Poco M4 Pro 5G Review | Proper Upgrade vs M3 Pro

The Poco M4 Pro 5G is one of the cheapest pocket smartphones you can bag yourself right now and one of the most budget-friendly 5G blowers to boot. Poco's managed to chuck in a fair few upgrades versus the slightly older Poco M3 Pro, including a performance boost, stereo speakers, and upgraded camera tech. I've been rocking the Poco M4 Pro 5G as my full-time smartphone for a good few days now, already putting it through its paces, so here is my in-depth review.

Design & Build

Poco's design doesn't really surprise at all. This 6.6-inch blower is a might bigger than the last one, so it's definitely a two-handed effort unless you've got hands like a bloody yeti or something. As usual, you can grab the Poco M4 Pro 5G in that eye-stabbingly super-bright yellow color, which seems to stir up mixed emotions in people—some think it's a jolly happy sunshiny hue, others equate that color to dehydrated piss. Personally, I've got to say I think it's a bit more interesting and exciting than this rather boring black finish, although this certainly is a more subtle design, a bit bland perhaps, but it is neat and tidy with a not-too-terrible amount of branding slathered on there.

Considering, Poco M4 Pro is definitely a rather skinny beast as well, which is nice to see, and that back end, despite being made of plastic, seems reasonably hardy so far. Usually you get a few little light scratches, dust in the surface after a good few days, but so far—touch wood—nothing at all, and you do get a bundled condom case in the box as well, just in case you're super paranoid.

Display & Audio

Nothing really to report on that 6.6-inch IPS screen: it is solid enough for the price, offering decent viewing angles and an auto-brightness that doesn't actually suck too bad. I only had to touch that manual brightness the one time; that was late at night when it just dialed it down a little bit too much so I couldn't really see what was going on. Apart from that, absolutely fine. You've got the usual mono mode to turn everything black and white late at night for some comfortable 3 a.m. doom-scrolling, and I was happy enough spread out on the sofa watching random shits on Netflix and YouTube as well. Visuals are crisp enough despite the size of this panel, thanks to the full-HD-plus resolution, while colours pop just enough to make animated and more vibrant fare look really good for this price—no complaints at all. You could also boost the refresh rate up from 60 Hz to 90 Hz manually if you want a smoother overall experience; there's no dynamic modes, you can't have it automatically flicking between the two.

The Poco M4 Pro also sports a pair of stereo speakers, unlike the previous generation, housed on the top and bottom edges of the phone, although the top speaker is noticeably tinier than its opposite. These aren't the loudest around, but lead the job for Zoom chats and YouTube and what-have-you, but I did make sure I shoved in a pair of headphones whenever I actually wanted to enjoy that audio—first listen to a podcast or some music. It's great to have that headphone-jack option; otherwise, Bluetooth worked absolutely fine as well, you've got Bluetooth 5.1 support, I had one tiny little stumble when I was listening on a pair of headphones the entire few days that I've been testing this thing—otherwise flawless.

Performance & Software

Performance is absolutely all right as well. MediaTek's Dimensity 810 platform, backed by six gigs of DDR4 RAM, keeps things running smoothly enough even when you're juggling a few apps at once. Sure, the gaming chops of the Poco M4 Pro are certainly limited, but I happily blasted my way through countless games of Call of Duty Mobile, one after the other, with no stumbles to speak of. The display sensitivity was more than good enough for frantically spraying bullets at cheeky buggers who suddenly pop up on you, and the phone doesn't even begin to get toasty with non-stop play, so you can game for as long as the battery and your fingers hold out.

If you actually boot up the Poco M4 Pro, you'll get an eyeful of Android 11 as jazzified by Xiaomi's MIUI 12.5 launcher. The general vibe in version 12 is stock Android with lots of bonus bits bolted on, like a very useful iPhone-style Control Center, you've got yourself some decent gaming tools and extra customization options. Unfortunately, you also get a load of apps that you never asked for, and I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for any Android updates.

My MIUI experience here on the Poco M4 Pro 5G was absolutely fine; I did have a couple of little issues—one time the phone did just completely reboot on me just while I was listening to a podcast, and Chrome has crashed on me a couple of times before as well, basically things just given up halfway through, throwing the hands up in the air and saying, "Sod it, I'm done," which is pretty annoying but also quite relatable.

