After a few days in the company of the brand new (and just presented) POCO X4 ProI’m ready to tell you the report of my adventure together with this smartphone made by Xiaomi. This will be a new potential best-buy of the mid-range able to inherit the good things seen only a few months ago with the POCO X3 Pro?
I tell you right away that it is a change of paradigm quite important for the series, with the canons of brute power protagonists of the last generation set aside in favor of greater attention to topics such as display quality And photographic sector. But will it be a winning choice or too risky a bet?
POCO X4 Pro, where have I already seen you?
On an aesthetic level, it is useless to go around this LITTLE X4 Pro knows already seen. If you have followed the presentation of the new range Redmi Note 11 (also from Xiaomi), the similarities with what has just been presented will be evident and obvious.
The truth however is that by focusing only on the world LITTLEthe lines now appear much more graceful and modern for the first time, with the new layout of the cameras (this unpublished and partly inspired by the top range Xiaomi MI 11 Ultra) main protagonist of this “style” race.
Even the POCO brand, which has always left disputes among users, has been implemented in a discreet and almost elegant way (undoubtedly in a less intrusive way than in the past). To use it is therefore a very pleasant terminal, even if we are faced with a nice “frying pan“, With the limited thickness and the weight in any case balanced as elements capable of making the user experience already from the first hours but certainly convincing.
At the level constructive then nothing is missing. We find the double stereo speakerwith double top and bottom outlet, the side fingerprint sensor (which via software can be activated both by pressure and only by touch) and also the dear and old 3.5mm jack for headphones (an increasingly rare element but always able to win approval among users) together with the Infrared LED in the upper frame. As far as connectivity is concerned, we also find a DualSIM hybrid slot, with the alternation between the second sim or, if desired, the memory expansion via MicroSD card.
OLED display to be envied, audio and vibration at the top
Main and prominent element of this POCO X4 Pro it is certainly the display. It is a 6.7 ″ unit in FullHD + resolution (with a single front hole in the center for the selfie cam), capable of supporting the refresh rate increased to 120Hz, equipped with maximum peak brightness of even 1200 nit.
Nice, without mincing words. The color reproduction, which can also be calibrated to your liking via software as per Xiaomi tradition, is a lot vivid And pleasant, with absolute blacks guaranteed by the technology of the panel itself. The resolution then, although the diagonal is very generous, is absolutely more than sufficient, without any kind of artifact as regards the reproduction of the contents.
Having to deal with such a nice panel will certainly lead users to spend many hours playing multimedia content. In this you will encounter a mix of factors that are not always discounted in this price range and that I am sure will make many of you sail.
The first, as mentioned above, is due to the choice of LITTLE to introduce thestereo soundfor a rich and full-bodied reproduction of sounds.
The second element is represented by the feedback of the vibration when interacting with certain interface elements. In fact, if like me you love to have a strong and decisive response from the vibration motor, this is it POCO X4 Proalthough obviously far from the top smartphones in this aspect, it will amaze you with the pleasantness of this particular hardware aspect that unfortunately many manufacturers still underestimate.
Hardware / software news
As we said at the opening of this review, POCO X4 Pro in some respects it represents a potential paradigm shift compared to the past. The reference certainly goes to the new software and hardware installed in this new terminal, which can potentially leave some of the most demanding users “unhappy”.
In fact, starting with the software, we find ourselves on the one hand with the positivity of the new Xiaomi proprietary software MIUI 13however, weighed with the “old” version of Android 11.
While this news should not scare users as regards the functions and customization options (MIUI has always tended to hide many of the “basic” skin of andorid by replacing it with its own customization ideology), on the other hand we cannot be happy to see at the end of the first quarter of 2022 a smartphone launched not with the latest version of the robot available.
As we said above, there are no missing options capable of invalidating the user experience (indeed, MIUI also in this version 13 which appears more like a 12.5 bis than a real new version), the problem is represented by mostly from future software supportwith a major update of the two guaranteed that will be “played intelligently” by Xiaomi.
