POCO F4 GT Hands-On: Real shoulder buttons, great speaker and thermals make for excellent gaming phone

If you follow the Chinese smartphone scene closely, or if you're just familiar with Xiaomi's tendency to rebrand an existing mid-tier phone for another market, you will know that the POCO F4 GT is the exact same device as the Redmi K50G that launched in China two months ago. The POCO F4 GT's pop-up shoulder buttons and excellent speakers truly add to the mobile gaming experience. Even if you don't game, the F4 GT is still a solid all around phone. As a gaming phone, the POCO F4 GT needs to offer better visual and audio experiences than usual, and the phone knocks it out of the park in the speakers department. As a gaming phone, the POCO F4 GT needs to offer better visual and audio experiences than usual, and the phone knocks it out of the park in the speaker department: there's a quad-speaker system consisting of two speakers and two tweeters, housed inside large speaker grills at the top and bottom of the device. I'm happy to report that the POCO F4 GT's improved thermals - which include adding extra large copper cooling plates - work wonders, as the F4 GT can finish the same 20-minute stress test with a score higher than what my Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Galaxy S22 Ultra scored. If you do play mobile games? Particularly graphically intensive first-person-shooters and open-world RPGs? The addition of shoulder buttons and improved thermals make the POCO F4 GT a top performer.