Poco F4 GT lands for mobile gamers with itchy trigger fingers

Wallet-friendly phone specialist Poco hasn’t gone down the typical “made for gamers” route for its latest affordable flagship. The Poco F4 GT is a more subtle affair: it (mostly) foregoes flashy extras like RGB lighting and active cooling, but is otherwise purpose-built for bagging battle royale wins courtesy of some dedicated hardware buttons.

Essentially a rebadged version of the China-only Redmi K50 Gaming, the Poco F4 GT’s party trick is a pair of magnetic pop-up triggers that stay stealthily hidden out of sight when you’re not playing, then spring into place with the flick of a switch – letting you ditch the onscreen buttons and see more of the onscreen action without your thumbs constantly blocking your view.

Not just powerful when it comes to play time

The spec list doesn’t skip a beat, either. A Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU and up to 12GB of memory provide more than enough grunt to play the latest mobile titles, and an oversized vapour chamber should keep it cool during marathon sessions. The 4700mAh battery might not be truly massive, but it can refuel at a lightning-fast 120W, and the 6.67in, 2400×1080 OLED screen promises a silky smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Gorilla Glass Victus protection also aims to keep it scratch-free.

Camera hardware rarely gets top billing in a gaming phone, but Poco has at least ensured the main snapper has plenty of pixels to work with, courtesy of a 64MP, f/1.9 sensor. It’s paired with an 8MP, f/2.2 ultrawide and 2MP, f/2.4 macro, along with a 20MP front-facing selfie snapper.

The UK never got Poco’s last GT-branded phone, the F3 GT, instead making do with the vanilla F3. Don’t expect this latest effort to be such a bargain, given the top-spec chipset, but at €599 for the 8GB/128GB base model it still undercuts gamer-friendly alternatives like the Nubia RedMagic 7 and Lenovo Legion Pro. An early-bird offer through the Poco website cuts that price even further to €499 for the first week on sale, too.

Poco is aiming for an April UK launch date for the F4 GT, in Stealth Black, Knight Silver, and Cyber Yellow colours. That should hopefully be in plenty of time to get hacking and slashing on Diablo Immortal, which finally launches on the Google Play Store in June.

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About

A tech addict from about the age of three (seriously, he's got the VHS tapes to prove it), Tom's been writing about gadgets, games and everything in between for the past decade, with a slight diversion into the world of automotive in between. As Deputy Editor, Tom keeps the website ticking along, jam-packed with the hottest gadget news and reviews. When he's not on the road attending launch events, you can usually find him scouring the web for the latest news, to feed Stuff readers' insatiable appetite for tech.