Poco X4 Pro 5G review

One budget triple-camera on the back

The Poco X4 Pro 5G uses the same triple-camera setup found on the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G. It offers a 108MP primary camera, an 8MP ultrawide shooter, and a 2MP macro cam. There is a single LED flash.

The main camera has more resolution than the Poco X3 NFC's 64MP and the Poco X3 Pro's 48MP primaries. The 8MP ultrawide is a match to the X3 NFC's, but of lower resolution than the X3 Pro's. There is no depth sensor on the Poco X4 Pro, but the 2MP macro shooter is here to stay.

The main camera relies on a 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM2 1/1.52" sensor with 0.7µm pixels and 24mm f/1.9 lens. The color filter is Nona-Bayer, which means 9 sensor pixels are combined into one 2.1µm, and the output resolution is 12MP. PDAF is available. This is the only camera that supports Night Mode.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor behind a 16mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity. There is no Night Mode here, just like there weren't on the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G.

The macro camera packs a 2MP GalaxyCore GC02M1 sensor behind an f/2.4 lens. The focus is fixed at about 4cm away.

The selfie camera uses a 16MP OmniVision OV16A1Q 1/3.06" sensor with 1.0µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. It sits behind an f/2.4 lens, and the focus is fixed. While this camera is supposed to save 4MP images, it instead outputs upscaled 16MP selfies.

Camera app

The camera app is a rather straightforward implementation, though it does have its quirks. First, basic operation for changing modes works with side swipes (on the black bezel!), and you can also tap on the modes you can see to switch to those directly. Up and down swipes don't work for switching between the front and rear cameras; only the toggle next to the shutter release does that.

You can add, remove, and rearrange modes in the main rolodex by going to the More tab and navigating to the edit button, and you can access that from the settings menu as well. The unused modes will still be in that More tab, but you can switch to a (less intuitive) pull-out pane that's summoned from a line next to the shutter release.

The hamburger menu at the far end is where you'll find additional options, including the Super Macro mode (why here and not a mode in the rolodex?), plus the icon to access the settings. Next to that hamburger menu, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, an AI toggle, shortcut to Google Lens, and a magic wand with beauty effects and filters.

On the near end, you have the camera zoom switch that operates in one of two fashions. The first one is simply tapping on one of the three dots that represent the ultra-wide, primary, and 2x digital options. Or you can tap on the active magnification and slide sideways to reveal even more zoom levels - 2x and 10x, plus a slider for intermediate magnifications.

Camera app

There's a nicely capable Pro mode, where you can tweak the shooting parameters yourself. You can use the primary and the ultrawide cameras here. You get to pick one of 4 white balance presets or dial in the light temperature with a slider, there's a manual focusing slider, and shutter speed (1/4000s to 15s/30s for main/ultrawide) and ISO control with the range depending on which camera you're using. A tiny live histogram is available, and a toggle for zebras can be found in the hamburger menu.

As expected, there's a host of extra modes, including Long Exposure with its own set of different presets - moving crowd, neon trails, oil painting, light painting, starry sky, and star trails.

Night mode is available on the main camera only. There is no Auto Night mode as on previous Xiaomi models.

Photo quality

The primary camera saves 12MP photos as intended, and they look okay. The resolved detail is acceptable for this class, and we can only praise the color accuracy and the white balance. The photos we took all have high contrast and a balanced dynamic range.

Unfortunately, the Poco X4 Pro photos are plagued by extra noise - the same issue we encountered on the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G. It is clearly visible across areas of random detail, like foliage, and often the sharpening makes it even worse.

The 12MP photos from this main camera will be okay for many, especially when looked at on the phone's screen or posted on social networks. But if anyone goes pixel peeping, they will quickly spot the inadequacy of the image processing algorithm - that could be due to the phone's limited processing power.

Main camera, 12MP

There is a dedicated 2x zoom switch on the viewfinder, but there is no telephoto camera on the Poco X4 Pro, and lossless zoom isn't available either. The digital zoom does try to work smarter with the 108MP output, like crop something from there and upscale it, but it ultimately fails badly by saving a noisy image that's overrun by various artifacts.

And when there is not enough power for this - say the algorithm is still working on processing the previously shot photos - then it just crops about 1.5MP from the regular photo and leaves it as is.

Main camera 2x zoom, 12MP

You can shoot in 108MP, and the photos do come with high resolution achieved with proper processing instead of simple upscale from 12MP. The photos offer outstanding color presentation, good dynamic range and high contrast. Of course, they are not that detailed and mostly soft and are overrun by noise.

Main camera, 108MP

We can advocate for shooting in 108MP, though, and they resize those stills down to 12MP. You will get more detailed photos with balanced sharpness and a natural look, and the noise is far less visible here. This is the only way to bypass the inadequate processing.

108MP-to-12MP

You can also crop from the 27MP center of the 108MP photo for 2x digital zoom and then resize it down to 12MP. This will give you much better 2x zoomed photos than the default 2x processing. If only the Poco X4 Pro had the power to do this by itself.

