Thinking of a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra? This gaming phone is just as powerful – and it's half the price

If you've been thinking about buying a phone for gaming, you've probably learnt two things. One, the best gaming phones are often expensive. And two, the best phones that aren't gaming-specific are often expensive too. 

What if we were to tell you that you could get a top-spec gaming phone without the top-spec price tag?

That's what the POCO 4 GT promises. It's very cheap – €599 for 8GB+128GB and €699 for 12GB+256GB, which works out at about £503 and £578 respectively. And if you order in the first seven days there's an €100 early bird discount that takes the price to €499/€599, or around £419 / £503. When you consider that a similarly powerful Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra costs more than twice that, POCO is offering a lot of phone for not a lot of money.

Is there a catch?

POCO 4 GT specifications: a lot of phone for not a lot of money

There doesn't appear to be a catch, unless of course brand name recognition is important to you. POCO is the gaming brand of Xiaomi, and while the name isn't as well known in the UK and US it shares its parent company's talent for delivering very impressive specifications for a very affordable price.

And the specification here really is impressive. There's a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor running at 3.0GHz, LPDDR5 RAM with up to 6400Mpbs performance and a UFS 3.1 ROM. There's a liquid cooling system to stop it getting too hot, and with 120W charging it goes from flat to full in 17 minutes. 

The screen here is a 6.67-inch flat AMOLED with 10-bit TrueColor, up to 120Hz refresh and a touch sampling rate of 480Hz, and on either side you'll find magnetic pop-up triggers that have been designed to handle 1.5 million presses and which have been tested in more than 100 well known games. 

This is a pretty impressive specification for the price, and it's even more impressive if you get one of the early bird deals. The package also includes two months of YouTube Premium and a free screen repair if you smash it in the first six months. 

The POCO F4 GT will come in three colours: black, silver or yellow. I like the yellow one the best, but the other two colours are perhaps better options if you prefer a more stealthy design. But where's the fun in that?