Poco M5 review

Three cameras on the back, just the one to use

Probably the most noticeable difference between the Poco M4 5G and the Poco M5 is the camera setup. The latter swaps out the 13MP sensor for a more recent 50MP one. It's 1/2.76" big, has 0.64µm pixels, and it's paired with an f/1.8 lens. Of course, the sensor's effective resolution is 12.5MP as it takes photos in binned 4-in-1 mode.

Unlike the Poco M4 5G, the M5 also has a dedicated macro camera - 2MP with f/2.4 aperture. The other 2MP unit serves as a depth sensor.

On the front, the Poco M5 retains the 5MP, f/2.2, 1/5.0", 1.12µm selfie camera.

Camera menus

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.

Camera modes and menus

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. We found the HDR toggle to be off every time we launched the camera or when going back from certain modes, so keep an eye on the HDR. It's a crucial part of proper photo processing.

Additional camera settings

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.

Daylight photos

The overall look of the photos is largely different from the Poco M4 5G, but it isn't necessarily worse. The daylight performance is pretty much what you'd expect from a budget smartphone. Sharpness is mostly good unless fine detail or foliage is in the scene, in which case you may see some soft patches here and there.

12.5MP daylights samples

Colors are juicy, and in typical Xiaomi fashion, the contrast is high and dark shadows make the scenes a bit gritty-looking. Noise is well-controlled, and don't mind the rather warmer-than-usual color temperature. It's due to the time of day the photos were taken. Taking the phone inside, where lighting conditions are sub-optimal, will significantly increase noise and soften the photos. That's par for the course, though.

You don't stand to gain anything from the 50MP mode as the lack of HDR limits dynamic range, noise is more apparent, and photos are sensibly softer.

50MP daylight samples

Macro camera

Since the macro camera doesn't support autofocus, it's kind of hard to operate and keep your subject in focus. That's why we suggest taking several shots at varying distances. The bigger issue is that the macro samples are low in contrast, have a limited level of detail and colors look washed out. After all, this is a small 2MP sensor we are dealing with. Either way, the final results strongly depend on the lighting conditions and using this camera is hard to recommend.

Macro camera samples

Low-light photos

Expectedly, the Poco M5 struggles after dusk. The main issue here is the limited dynamic range producing clipped highlights and dark shadows. Noise is also quite visible in pretty much all areas of the image. Colors are a bit pale too. On the other hand, we are surprised by the level of detail and the fact that these photos are generally sharp.

Low-light samples

It's important to note that the weather conditions weren't ideal, and you may notice it was a bit foggy.

There's also a dedicated Night mode that balances the highlights and shadows, improving dynamic range. It also cleans up the noise but in some photos, this leads to lower detail and worse contrast - take the first image below as an example.

Night mode samples

And here are photos of our test posters, taken by the Xiaomi Poco M5. You can see how it stacks up against the competition by comparing directly.

Xiaomi Poco M5 against the Redmi Note 11 and the Samsung Galaxy A13 in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

Once again, the end result largely depends on the lighting conditions. If there's enough light, portraits come out with punchy, yet close-to-real-life colors, a good level of detail, decent sharpness and just some small traces of noise. More challenging lighting conditions result in pale skin and a complete loss of detail. Case in point - the second photo.

It's worth noting that the edge detection is pretty solid and the background blur is quite convincing.

Selfies

The selfies are overall decent for the Poco M5's price bracket. Colors are pretty close to the actual ones, noise is well contained, detail is okay and so is sharpness as long as the ambient light allows it. Fine textures, like the skin, are missing. The portrait mode isn't very accurate with the edge detection but produces a nice blur.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait

Video recording

The device supports 1080p video recording at 30fps, but it can also do 720p clips if you so wish. Since this is a budget SoC, the ISP just isn't powerful enough for 2160p processing or some fancy slow-motion video recording.

The sample video we shot is somewhat unimpressive yet par for the course. Dynamic range seems rather limited, and colors are a bit muted, but overall detail seems to fit the Full HD resolution quality standards. Xiaomi may want to tone down the artificial sharpening in videos to compensate for the lack of resolution because oversharpening halos can be seen on some objects and fine detail.

Finally, you can compare the Xiaomi Poco M5 video output against other phones we've reviewed in our comparison tool below.

1080p: Xiaomi Poco M5 against the Redmi Note 11 and the Samsung Galaxy A13 in our Video compare tool