Poco F3 long-term review

Camera

The Poco F3 being a 'flagship killer', you'd expect cameras to be one of its weak spots since traditionally that's been the case for such devices trying to maximize the bang for your buck. And you'd be right.

Even on paper, its setup is anything but impressive, with a 48 MP main camera with a ½" sensor and 0.8um pixels (that are binned to 1.6um). We've seen this formula for years now, and it's anything but high-end anymore. Still, it should be a competent enough solution for the least camera-focused people out there, especially during daytime. That's what the specs would have us believe, but let's take a look at some samples.

Indeed, the main sensor throws out good pictures in daylight, with reasonable amounts of detail, great contrast, decent dynamic range, and colors that ever so slightly 'pop' without changing too much compared to what the scene was actually like in real life. On the other hand, the images have this sharp look to them which is probably what people prefer on phone screens, but the instant you go and pixel peep, you'll notice that all of that sharpness comes at the cost of detail on grass, bushes, texts, and so on.

Daytime samples from the main camera

It's over-processing 101, and we assume the software couldn't really do much more with the hardware on offer here, and thus the choice was to emphasize the crisp, sharp look and hope no one zooms into the finished shots. You can shoot 48 MP images, but we decided not to as usual for long-term reviews, because most people wouldn't even know about that and just use all of the auto settings. Plus, the 48 MP shots are noisier than the pixel binned ones, and they really don't look any better - unless you count the marginal levels of increased detail on foliage. It's not worth it, though.

The ultrawide camera is fixed focus, so no macro shots from this one. Then again, the phone has a dedicated macro cam with autofocus if you're into that sort of thing, and it's among the better ones out there, but it's even lower-res than the ultrawide, and as such, the results aren't great. As usual, we decided to skip this one for the long-term review, as most people probably wouldn't even know it's there. And those who do, we'd wager, would take a few shots once and then promptly forget about it.

Anyway, back to the ultrawide. The 8 MP resolution already tells you that this is a low-end setup, and it shows in the images it produces. These are very average-looking pictures, with a lot of softness everywhere, thanks to the very aggressive noise reduction. Dynamic range is fine, but not more than that, the colors are pleasant, and it's actually quite a wide ultrawide if you pardon the pun. The problem is that the quality of the images is very obviously much lower than even those produced by the main sensor, and that's not outstanding, to begin with.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide

There's a 2x option in the camera viewfinder, but don't think this is 'lossless' zoom or anything like that. It's just normal cropping and upscaling. Still, a few times, you may find that you absolutely need to use this, and for such rare use, it's mostly fine. The images look quite good on the phone's screen, but again - don't go pixel peeping, or you'll be really disappointed. The look is almost identical to that of the 1x shots, which is hardly surprising considering the same sensor is used.

Daytime 2x zoom samples

At night, the main camera takes surprisingly decent photos, with nice exposure, good color saturation, and good levels of contrast. These are far from the best nighttime samples we've seen, but they're also far from the worst. Pretty much smack dab in the middle, we'd say.

Nighttime samples from the main camera

If you choose to use Night Mode, you obviously have to keep the phone still for a few seconds, but if you can manage that (and it's not helped by the lack of OIS), then you'll get brighter pictures with some details restored in the shadows. These shots are also sharper, although some details will be smeared if the software doesn't have enough light to work with. Still, if you have the time and the non-shaky hands required, we'd recommend you go with Night Mode as much as you can.

Night Mode samples from the main camera

The ultrawide at night is not good at all. It produces images that are almost always unusable, with a lot of softness and, once again, like in the daytime, extreme levels of noise reduction. They're also dark, but you've probably noticed.

Nighttime samples from the ultrawide

Using Night Mode on the ultrawide improves things ever so slightly, at least providing brighter images, but the overall quality isn't a lot better. We'd recommend skipping the ultrawide entirely at night since it can be a very frustrating experience (considering Night Mode takes a few long seconds to do its thing too). Of course, you may desperately need the wider framing this camera provides, and for such cases, it's fine - but the fewer, the better.

Night Mode samples from the ultrawide

Nighttime 2x shots come out okay, but slightly worse than the 1x ones for some reason. These are only really useful for a quick social media share and not much else.

Nighttime 2x zoom samples

Night Mode 2x photos are brighter than the non-Night Mode ones, once again at the cost of having to keep the phone steady for a few seconds. They have some restored highlights, but not a huge improvement overall, and there is a lot of oversharpening going on, to sometimes hilarious effect. Also, when there isn't a lot of light in the scene, the image starts looking a lot like a watercolor painting. Like with the ultrawide, it's probably best to avoid 2x shots at night unless you really can't.

Night Mode 2x zoom samples

Selfies are nice with good skin tone rendition, pleasant-looking colors, and good contrast too. They just don't seem very sharp, at least compared to a lot of other phones, but we wouldn't call them too soft either. Portrait Mode selfies aren't great, with subject separation that's sometimes a bit lacking, but still with somewhat okay simulated blur.

Daytime selfie samples, Portrait Mode off/on

At night, things degrade quickly to the point where you need to have a lot of lights around to capture an image where someone looking at it would even be able to distinguish what's in there. That is, without the screen flash function. With it, things do improve to the point that it's clear what (or rather, who) is in the photo, and the colors are once again rather pleasant. As with all screen flash technologies, you have to account for the extra time to capture.

Nighttime selfies, Portrait mode off/on, the with and without flash

As an overall conclusion, we think this is a case of "what you see" (on the spec sheet) "is what you get". If you know your way around mobile camera specs, you'll have instantly noticed that the Poco F3 is equipped with hardware that could be described as middling at best, which directly translates into the results you get when using the cameras.

We're not saying they're bad per se (well, the ultrawide at night is, and even during daytime it's not not bad), but you need to have your expectations in check. Clearly, other aspects of the Poco F3's experience were more important, and so the cameras are definitely one area where costs were cut to get it to its price point. That's not a good or bad thing; it's just a fact - and you can decide how much or how little this affects you personally.