Read Video Transcription▼
Picking a budget phone, specifically
something under 10,000 pesos, can be a
difficult thing to do. There are a lot
of options to choose from, and at the
same time, you have to set your
expectations because these are budget
phones after all. But what do you guys,
our lovely viewers, often look for in a
budget smartphone? Well, not only do
these phones in this bracket have to be
priced well, but they also need to
perform at least somewhat decently. In
other words, they need to have good
value for your money. If you check out
what some brands are offering, you can
tell the bar is getting higher and
higher each year. With that, does the
new Poco M74G
still have a shot of taking a piece of
the action? Based on the specs, it’s
just average apart from its large 7,000
mAh battery and its high refresh rate
display. But of course, real world use
is a different story. Its best advantage
though, the starting price is just 7,499
pesos. So, will the Poco M74G be a
competitive phone in this segment? Let’s
find out in this review.
First up, let’s talk styling. The design
of the M74G looks nothing like the M6
series we were able to try out last
year. This phone adopts a more
minimalist design, especially for this
carbon black color review unit, which we
have right here. The single rear camera
is located on the slim vertical camera
island. Yes, it might have two lenses on
the camera island, but it’s only a
single shooter, which we’ll talk more
about later on. The rest of the phone,
though, is made out of plastic. From the
frame to the back panel, it’s all
plastic. It’s not exactly the best
feeling plastic out there, but the
important bit is that it feels sturdy.
There’s no flexing when I try to bend
it. And not to mention, it also features
an IP64 rating for dust and water
resistance. One thing I do have to
mention about the Poco M74G is that it’s
quite a big phone. It’s a bit longer and
wider than what I’m used to, which did
make it feel awkward to use at first.
Despite its big size, it’s relatively
lightweight, weighing just 224 g. That’s
also relatively thin, too, measuring
just 8.3 mm thick. For this black
colorway, it’s relatively smudge
resistant. The only thing you’ll be
wiping down often is the camera island.
I can’t say for sure about the chrome,
silver, or the aqua blue colors, but
they do look fire from the photos. In
terms of ergonomics, the volume rocker
and power button are easily accessible
on the right side of the phone.
Meanwhile, on the left side, you get the
dual SIM card slot, which also doubles
as a micro SD slot. At the bottom,
you’ll find the USBC port and a single
firing loudspeaker. Overall, there’s
nothing too special about its design, at
least for this black unit, but it does
look clean. For what it is, the
construction is solid and sturdy. It’s
just a bit big, but you’ll get used to
it after a while. Instead, what
surprised me about this phone was the
display. Since the M7 4G is a large
phone, Foco decided to make use of its
size by fitting a larger than usual
display. The display measures 6.9 inches
and features a full HD plus resolution
with a peak brightness of 850 nits. As
you would expect, it’s not an OLED panel
given its price point. Instead, it’s an
IPS LCD unit. However, I was decently
surprised at how nice the display of the
Poco M74G is. The colors are rather
vivid and they pop out on screen if
you’re watching something colorful like
a beautiful anime. The blacks aren’t
that deep, but there’s no grayish color
on screen. Thanks to its large size, it
was very enjoyable to watch shows on
this phone. Sadly, it only has a mono
speaker, which is easily covered by your
fingers, especially if you’re watching
in landscape mode. Despite being a mono
speaker, it is loud and it does have
decent sound quality. Even when you max
it out at 200%, there’s no noticeable
drop in quality. The vocals and mids are
quite clear, but there’s barely any
bass, but of course, that’s to be
expected. Not to mention, it also has a
144 hertz refresh rate, which gives it
smooth animations all around. It’s best
enjoyed for gaming, but I’ll reserve my
thoughts about that for later. It’s not
the brightest screen with only 850 nits
max, which does make it a bit hard to
see when it’s very sunny outside, but
from my experience with this phone, most
of the time you’ll be able to make out
everything happening on screen,
including taking photos. There are only
two cameras on the Poco M74G. At the
rear, you have a single 50 megapixel
main shooter, which does come with PDAF.
