Poco X3 Pro review

Your average quad-camera

The Poco X3 Pro offers a quad-camera on its back - there is a 48MP primary shooter (down from 64MP on the X3 NFC), joined by an 8MP ultrawide snapper (down from 13MP on the X3 NFC), a 2MP macro imager and a 2MP depth sensor. The selfie kit remains the same - it's a 20MP front-facing cam.

The Poco X3 Pro packs a 48MP primary camera relying on the Sony IMX 582 Quad-Bayer 1/2" sensor with 0.8µm pixels, 25mm f/1.8 lens, and PDAF. Night Mode is supported on this camera.

Second is an 8MP snapper with 15mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed; Night Mode is present here, too.

The macro camera is 2MP with f/2.4 aperture, 1.75µm pixels, but lacks autofocus. Finally, there is a 2MP depth sensor.

The selfie camera has a 20MP Samsung S5K3T2 ISOCELL Plus 1/3.4" Tetra-pixel sensor behind a 26mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed.

The default camera app is a typical MIUI affair - switching between modes is done by swiping left and right, and all available modes but the Macro are on this rolodex. The zoom shortcut on the viewfinder switches between ultrawide, regular 1x, and 2x zoom (digital).

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

The Pro mode works with the normal camera, the ultra-wide, and the macro. Manual 48MP pictures are also an option. For the main camera, you can use up to 30s shutter speed and ISO up to 6400. For the ultrawide, the slowest shutter speed goes down to 30s, while for the macro - it's 1/4s.

Poco X3 Pro camera app

Photo quality

The main camera saves 12MP photos by default, and those turned up good for a mid-range camera. The resolved detail is enough but far from impressive - intricate details are often smeared (such as grass). The dynamic range is good, though, and even if the Auto HDR was active, it did not trigger HDR once.

The colors are a match to the real scenes. The noise is extremely low, and we could argue the noise reduction took away some of the fine detail. This could be fixed with some processing finetuning in the next firmware update.

Finally, the sharpening is just right, whereas others usually go overboard with it.

Main camera, 12MP

There is a 2X zoom switch on the viewfinder, but you've guessed that right, it's a simple digital zoom (crop and upscale). While it looks okay on the phone's screen, you better not pixel peep these photos too much.

Main camera 2x, 12MP

Shooting in 48MP is available, but the results are a mixed bag. The images are less processed, and there is more noise, and thus - you can see a bit more of the foliage. The dynamic range is even better, probably because of the multi-stacking involved in making the high-res photo where one should not be possible. But the noise does get in the way, especially in shadows.

We don't think it's worth it to shoot in this resolution - it takes a while to save such an image, it is rather large ~20MB, and the benefits are questionable.

Main camera, 48MP

The 8MP ultrawide camera some very nice photos with enough detail, good contrast and okay dynamic range. The distortion correction does a nice job around the corners and overall.

There is visible noise if HDR did not fire, but when it does - it improves the dynamic range noticeably (the last photo), it reduces the noise, but it also destroys nearly half of the detail in the process.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The 2MP macro cam has its fixed focus at 4cm, and it's mostly a hit-and-miss even if you are a regular user. The photos it shoots are uninspiring - they are poor in detail, the color saturation isn't that good, and the contrast is low.

Macro camera, 2MP

Then, there is the 2MP depth sensor, which helps the main camera shoot in Portrait Mode. The Poco X3 Pro saves very good portrait images with proficient subject separation and natural-looking blur. The resolved detail, colors, and contrast are on a high note, too.

Portraits, 12MP

The main camera shoots acceptable low-light photos. They are well exposed and bright enough, with preserved colors, but are lacking in detail and rather soft. The night photos are shot at high ISO settings, but they aren't noisy - that's because the noise reduction tries to get rid of all noise, taking a ton of fine detail in the process, too.

Main camera, 12MP

The Night Mode does not drastically improve the image quality, but it does help for more balanced photos. The Night Mode shots aren't as bright, but they have their highlight clipping fixed, the noise is lower, and the resolved detail is higher. The color saturation is better, too, and overall, we do prefer these over the standard pictures.

Main camera Night Mode, 12MP

The ultrawide camera is simply no good at night - its photos are dark, lacking in detail, and the smudged noise ruins everything.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

Unlike the Poco X3 NFC, the X3 Pro can do Night Mode on its ultrawide camera. And the photos are pretty usable - while they are soft, they are well exposed, with good color saturation, contrast, and dynamic range.

Ultrawide camera Night Mode, 8MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Poco X3 Pro. Here's how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Poco X3 Pro against the Poco X3 NFC and the Redmi Note 10 Pro in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

The 20MP photos from the selfies offer good enough detail, the colors are nice, and the contrast is great. While you have a limited range for the focus sweet spot, the Poco X3 Pro offers enough leeway to cover the different arm lengths and those who prefer closeup shots.

Selfies, 20MP

Portrait selfies are available, the separation isn't as great, and sometimes you may get smeared ears and hear. The blur looks good, though.

Portrait selfies, 20MP

Video recording

The Poco X3 Pro captures videos up to 4K@30fps with its main camera, though 1080@60fps and 1080@30fps are available as well - and after a recent update - it supports up to 1080p@960fps video recording. The ultrawide snapper is limited to 1080p@30fps, while the macro cam maxes out at 720p@30fps.

Electronic stabilization can be enabled on the primary and ultrawide cameras, and it works on all resolution and frame rates. There is also GoPro-like SuperSteady mode, which captures heavily cropped and incredibly stabilized Full HD videos with the main camera.

Let's talk about the main camera. The video bitrate is 40-42Mbps in 4K, while audio is recorded in stereo with a 96Kbps bitrate. The clips offer a good amount of resolved detail, and the scene looks nice - the colors are accurate, the contrast is great, and the dynamic range is more than enough.

The 1080p videos from the ultrawide camera are poor in detail, but otherwise good in colors, contrast, and even dynamic range.

And here is the Poco X3 Pro in our video sample database, where you can compare it directly to all other phones we've reviewed.

2160p: Poco X3 Pro against the Poco X3 NFC and the Redmi Note 10 Pro in our Video compare tool