If the software aspect could then leave you with some perplexity, the hardware and brute power theme could continue to contribute to this sentiment. The processor chosen by POCO is in fact the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 which obviously brings connectivity with it 5G and also a 6nm construction process.
| Smartphone | Geekbench 5 | Geekbench ML | 3DMark | PCMark Work 3.0 | Speedometer 2.0 | Jetstream 2 | ||||
| Single-core | Multi-core | CPU | GPU | NNAPI | Wild Life | Wild Life Stress Test | Performance | – | – | |
| POCO X4 Pro | 689 | 2051 | 267 | 587 | 409 | 1196 (7.20 fps) | 1170 – 1130 (97.6%) | 10301 | 47.89 (± 0.59) | 66661 |
| Honor 50 | 783 | 2974 | 391 | 931 | 613 | 2508 (15.00 fps) | 2514 – 2486 (98.9%) | 12349 | 61.04 (± 0.59) | 86044 |
At first glance the conquest of 5G could present a bill to pay in terms of performance too high, both against the competition but also against the direct predecessor of this POCO X4 Pro (which we remember mounted the Qualcomm Snapdragon 860). A choice that I do not hide from you in everyday life could cause you some lag and slowdown.
If, on the one hand, performance will not represent its greatest strength, theautonomy and the battery of this smartphone will simply blow you away. Both in our “lab test”Via the usual reference app PCMark Work 3.0 Battery (with a result of 13 hours and 44 minutes) both in the “real life test“(With data of over 8 hours a day of display on in data connectivity), POCO X4 Pro can easily be considered a champion of durability.
It never heats up, even under intense stress and the presence of ultra-fast charging a 67W will allow the 5,000mAh to load in less than an hour, thus representing the perfect mix for the themes of battery and autonomy.
But pay attention to the usual and very important detail on energy savings. In fact, by default the “balanced“, Which if on the one hand it guarantees super durability, on the other hand it could make you miss some notifications. As per attached screen, remember to set the “no restrictions“.
Cameras as an improvement over the previous generation?
But if at the software and hardware level the differences compared to the past do not seem (or even in some cases they are not really) so evident, where this POCO X4 Pro try to raise the bar? As the back of the terminal suggests, it is precisely the room compartment, and its quote 108MPto provide us with a prompt answer to the question.
The main camera is the much talked about 108MP with opening f / 1.9 seen in the past in Android terminals, combined in this setup triple from an 8MP ultra wide-angle lens with an f / 2.2 aperture and a (somewhat narrow) FOV of 108 °, together with a 2MP f / 2.4 macro lens. On the front there is instead a 16MP f / 2.4 for selfie photos and videos.
In good lighting conditions, the shots that can be obtained from this smartphone are absolutely pleasant and rich in color and detail. However, this is only for the photos and videos taken with the main camera. Turning to the ultra wide angle in fact, not to mention the modesty of the 2MP macro, the quality drops drastically with a loss of quality and general paucity of the shots.
As much as it is therefore nice to see what on paper is a main sensor that only a few months ago we saw installed in some top of the rangeI must say that the final yield remains the average of this price range, if not slightly lower as regards the overall sector in its entirety, with two lenses out of three that seem very little usable in everyday life.
The processor certainly does not help in this, perhaps not able to fully exploit the potential of the sensor, not even helped by MIUI processes not at the top in this price range as regards photographic management in low light contexts.
Prices and conclusions
As often happens on the occasion of the launch of Xiaomi “galaxy” products, this too POCO X4 Pro sees an official list price immediately cut on the occasion of some launch promo. More specifically, the prices of 299.90 euros for the 6GB RAM and 128GB user memory variant and the 349.90 euros for the 8 / 256GB variant are thus “cut”:
- The version 6GB + 128GBfor 6 days on po.co and Amazon, starting from 13.00 on March 2, will be sold at 269.90 euros
- The version 8GB + 256GBfor 6 days on po.co and Amazon, starting from 13.00 on March 2, will be sold at 319.90 euros
It is a pleasant and overall pleasant smartphone to use in everyday life. The display it is certainly the most successful area together with the multimedia area in terms of vibration and audio. The undertones performancewith the price that even in its reduced version puts it in serious competition with smartphones capable of returning better performance (even while remaining at Xiaomi).
The photographic sector, the great extra weapon of this POCO marketing device, actually brings with it too much weight to bear with cuts here and there in the processor side data sheet that perhaps affect too much in everyday experience. The quality of the photos is in fact mostly generally modest, a sign that the great hardware effort to induce such a high-performance sensor is not followed by dedicated support from the processor.
My advice is to wait for the devaluation that will surely hit this newcomer to the POCO range as it was for its predecessors, with a price that if it were to get closer to 200 euros than the 300, it would allow you to bring home a complete and usable device, equipped with one of the best panels in circulation in this price range.