The second lens at the bottom, well,
that’s an auxiliary lens. The other
camera is located at the front, an 8
megapixel camera for selfies. To be
honest, there’s nothing really to write
home about the cameras on the M74G. The
rear cameras perform more than decently
when used in well-lit environments. It’s
overall sharp, and the phone’s algorithm
does a great job of balancing the
contrast, shadows, and highlights.
However, the colors are a bit too vivid
in my opinion, especially when it’s very
bright out. If you pixel peep, you also
notice that the edges of some of the
items in the background or even the
foreground look a bit soft. Still, you
can work with it. Just play around with
the edit a little bit and it is decent
enough for social media. The camera
works best at 1x zoom, but 2x zoom is
also usable. Just don’t expect anything
more when you go beyond that. The drop
in quality is very noticeable. It’s a
similar story when you’re shooting in
low light. In low light, there’s a lot
of noticeable grain in the image. In
addition, the colors are no longer that
accurate, too. While there is night mode
available, it barely makes a difference
when we compared it using the regular
photo mode with a long exposure. As for
the video, the phone records at a
maximum of 1080p at 30fps. The quality
is very much identical to the photos we
were able to capture. Decent during the
day, not so decent at night. Remember,
there is no OIS, so unless you have very
steady hands, there will be a lot of
noticeable camera shake in your videos.
The Poco M74G runs on Android 15 skinned
with Hyper OS2. The OS looks nice, and
if you’ve ever used a Xiaomi phone
before, it’s very much the same. In
general, it’s very smooth and nice to
use, but there are times when the phone
lags or an app takes too long to open,
even when I’m just going through the
menu or even the settings itself. I’m
not entirely sure if it’s because of the
OS, but I suspect it’s likely because of
the chipset, but again, we’ll talk more
about that in a bit. There’s minimal
bloatware, which is a huge plus. But
what I didn’t like is that there are ads
and you get noticed from them, which is
very annoying. Granted that this is a
budget phone. It doesn’t come with any
of the AI features on higherend Poco
models or even Xiaomi models. No AI
eraser in the gallery or anything in the
like. However, you do get Gemini
Assistant and other Google functions
like circle to search, which is a nice
plus to have. All right, so so far so
good, right? Everything you expect from
a budget phone. But here we get to the
weakness of the Poco N74G, the
performance. Given its price point, I
didn’t expect it to be powerful at all.
I mean, I do have to set my
expectations. This is just a 7,500
phone. And under the hood, it only runs
a Snapdragon 685 chipset. Our specific
review unit is the base model with only
6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.
Sadly, the chipset and RAM combo is very
lacking for this phone and even the OS.
Even when you’re just going through the
menu, you’ll get the occasional lag. It
also takes a while to boot up some apps.
You can leave apps running in the
background, but it’s best to close the
ones you aren’t using to get a better,
smoother experience. But for getting
work done or just scrolling through
social media and even the internet, it’s
more than adequate as long as the lag
doesn’t appear. With that, you can
already expect what I’m about to say for
gaming. It’s not exactly the best phone
to game on, and honestly, it’s quite
disappointing, especially since it
features a display that supports 144
hertz. It can run light games like
Mobile Legends, but not on the max
settings. And on a more graphic
intensive title like Genchin Impact, it
was suffering from frame rate drops even
when all of their settings were at their
lowest. And I’m just moving the camera
around too. There’s already frame rate
drop just moving the camera around even
when you’re not exploring the world. The
good thing is though, it didn’t heat up
either way. So even after 10 minutes of
playing, 15 minutes of playing, this
phone stayed cool. The benchmark scores
also backed up the lackluster
performance we experienced with the Popo
M74G. I mean, it even crashes trying to
run the Geekbench Vulcan GPU test. So,
that alone should already give you an
idea of the performance of this phone,
and you should definitely set your
expectations if you plan on getting it.
