Poco M4 5G review

A budget camera setup

You just get a main 13MP cam and a supplementary 2MP depth sensor on the back of the Poco M4 5G, so a bit of a downgrade in that department. The selfie camera is downgraded from a 16MP unit down to a 5MP one.

The Poco M4 5G's primary camera utilizes a 13MP SK Hynix hi1337 sensor with 1.0µm. The sensor is coupled with an f/2.2 lens and supports PDAF. Night Mode is available on this camera. It is a decent budget sensor but not necessarily a distinguished piece of hardware.

The 2MP, f/2.4 depth camera is either based on an OmniVision ov02b1b sensor or a SmartSens sc201cs, in case that matters to anyone out there. It is just used to pick up extra depth info for portraits.

The 5MP selfie camera uses an SK Hynix hi556 sensor. It sits behind an f/2.2 lens and has a fixed focus, so nothing too fancy.

The default camera app is a typical MIUI affair, though a bit simplified to match the lighter camera setup. Switching between modes is done by swiping left and right, and all available modes are on this rolodex and rearrangeable. Notably, there is no Macro mode on the Poco M4 5G. There are no zoom toggles either. You have to pinch to zoom.

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. You won't find an option to set the output resolution, just the aspect ratio.

There is a Pro mode for the main camera. You can use up to 30s shutter speed and ISO up to 6400.

Photo quality

The main camera saves photos in a little over 13MP. They are pretty good for this budget class. The colors are mostly true to life, and the contrast and the dynamic range are praise-worthy. We captured these shots with HDR set to auto, though it didn't trigger all that often.

Poco M4 5G: 13MP main camera samples

If you pixel-peep, some deficiencies in detail start to become apparent. Also, some relative softness, particularly in areas with lots of fine detail like grass and foliage.

All of these things are pretty normal and expected on a budget camera, and overall we think the Poco M4 5G doesn't do half bad.

The main camera has an Ai trigger. As usual, it "improves" your photos by saturating the colors and boosting contrast depending on the scenes - skies, greenery, buildings.

Poco M4 5G: 13MP main camera Ai mode samples

You can shoot portraits with the main camera on the Poco M4 5G. These are nothing to phone home about with frequently blurry and soft faces. Subject detection and separation are pretty good, though, and the background blur quality is decent.

Poco M4 5G: 13MP main camera portrait samples

Portraits work just fine on non-human subjects too.

Poco M4 5G: 13MP main camera portrait samples

The Poco M4 5G lacks a telephoto camera, but can still do digital zoom up to 10x. Not that we would recommend using it. Even at 5x zoom, photos look more like oil paintings than anything else.

Poco M4 5G 13MP main camera zoom samples: 5x • 10x • 5x • 10x • 5x • 10x

And here's how the main camera stacks up against competitors in our extensive photo compare database.

Xiaomi Poco M4 5G against the Samsung Galaxy A13 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

Similar to the main camera, the 5MP selfie cam on the Poco M4 5G captures decent photos for the price range. There is decent detail, though fine skin texture is largely lost. Colors look good.

Poco M4 5G: 5MP selfie camera samples

It can be hard to get a face perfectly in focus since the selfie only has fixed focus, and the focal plane isn't super deep. Still, for a budget selfie, we give it an alright mark.

Selfie portraits aren't as nice as those from the main camera. Subject detection trips up and makes more mistakes. We do like the quality of the blur, though.

Poco M4 5G: 5MP selfie camera portrait samples

Video quality

The Poco M4 5G can capture video at up to 1080p@30fps. That's a chipset ISP limitation which is a little bit unfortunate but pretty much expected for a budget device. These videos are captured in a standard AVC video stream at a respectable 20 Mbps and a stereo 48 kHz AAC audio stream inside an MP4 container. Standard stuff all around.

Quality-wise video from the main camera is decent but unimpressive. Grabbing an individual frame actually doesn't look too bad. There is plenty of detail for FullHD, colors look good, perhaps a bit muted, but pleasant. Noise is well contained, and even the fairly-narrow dynamic range is not that big of a deal.

What really breaks the experience, however, is the persistent focus hunting the camera is doing. That and some annoying surface flicker, which might have something to do with exposure irregularities, though we can't say for sure.

There is no stabilization available on the Poco M4 5G. You don't get any OIS. Here's a quick walking sample for you to check out.

The selfie camera is also limited to 1080p@30fps video capture and lacks any stabilization. Footage from it looks overprocessed and a bit pixelated, almost as if compressed, even though the bitrate is essentially the same. The M4 5G does not look like a good vlogging phone.

Finally, we recorded a video of our standard posters to include in the vast video comparison database. Pixel-peep away.

Xiaomi Poco M4 5G against the Samsung Galaxy A13 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 in our Video compare tool

Low-light camera quality

The main camera on the Poco M4 5G is decent in low-light conditions, especially for a budget phone. There is plenty of detail in the shots, and the color saturation looks good. The only issue here is that noise levels are a bit high.

Poco M4 5G: 13MP main camera low-light samples

The M4 5G struggles a bit with dark areas and light sources.

That's where night mode comes in. It has a noticeable, though not a massive, effect on photos from the main camera. Lines on finer detail are sharpened better, and both light sources and dark areas are handled better.

Poco M4 5G: 13MP main camera night mode samples

Night mode shots do take a good four to six seconds to capture, which is something to keep in mind. If you are not in a hurry, the quality boost is definitely worth it.

Zooming in low light is more of a gimmick than anything else. At 2x, we might consider calling some of the shots usable and only if your criteria are low enough and you have the patience to snap a few shots and sort through the blurry ones afterward.

Poco M4 5G 13MP main camera low-light zoom samples: 2x • 5x • 2x • 5x • 5x • 5x

Crank the zoom any higher, though, and you'll simply be looking at an algorithmic oil paint approximation of what should be in frame.

The selfie camera captures very soft and noisy low-light shots. It's particularly hard to get the subject even vaguely in focus. We would just shy away from the selfie camera in these conditions.

Poco M4 5G: 5MP selfie camera low-light samples

1080p low-light video from the main camera is merely decent but definitely unimpressive. The level of detail is actually fine, and so are the colors. Noise, while present, isn't overly excessive, either.

On the flip side, light sources are blown out and handled quite poorly. Also, any objects in motion, like cars, appear a lot softer than their surroundings, likely due to the sharpening algorithm struggling a bit.