Features & Battery Life

The Poco M4 Pro 5G also supports all the other features you would hope for and expect, even in a budget smartphone in 2021, including NFC for your contactless payments. You've also got SD expandability, so you can boost that 128 gigs of already pretty generous storage, and you will have a fair bit of that to play around with as well once you, of course, delete all of the reams of crapware.

The phone's teeny power button doubles as a fingerprint sensor, and despite its skinny stature, this works beautifully—no complaints at all—while the face unlock also recognizes you even if you're in a dark room or wearing a face mask, which leads me to believe it's probably not the most secure unlocking method in the world ever, but of course, if that bothers you, you could just not bother using it.

I was hoping for some very dependable battery life on the Poco M4 Pro 5G as well, with its 5000 mAh capacity battery, and certainly no worries there at all. Even a fairly intensive day—lots of screen-on time, lots of camera use for the likes of Skype and Zooming, etc., or just you know taking shots of the farm, good bit of video streaming, lots of audio streaming—I tended to end the day still with around 20 to 25 percent charge remaining, and when it is time to power back up, you've got 33-watt wired-charging support here on the Poco M4 Pro as well, which is pretty damn good for that price.

Camera

While the Poco sports some pretty basic camera tech, like all budget phones, I do love how they've streamlined the hardware. It may look like you've got a shag-load of lenses slapped on there as usual, but what you've actually got is a 50-megapixel primary sensor and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle shooter, and that's it. Somehow these guys resisted the urge to slap on macro lenses and depth sensors and all of the usual optical bollocks, and frankly, I want to go around to their houses and shake their hands and buy them a pint and say, "Good on you, mate."

That 50-meg sensor is fine for your simple shots, but like all budget blowers, those optics do have their limitations. Moving subjects can prove a bit of a bugger even with some quite strong lighting, so you will have to time your shots well or just take bloody loads of them and then ditch all of the crappy blurry ones. Strong contrast can also ruin a snap, especially if the portrait mode is active, so you know, work your angles, but if the fates allow, you'll get a respectable photo with reasonably accurate colours, or at least something that'll just look fine on Twitter.

Yet it is even tougher to get a respectable-looking shot with that 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle shooter, but it's there if you do want to try for a more dramatic pulled-back view, and if you're snapping in soft light, you will notice a cheeky bit of green creeping in while colours are definitely warmer. There's always the night mode, but this only makes a wee bit of difference, bumping the brightness a touch—certainly don't expect it to work wonders or allow you to see in the dark, and if you want to phone to like snap photos of the moon from your back garden, well, first of all, maybe sort out your life priorities, and second of all, you're gonna have to look elsewhere.

It's the same story for shooting home movies on the Poco M4 Pro 5G: you're topped off at Full HD resolution, either 30 or 60 fps—there's no 4K res here—and visuals are somewhat lacking when it comes to the tone and the depth, but this budget wonder can capture simple clips when needed, again struggling when conditions are a bit pants.

The 16-megapixel selfie shooter ain't too bad, though, once you knock off all the beautified bollocks. Pics will again look softer inside, and you'll struggle if shooting against a bright background, but otherwise you can get some decent pics out of it.

Verdict

So there's my full, frank review of the Poco M4 Pro 5G after using it as my full-time smartphone for a good few days now, and it's an absolutely fine, perfectly solid all-around budget blower at a respectable price. You've got all the features in there that you'd hope for and expect: likes of full-HD-resolution display, stereo-speaker setup, you've got your 5G support, your NFC, so you can do video streaming, Skype, and you can do a bit of gaming on the side as well, as long as you respect the limitations—you can't play games like Genshin Impact on this thing, for instance, that would be an absolute shit-show—and obviously the camera is very basic indeed, absolutely fine for your everyday shares, and the battery life is top-notch as well.

So that's what I reckon. What do you guys think of the Poco M4 Pro 5G—are you tempted? In case you're wondering, yes, it is basically just a rebranded Redmi Note 11, which hasn't come out over on these shores just yet, but it is available in some other parts of the world, so if the specs sound distinctly familiar, that'll probably be why.