainly it is less so than the yellow one, although some details such as the lightning-shaped flash and the rear arzigogoli suggest the desire to create a product with a rather aggressive look. The alternation of a matte back surface with some glossy details, allows you not to have to worry excessively about the fingers even if I found it a little too slippery. The cover in the package, however, gives a hand, so I recommend using it.
More explicit than the ambitions of the phone is the presence of retractable magnetic triggers that, acting on the appropriate sticks, jump out of the body and give way to access a further couple of buttons, this time physical, to be used within your favorite games. This is not a new solution, but it is still quite interesting.
Compared to other similar control systems, such as the Air Trigger touch buttons of the ROG Phone, those of the POCO F4 GT have the undoubted advantage that, being real keys, they offer a more tactile experience and somehow close to what we are used to experiencing with normal gaming controllers. The race is very short and they are not ideal if you feel the need to dose the action on the button, but I found them versatile enough to still be two trusted companions in many games. For example in shooters or in all those situations where you need to press the same command for many times.
Having used for a rather long period of time the latest MODELS of ROG Phone and also the Legion Phone, I have perhaps missed a bit the programmability of touch solutions, which for example give the freedom to divide each trigger in two or to set specific commands based on the gesture that is performed, but these are different experiences, each with pros and cons that fall within the field of personal tastes.
The pop-up keys can, if desired, also be used to recall functions that are not strictly playful, for example by setting a shortcut to recall the camera, record a video or screen, activate the flashlight and so on. It is not possible to program the buttons to do anything you want, for example by creating macros, but even so it is not difficult to find uses that make them a convenient extra in some rather frequent everyday situations.
The absence of the 3.5mm jack is, in my opinion, felt more than on other occasions since many passionate gamers still prefer wired solutions and have expensive gaming headsets. Instead, it is very appreciated, always in the perspective of those who want to use the phone to play, perhaps online, the presence of an extra microphone on the long side opposite to that of the magnetic triggers, so as to be able to exploit it when holding the phone horizontally, without the risk of covering it. In a similar perspective, an extra 6E wi-fi antenna has also been placed, which is not covered by the hands in landscape mode.