While the performance may be a bit
underwhelming, we were very much
impressed by the battery life of the
Poco M74G. It packs a 7,000 mAh battery
pack, which is huge for something of its
price point. And even before running our
benchmarks for the battery test, I could
already tell this phone isn’t exactly
power hungry at all. I was able to use
it for around three days straight
without needing to recharge. And for
reference, I was using it to mainly
watch videos and even take photos and
videos for this review. As for the
benchmarks, it was able to record 20
hours and 57 minutes using PC Marks
battery test. And the video loop test
also gave an impressive score. With
that, this phone doesn’t need to charge
that often, even if you use it a lot.
Charging speeds are decent, too, with 33
watt wired charging. It even has 18watt
reverse wired charging, allowing to be
used as a power bank of sorts. The Poco
M74G definitely has a lot of potential.
It features a large 6.9 in display with
144 hertz refresh rate and a huge 7,000
mAh battery that lasts a very long time.
At the price of 7,499 pesos for the 6
plus 128 GB variant, it would have been
a solid choice overall if not for the
lackluster performance. There is an 8
plus 256 GB variant available too for
only 8,499 pesos. And I’m genuinely
curious if having more RAM would have
improved the performance of this phone.
But from our review unit, it’s hard to
pick the base Poco M7 4G given our
experience with it, considering how
competitive this segment of smartphones
has become. And what we find frustrating
is that this phone definitely has a lot
of potential if the performance issues
were addressed. And best of all, the
price point is retained. Nonetheless, if
performance isn’t exactly important to
you, then you really won’t be let down
by the phone’s decent display and really
long battery life. Would you cop this
for its affordable price tag or would
you pick something else? Whatever the
case, share your thoughts in the
comments down below. And of course, if
you enjoyed this video, please do drop a
like and subscribe to watch more. Don’t
forget to follow us on our social media
platforms such as Facebook, Instagram,
X, and Tik Tok. And of course, visit
yugatech.com for the latest tech news
and reviews. Once again, this has been
I’ll see you guys next time. Bye.
This transcription is auto-generated. Some text may not be 100% accurate.
Shopping for a phone under ₱10,000 feels like navigating a crowded palengke.
So many stalls, so many promises, but which one truly gives you the best ‘sulit’? We totally get it. That’s why we got our hands on the new POCO M7 4G to see if it can stand out in this fiercely competitive arena.
On paper, it brings a massive 7,000mAh battery and a high refresh rate display to a starting price of just ₱7,499. Sounds promising, right? But as we all know, specs on a box are one thing. Real-life performance is where the rubber meets the road. In our latest video review, we put this budget contender through its paces.
Does its minimalist design hold up to daily Filipino life? Can that single rear camera actually take decent photos? And most importantly, is that giant battery as legendary as it sounds? We answer all that and more, so you don’t have to guess. Watch as we separate the hype from the genuine value.
What You’ll See in This Video
- We dive into the minimalist, all-plastic build to see if it feels cheap or surprisingly sturdy for the price.
- The big question: we test if that single 50MP rear camera is a deal-breaker or if it can still capture your moments decently.
- Of course, we put that headline-grabbing 7,000mAh battery through a real-world grind to see just how many days it can last.
Don’t just take the spec sheet’s word for it. Hit play on our video review to see if the POCO M7 4G is the budget smartphone champion you’ve been waiting for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the POCO M7 4G available in the Philippines now?
Yes, it is available. The base model starts at an official price of ₱7,499.
Does it have good battery life?
It has a massive 7,000mAh battery, which is one of its main selling points. Watch our video to see exactly how it performed in our daily use tests.
How many rear cameras does it really have?
It only has one main rear camera (50MP). The second circle on the back is just a design element for the camera island, not an actual lens.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the starting price of the POCO M7 4G?
The starting price of the POCO M7 4G is 7,499 pesos.
What are the standout features of the POCO M7 4G?
Its standout features are a large 7,000 mAh battery and a high refresh rate display.
How does the design of the POCO M7 4G compare to the M6 series?
The POCO M7 4G adopts a more minimalist design, unlike the M6 series.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply