Poco M5s review

Quad-camera on the Poco M5s

The Poco M5s offers a quad-camera on its back, branded as Premium Ultra by the maker. We saw this camera on older, more expensive devices last year, so we are glad it has reached cheaper phones, too. The setup contains a 64MP primary, an 8MP ultrawide, a 2MP macro and a 2MP depth sensor. There is a 13MP selfie shooter at the front, too.

The Poco M5s packs on a 64MP 1/2" OmniVision OV64B sensor with a Quad-Bayer filter. The sensor has 0.7µm pixels, and after the 4-in-1 binning, you'd be getting a 16MP photo with 1.4µm equivalent performance. This sensor sits behind a 26mm f/1.79 lens, it supports PDAF, but there is no OIS. A high-res 64MP mode, Pro Mode, as well as Night mode, are available for this camera.

Second is an 8MP 1/4" Sony IMX355 sensor with an ultrawide-angle 16mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity.

The macro camera has a 2MP GalaxyCore GC02M1 sensor with an f/2.4 aperture lens, and the focus is fixed at about 4cm distance.

Finally, there is a 2MP OmniVision OV02B1 monochrome depth sensor.

The selfie camera relies on a 13MP OV13B 1/3.06" sensor with 1.12µm pixels. It sits behind a 26mm f/2.45 lens. The focus is fixed, as usual.

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. Zoom level shortcuts are available on the viewfinder, as well as a Beautification one.

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, including the Macro mode 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 all rear cameras. Manual 64MP pictures and RAW are available for the main camera from here. You can use up to 30s shutter speed (0.4s for macro) and ISO up to 6400.

Camera app

Daylight photo quality

The main camera saves 16MP by default, and those look good on the phone's screen, but viewing them at 100% zoom reveals they are over-processed.

The photos demonstrate good colors, excellent dynamic range, and likable contrast, and there is no visible noise.

But all photos show mediocre resolved detail at best; they are heavily processed, over-sharpened and even smeared at times.

Main camera, 16MP

There is a 2x zoom toggle, but as expected, it doesn't offer any sort of smart zoom - the photos are cropped and upscaled from the default ones.

Main cam 2x zoom

The 64MP shooting mode does offer some smart upscaling, yet the incredibly harsh processing makes them rather poor-looking, noisy at times, and smudged. Downsizing them at 16MP won't yield better photos than the default ones, not that obvious, at least.

Main camera, 50MP

The 8MP photos from the ultrawide camera show good detail for such a camera and lenses and offer punchy colors and good contrast. There is no noise whatsoever. And the automatic corner distortion corrections are doing a great job.

The dynamic range is rather average, the sharpening can be a bit too much at times, and the over-processed look is here to stay.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The macro camera has its focus fixed at 4cm-5cm, but even if you get the handle of it, the photos are rather poor - soft and smudgy, with poor dynamic range and, indeed, over-processed rendition.

Macro camera, 2MP

There is a 2MP depth sensor on the Poco M5s, and it does help the main camera for accurate and pleasant subject separation. The blur is good, even if not the best-looking one we've seen.

Meanwhile, the subjects are detailed, well-exposed and with punchy and lively colors. Solid portraits for such a cheap phone, indeed.

Portraits, 16MP

Even if the 13MP selfie camera seems basic, it does provide more detailed and sharper subjects than any recent 20MP Quad-Bayer selfie camera Xiaomi has used. How about that?!

The 13MP selfies are excellent - detailed and colorful, noise-free, with good exposure and good contrast. The dynamic range is not that great, but we still liked what we got.

Selfies, 13MP

Portrait selfies are available, and even without a depth sensor, the separation is quite satisfying. The subjects are once again developed well with a lot of detail, the colors and contrast are nice, and we liked the simulated blur.

Portrait selfies, 13MP

Low-light photo quality

The low-light photos from the main camera are alright - they offer good exposure and manage to retain accurate color saturation. The contrast is good, and the dynamic range is good, too.

The images offer poor detail, and zooming at 100% is not desirable. Sometimes noise gets smudged, too, and finally - the heavy processing makes subjects look rather bad.

Main camera, 16MP

There is Night Mode for the main camera, but it's of no use. It takes about 2s-3s, and the results are often worse than the default photos. The Night Mode introduces more noise and lowers the dynamic range, and the only good thing it does sometimes is restore some blown highlights with questionable success.

Night Mode main cam, 16MP

The low-light photos from the ultrawide camera offer good enough color saturation, and you can see what's on them. But these are the best things we can say - the photos are overrun by noise.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Poco M5s. 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 M5s against the Realme 9 and the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The main camera on the Poco M5s is capable of 4K@30fps video capturing, as well as 1080p at 60fps. The ultrawide camera maxes out at 1080p@30fps, while the 2MP macro supports 720p@30fps.

There is an always-on electronic stabilization working on all 30fps modes.

Here, we've encountered one familiar issue that we thought Xiaomi has left in the past. The camera app always lowers the video resolution of the main camera down to 1080p if you switch to ultrawide and then back to primary.

On the positive side, the audio in all of the videos is captured at 128Kbps for 4K and 192Kbps for 1080p clips. It is stereo and sounds good.

The 4K videos shot on the main camera are great. There is a lot of resolved detail and balanced sharpening, the noise is extremely low, and everything else is superb - smoothness, colors, dynamic, and even contrast. The high video bitrate that is north of 50Mbps surely helped, of course.

The 4K footage from the main camera is good - there is plenty of resolved detail, the dynamic range is exceptionally wide, the noise is low, and the colors are great. The videos could use a contrast boost, though.

The 1080p videos from the ultrawide camera suffer from the over-processing we saw in the photos. The dynamic range is alright, and the colors are accurate, but the detail is poor, and so is the rendition. A bit more contrast would have been nice, too.

There is a 2x zoom toggle. It saves cropped and upscaled videos from the main camera, and we don't recommend capturing in 4K with it. The 1080p resolution, on the other hand, gives pretty satisfactory results and the videos look good even if a bit soft - the colors and the overall rendition are nice.

Finally, here is the Poco M5s in our video tool so you can make your own comparisons.

2160p: Poco M5s against the Realme 8 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G in our Video compare tool