Poco X3 NFC long-term review

Camera app

The Poco X3's camera app is the usual Xiaomi/Redmi/Poco fare, which means that for the most part it's intuitive and easy to use. There's just one thing that has consistently irked us. And that's the fact that the touch targets for the 0.6x / 1x / 2x buttons on the viewfinder are way too small. This means that if you don't perfectly hit them, and your finger is off by just a very small amount, then you won't in fact switch to your desired magnification level, and instead you'll end up forcing focus onto that area for the camera you were already using.

It's hard to describe how annoying this has been in day to day use, because we'd get it right only about 20% of the time from the first try. Then again, if you capture less photos than us, or rarely switch between magnification levels, this will obviously not impact you almost at all, but we felt the need to mention it anyway because there's simply no logical reason why those touch targets wouldn't be bigger than the actual buttons you're trying to hit. Hardly anyone ever wants to force focus onto the far right side of a shot.

Aside from this slight niggle, our experience with using the Poco X3's camera app has been problem-free. It's always fast and reliable, and never crashed on us once. You can set the phone to quickly jump to the camera app when you double press the volume down button, and/or when you double press the power button (although the settings are in different parts of the UI, searching for them will be quickest). That's a lot of flexibility right there, and we like it.

Camera samples

Now jumping onto the actual images that the phone's camera system produces, we obviously weren't expecting anything near range-topping performance here given how cheap it is. If you keep the price in mind, what you get are mostly very good results, but in some cases you do need to keep your expectations in check - a lot.

The daytime shots from the main 64 MP sensor are pixel binned and come out as 16 MP images, and they are indeed great for the X3's class. You get nice amounts of detail and contrast, and very good dynamic range. The colors are livelier than real life, but at this point that's par for the course for any phone. Speaking of colors, they're a tad warmer than what most other devices are doing these days, but for some people that may actually be a plus. There is some purple fringing around high contrast areas and some shots do look oversharpened, but for this price we can't really complain too much.

Daytime samples from the main camera

As always in long-term reviews, we chose to skip shooting in the main sensor's native resolution, because these pixel binned units aren't really supposed to be used like that. There is a 64 MP mode if you want to use it, but there's a time penalty in capturing every shot (because of the huge file size), and it's not worth it, quality-wise.

The daytime ultrawide shots are perfectly passable, especially for a mid-ranger, with decent levels of detail, nice colors, and okay dynamic range (even if it won't be shockingly good or anything like that). The distortion correction isn't very good though, and if you pixel peep you may find some purple fringing in the corners, though.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide

2x zoom shots are "advertised" by the viewfinder UI but since there's no dedicated telephoto snapper here you'll get a digitally zoomed shot from the main sensor. These pictures are lacking in detail compared to the 1x images, and a lot of times simply cropping from a 1x shot will yield a better result, if you have the time and ability to do that.

Daytime 2x zoom samples

The Poco X3's macro camera is weird to use (as you need to get into a special mode in the camera app, which isn't very easily accessible), and since it has only 2 MP resolution and no autofocus, it's best ignored. That's what we did.

At night, if you use the main camera you are getting decent shots, but these are definitely not earth-shatteringly good, even for the mid-range phone class. While for daytime the Poco X3 produces perfectly adequate shots most of the time, when the ambient light levels go down, things do change and this is one of those areas we mentioned where your expectations need to be doubly in check. You do get decent detail levels, but there's a ton of noise reduction going on which smears things, and the contrast overall isn't great either. Colors are still a tad warmer than we're used to.

Nighttime samples from the main camera

If you turn on Night Mode, then things do visibly improve. The scenes get brighter, the blown highlights are mostly restored, but the noise reduction gets even stronger which means you can say bye bye to any fine detail. Still, these look better to our eyes than the Auto mode shots at night, even so. They will be perfectly adequate for social media and viewing on a phone.

Night Mode samples from the main camera

Switching to the ultrawide at night is an exercise in frustration, as most times when viewing a picture after the fact, you'll struggle to remember what you wanted to capture. Very few of these shots turn out usable in any way - even for a quick social share (what you see below are our best results, we've had far worse). Add to that the fact that this camera doesn't support Night Mode, and we'd say you should try to avoid the ultrawide when the sun goes down.

Nighttime ultrawide samples

The 2x shots at night are still lesser than the 1x ones, and since those aren't amazing to begin with, you can see why we wouldn't recommend shooting in this mode either, unless you really need to go closer without using your feet.

Nighttime 2x zoom samples

The Night Mode does improve things somewhat, if you can hold your phone steady for long enough, but it also tends to give the pictures a painting-like look. In some cases, it's almost like having a filter applied, and it can create some interesting artsy shots, but might disappoint you if you're after a more photographic vibe.

Night Mode 2x zoom samples

Selfies are generally detailed enough during the day, with nice colors and good contrast. Portrait Mode shots are not this camera's strong suit for whatever reason, with subject separation struggling a lot of times. At night, understandably things turn noisier and mushier, and that happens more as you have less ambient lighting around (if you don't you use the screen flash). Take a selfie in a dark enough area and it's pretty much useless.

Selfie samples, some with Portrait Mode

Overall the Poco X3 comes with a decent camera system for its price point, one which generally doesn't disappoint during the day, but which struggles at night, unless you use Night Mode on the main sensor, in which case shots come out good enough for a quick social media share. It's not that we expected anything more from the phone considering how cheap it is, but we definitely weren't wowed by its camera prowess. In short - it has cameras, they're decent, and the ultrawide helps with framing flexibility during the day. That's about it.