Poco F1’s LiquidCool Technology: How Well Does it Work?

Heat sinks or dissipation solutions have long been used in performance desktops to keep temperatures under control. But with the evolution of smartphones and their highly powerful internals, the concept is luring phone makers as much as those in the business of PCs.

Early examples of liquid cooling on smartphones include a concept by Fujitsu, and the likes of Samsung Galaxy S7, Lumia 950XL, and Sony Xperia XZ5. But it was not until Xiaomi launched a gaming phone under a new brand Black Shark that the technology rose up with the hype wave. Now, another sub-brand from Xiaomi – Pocophone – is using the system on its first smartphone which comes with flagship-grade specifications.

The Poco F1 (Rs 20,990 on Flipkart) comes with a dedicated heat sink which abducts heat from around the processor and transfers it to the lower part of the smartphone PCB. The so-called “LiquidCool” technology is supposed to prevent the Poco F1 from becoming unbearably hot while gaming or using the camera rigorously. I put the feature to a stress test and here’s what I feel about Poco F1’s liquid cooling technology.

LiquidCool on Poco F1: Does it Really Work?

To test the feature, I spent nearly an hour playing PUBG continuously on the Poco F1 and sensed how hot it felt.

This was further verified using an infrared thermometer gun and repeated the test a bunch of times to verify the results. Moreover, these results were paired against the data from CPU-Z (free on Play Store) to check the effectiveness of the LiquidCool technology.

I must say that I admire the way the Poco F1 remained hot in case of heavy gaming and other performance-intensive tasks but, within comfortable levels. I believe the Kevlar on the back, which is slapped on top of a plastic body, also kept the outer body somewhat insulated.

Upon testing with the IR gun, I found out the temperature of the back to be around 34°C to 38°C while CPU-Z showed that the CPU temperature remained between 38°C to 46°C. This means that the difference in temperatures outside and inside the Poco F1 was between 4°C and 8°C.

Another thing I noted is that when left to repose, the Poco F1 cooled down in a matter of 10-15 seconds which is impressive for a smartphone of this caliber and price.

LiquidCool on Poco F1: Comparison With Peers

The other smartphones that participated in this test were the Honor Play, and the OnePlus 6. In terms of the outer body temperatures, the Honor Play remained at nearly the same temperatures as the Poco F1 while the heat on the OnePlus 6 soared to almost 40°C. Moreover, there was a congruency between the results from CPU-Z and the IR gun.

Another thing, I must highlight is that while the Honor Play, too, cooled down really quickly, the OnePlus 6 spent some time in regaining its cool. This could be because the Honor Play uses a metal body while the OnePlus has a glass back. Taking you back to 6th standard science class, metal is a better conductor and thus a better radiator of heat than glass.

LiquidCool on Poco F1: Final Thoughts

This series of tests suggests that the Poco F1 performs noticeably well in comparison to the OnePlus 6 and somewhat similar to the Honor Play. Pocophone’s choice of using a polycarbonate shell for construction and the extra Kevlar back on the “armoured edition” seems to insulate the heat further, which in my opinion, is a plus point in spite of the lesser premium feel.

If I’ve to put it in a single sentence – Yes, the liquid cooling on Poco F1 does work – although the difference is not astonishing. But this marks the beginning of a new era when flagship-level specifications come for an affordable pricing and backed by quirks like liquid cooling and this makes me feel excited for the generation of smartphones that will be coming in future.

Buy the Poco F1 from Flipkart (starts at Rs 20,990)