Poco M4 Pro/Redmi Note 11T 5G review

A traditional dual-camera setup

The Poco M4 Pro 5G has one camera less than the Poco M3 Pro 5G, yet it has one more. How's that possible? Well, the new Poco features a primary wide and a secondary ultrawide cam, waving goodbye to the obsolete depth and macro cams. Having an ultrawide camera makes the M4 a more versatile shooter than the M3.

The Poco M4 Pro 5G's primary camera utilizes a 50MP Samsung ISOCELL S5KJN1 1/2.76"" sensor with Tetracell filter and 0.64µm pixels (same as on Redmi 10 and Realme 8i). The sensor is coupled with an f/1.8 lens and supports PDAF. Night Mode is available on this camera.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor behind f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity. Night Mode is NOT supported on the ultrawide cam.

The selfie camera relies on a 16MP 1/3.06" OmniVision OV16A1 sensor with 1.0µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. The sensor is behind an f/2.5 aperture lens that has a fixed focus.

The default camera app is a typical MIUI affair - switching between modes is done by swiping left and right, and all available modes but Macro are on this rolodex. There are three zoom shortcuts - 0.6x, 1x and 2x. The 2x is digital zoom as there is no telephoto camera on the M4 Pro.

On the opposite end of the viewfinder, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, an AI toggle, and a magic wand with beauty effects and filters. You'll find some more options behind a hamburger menu, plus the shortcut to the settings. What you won't find is an option to set the output resolution.

There is a Pro mode for the main camera. Manual 50MP pictures are also an option. You can use up to 30s shutter speed (15s for ultrawide) and ISO up to 6400.

Camera app

Photo quality

The main camera saves 12.5MP by default, and they are pretty good for this budget class. The colors are mostly true to life (it's late autumn here, so it's not that colorful), the contrast and the dynamic range are praise-worthy, and the noise levels are incredibly low. Auto HDR was turned off, though even when it was on, it still didn't want to fire.

The photos are average in detail and not that sharp, some foliage and people's faces may look like oil-painting or just smeared. Still, for this budget class, we'd say we are happy with the Poco M4 Pro 5G photos.

Main camera, 12.5MP

The usual AI trigger is available on the Poco M4 Pro 5G. As usual, it "improves" your photos by saturating the colors and boosting contrast depending on the scenes - skies, greenery, buildings.

Main camera AI, 12.5MP

The 2x zoomed photos appear to be done in a bit more proficient manner than simple crop and upscale. They are sharper than expected and less processed than the default 1x photos, and if you need a zoomed photo, we strongly recommend using the 2x zoom.

The zoom is still artificial, but some smart upscaling is involved, and it provides slightly better results than the widespread simple crop and upscale. If you downsize these photos to, say, to 4MP, they are quite nice!

Main camera 2x zoom, 12.5MP

The 50MP photos are just upscaled from the default 12.5MP images, and there is no point in using the 50MP mode. Not even for better 2x zoom results as the 2x digital zoom from the viewfinder does a good enough job.

Main camera, 50MP

The 8MP ultrawide photos are surprisingly pleasant, especially considering a budget phone such as the Poco M4 Pro 5G. They are nicely detailed across the entire frame and with proficiently straightened corners. The noise is low, the contrast and the dynamic range are good for such a camera. Overall, these are some of the best ultrawide photos we've seen from a budget, heck, even a mid-range smartphone!

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The Poco M4 Pro 5G has no depth sensor, and it has to rely on AI magic for the depth map required for the portrait mode. And it does a marvelous job indeed, as the subjects are well separated from the background without abrupt transitions or clipped parts.

The photos are colorful, and with good contrast, they are sharp where it matters, and we like the blur quality. Sure, a bit more detail would have been appreciated, but they are plenty good, even as is. Good job, Poco!

Portraits, 12.5MP

The low-light photos turned up good for the class. They offer enough detail, partially thanks to the not that aggressive noise reduction. The colors are good, contrast is okay, while the dynamic range is not that good - typically for low-light pictures.

We know there is room for improvement, but let's not forget this is a budget phone with a budget camera, and yet it does a good job, which is a win by our book.

Main camera, 12.5MP

The Poco M4 Pro 5G is one of the rear phones where we can't recommend using the Night Mode. The Night Mode photos are often much noisier than the default ones, softer and look notably worse. The only benefit we could find is a few restored clipped highlights, which we will never trade for the drop in quality we saw.

Main camera Night Mode, 12.5MP

You can see what's on the ultrawide photos at night, but upon closer inspection, you'll see they are soft and overrun by noise. They do retain good colors and okay contrast, for whatever that's worth.

There is no Night Mode available for the ultrawide camera.

Ultrawide camera

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Poco M4 Pro 5G. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Poco M4 Pro 5G against the Poco X3 Pro and the Poco M3 Pro 5G in our Photo compare tool

The Poco M4 Pro 5G has a Quad-Bayer 16MP camera that saves 16MP photos instead of the expected 4MP ones. In fact, this is the same snapper found on the much more expensive Xiaomi 11T Pro, so, yay?

Anyway, saving in full resolution always leads to soft selfies, but other than that, we liked the photos from the front camera. They show likable colors and contrast, the dynamic range is good, too. The sharpness is okay, the noise levels are tolerable. Overall, we liked what we saw, especially on the phone's screen.

Selfie camera, 16MP

You can shoot selfie portraits, too, but they are not that impressive. While the per-pixel quality mostly matches the regular selfies, the subject separation is so-so, and it could be bad with more complex backgrounds.

We guess the results will vary drastically in different locations and with different haircuts, so we suggest you try this mode, but just don't expect much.

Selfie portraits, 16MP

Video recording

The Poco M4 Pro 5G supports video capturing up to 1080@30fps with all its cameras, and optional electronic stabilization is available for all snappers on this mode, too. There is no 4K option; 60fps shooting is supported only on the main camera (no EIS, though).

The video bitrate is about 20Mbps, while audio is recorded in stereo at 256kbps bitrate.

The 1080p clips from the main camera are detailed enough, with good dynamic range, low noise levels, and excellent contrast and dynamic range. While not the sharpest footage we've seen, it's enough for the budget class.

The footage from the ultrawide camera is not so good. While it does fit a lot in the frame and offers good colors, the picture is soft, and the dynamic range is rather low. It is usable, sure, but unless you must capture everything around you in your video, we suggest using the main camera instead.

Finally, here is the Poco M4 Pro 5G in our video comparison database.

1080p: Poco M4 Pro 5G against the Realme 8 5G and the Poco M3 Pro 5G in our Video compare tool