Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi has been successful in creating a space for itself in the Indian markets over the past decade. According to Statista, Xiaomi was the largest vendor by market share (28%) in the Indian smartphone market for the period September 2020 to September 2021. It also took the second position in the switching preference of smartphone brands by owners across India in 2021, standing at 16%. It sells smartphones under the brand names MI, Redmi and POCO, speaking of which, we recently got our hands on one of its latest released smartphones. Below is provided a complete review of the all-new POCO M4 Pro 5G.
POCO M4 Pro 5G Review: Design and Display
Whether it’s the Cool Blue, Power Black or the POCO Yellow model, all three come sitting in a bright yellow rectangular box. Now if you also order the yellow coloured POCO M4 Pro 5G model like us, we bet the matching bright yellow colour of almost the entire contents in the POCO packaging will make your mood all colourful as it did ours. If you hold the entire box in hand, you’ll notice that it carries significant weight. And you will figure out upon opening the package why is it so. The M4 Pro doesn’t come alone, but with a range of accessories.
The first thing your eyes will land on after lifting the lid is the front of the smartphone itself, showing off its shiny black IPS LCD 90Hz display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Lifting the phone up will make you realise that even with a 6.6 inches large display size and an 84.8% screen-to-body ratio, its body weighs quite light. The volume and the fingerprint sensor-enabled power button lay on its right side, a c-type port and a 3.5mm headphone jack lay alongside one out of the pair of its stereo speakers on the bottom with the other one on top. The SIM card tray lies on the left side of its plastic frame.
Flip it over and you will see a golden yellow shiny plastic back, which if you check upon touching, has a matt finish to it. On the top taking a quarter of the entire back’s space lies its dual-camera system with an LED flashlight neatly placed inside the black section highlighting the classic POCO design. The POCO brand along with the camera resolution and AI specs engraved in addition is surely hard to miss.
Unlike Apple and Samsung, the POCO M4 Pro 5G does come with its own USB cable and a 33W adapter, both white in colour. Not just that, you are also provided with a transparent rubber back cover and a quick start guide with the smartphone package. Upon bringing the phone to life, its 1,080×2,400 pixel 399ppi density FHD+ display will definitely instil a sense of excitement as well as curiosity in you to explore your brand new smartphone device from all its nooks and corners, inside-out.
Read also: Samsung Galaxy S22 Review: The Ultimate Quality Smartphone of 2022
However, users of devices like Samsung would feel the display could’ve been slightly better, due to being accustomed to using AMOLED display smartphones, which the POCO M4 Pro 5G misses out on.
POCO M4 Pro 5G Review: Performance And Cameras
Elaborating further on the POCO M4 Pro 5G specs, it supports 5G networking, dual 5G SIM cards, Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth 5.1. It comes with an Octa-Core CPU with a clock speed of up to 2.4GHz, a MediaTek Dimensity 810 CPU (6nm) chipset and an ARM Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. It comes with a 5000mAh battery which can survive for up to 2 days in case of mediocre usage and for up to 1 day upon heavy usage after a single charge and supports fast charging. It offers its variants in 4GB/6GB/8GB RAM and 64GB/128GB/256GB storage options.
However, one misses the latest Android 12 OS, as the POCO M4 Pro 5G comes pre-installed with Android 11. You might also notice certain applications that come pre-installed on the smartphone to not be up-to-date with their latest versions. The update may have to be done manually. The overall look and feel of the display, app icons and their arrangement appear decent. POCO provides the facility of categorising apps in your app drawer according to their functionality or domain, which you can customize according to your preferences as well.
Read also: Apps Not Updating on Android 11? Here’s How to Fix The Issue
The all-new M4 Pro 5G comes with a 50MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide camera as well as a 16MP selfie camera. Videos can be shot from the rear camera up to 1080p with a 60fps setting, while the front camera can record up to 1080p with 30fps only. There are 3 zoom modes, a 0.6x, 1x and 2x zoom. Performance-wise, the rear camera works quite well overall, with a fine colour range. However, the front camera works even better than the rear one and is able to capture more vivid selfies.
The camera comes with numerous different modes. However, what can be considered one of its USPs is its AI camera, AI watermark mode and 50MP camera mode. The AI automatically modifies the camera according to the scene in the frame, capturing more details and thus enhancing the image quality, whereas the 50MP camera mode captures images with more vibrant colours. Its night mode also works well but is not as efficient in extreme low light conditions. Moreover, the sharpness and saturation in the night mode capture also seem to get affected.
The POCO M4 Pro 5G stereo speaker system appears loud on hearing, working decently in noisy environments as well. Streaming videos, movies and tv series is efficient, while gaming graphics appear warm and decent. Movements and reflexes are smooth while the smartphone doesn’t heat up as easily.
Verdict
Overall, the POCO M4 Pro 5G is a decent smartphone in its price range, not too extraordinary and not even as bad. However, if you’re a person very particular about having a superior quality fluid AMOLED display, we recommend you assess other options as well that are available in the market. Upon testing its performance, it scores 1797 on Geekbench and 353663 on AnTutu. The POCO M4 Pro 5G price in India starts at Rs 14,999, which does make it a worthy buy.
POCO M4 Pro 5G Pros
- Large Display Screen
- Strong Front Camera With Effective AI
- Can Withstand Mediocre To Heavy Usage Without Getting Heated Up Easily
POCO M4 Pro 5G Cons
- No AMOLED Display
- No Android 12 Based OS
- Night Mode Not As Effective, Sharpness Gets Compromised
- Battery Life Could Be Improved
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