And here are the two photos we used for the crops.

Default 2x • Crop and resize from 108MP

We liked the 8MP photos from the ultrawide camera, as they are adequate for the budget segment. They offer high dynamic range as the Auto HDR often triggers HDR, while the contrast is enough. The automatic distortion correction does a great job (for the class) and straightens the warped corners.

The resolved detail is obviously average at best. When HDR is involved (most of the times), the detail gets a hit, and the photos are even softer. There is also visible noise across all photos, though not to a quality-ruining extent.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The Poco X4 Pro 5G packs a 2MP macro camera with a fixed focus - the most basic thing you can find on a smartphone. It makes for passable closeup shots provided you shoot from exactly 4cm away - otherwise, you'd get a rather blurry and out-of-focus image.

The 2MP photos offer good colors even if a bit desaturated, passable detail and good dynamic range. The contrast could have been a bit higher. The best you can do with these images is post them on Instagram but not before applying some filters.

Macro camera, 2MP

The Poco X4 Pro 5G shoots excellent portrait photos with its primary camera even if there is no depth sensor around. The subject separation is proficient, the person is incredibly detailed and well exposed, the colors are lively and likable, and the contrast is notably high. We liked the simulated bokeh, too.

Sometimes, if you shoot a couple of photos, the processing power may fall short and leave either smudgy or totally unprocessed (read non-blurred) spots around the photos.

Portraits, 12MP

The Poco X4 Pro features a 16MP selfie camera with a Quad-Bayer color filter. Just like other Xiaomi models, this one also saves 16MP photos instead of the expected 4MP ones.

And those 16MP stills are alright for a mid-range selfie experience. The resolved detail is adequate even if not on par with what you'd get from a non-QB sensor, the contrast is good, the colors are accurate, and the subject is always well exposed. The noise is low enough, too.

Selfies, 16MP

Portrait selfies are available, of course, but they are not good - the subject separation is average at best and gets worse with more complex haircuts. You can easily notice the background distortion around the head and the ears.

Portrait selfies, 16MP

The Poco X4 Pro shoots good low-light photos with its primary camera on the back. They have enough detail for the class, the noise is cleaned well enough, and the color saturation stays true to life. The exposure could have been tweaked a bit better, but we guess there is Night Mode for that.

Main camera HDR Auto, 12MP

Since most of the time the Auto HDR did choose shooting with HDR, we also snapped a few of the scenes without HDR. While the photos are sharper and with more detailed, they are overrun by noise and clipped highlights.

Main camera HDR off, 12MP

The Night Mode does a brilliant job at providing realistic, detailed and colorful photos at night, and we strongly advise for using it whenever possible. The photos have improved exposure and color saturation, lower noise levels, more detail, and even higher dynamic range with more developed shadows and restored clipped highlights.

Main camera Night Mode, 12MP

The 2x zoomed photos, whether Standard or taken with Night Mode, are cropped and upscaled from the regular output. Their detail is halved, obviously, but everything else is a match for the 1x photos.

2x zoom • 2x zoom Night Mode • 2x zoom • 2x zoom Night Mode

2x zoom • 2x zoom Night Mode • 2x zoom • 2x zoom Night Mode

The 8MP ultrawide photos at night are usable, but barely. They are dark, there is a lot of noise, and the color saturation isn't that good.

Ultrawide HDR Auto, 8MP

They can be worse, though, if you force the Auto HDR off. Then, you will get much noisier photos.

Ultrawide HDR Off, 8MP

There is no Night Mode available on the ultrawide camera.

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Poco X4 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 X4 Pro 5G against Poco X3 Pro and the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The Poco X4 Pro 5G video capturing capabilities max out at 1080p@30fps for the primary, ultrawide and selfie cameras. There is also an option to shoot 720p@30fps macro videos.

The chipset doesn't support shooting in 4K, which is a big step down from the Poco X3 series.

Electronic stabilization is available across all cameras, except for the macro, it is always active and does a good job at stabilizing the image when necessary.

The video bitrate is about 20Mbps. Audio is recorded in stereo at 192kbps bitrate.

The 1080p footage from the primary camera is good - the resolved detail is enough for mid-range 1080p clips, and the sharpening is rather balanced. The colors are realistic and lively, the dynamic range is adequate, and the contrast is high. The audio is good, too.

The always-on EIS takes a small toll on the sharpness, in case you were wondering if the videos could have been a bit sharper.

The Full HD low-light videos from the main camera are likable. They have enough detail for mid-range purposes, the dynamic range is adequate, and the colors are excellent.

The ultrawide camera shoots good 1080p clips. The detail is enough for such a camera, the noise is acceptable, the dynamic range is good, and the colors are accurate.

Finally, here is the Poco X4 Pro 5G in our video tool so you can make your own comparisons.

Poco X4 Pro 5G against Poco X3 Pro and the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G in our Video compare tool