Poco M6 Pro review

Triple camera setup

Unlike the Indian variant of the Poco M6 Pro, the global model we have here has a triple camera setup, complete with an ultrawide, making for a more versatile camera setup.

The main camera on the Poco M6 Pro is a 64MP snapper based on the OmniVision OV64B sensor. It is a 1/2" sensor with 0.7µm individual pixels. The main camera has OIS, which is great to see. It has an f/1.8 lens.

Up next, we have the ultrawide camera. It has an 8MP resolution and sits behind an f/2.2 lens. The sensor in use here is an OmniVision OV08D. It is 1/4" in size with 1.12µm pixels. The ultrawide has no autofocus, so it can't double as a macro shooter.

It doesn't really have to, though, since the Poco M6 Pro has a dedicated 2MP macro camera. It is also not particularly special in any way. It has a fixed focus and an f/2.4 aperture. It is based on an OmniVision OV02B sensor, which has a 1/5" optical format and 1.75µm pixels.

Finally, we have the 16MP selfie camera. It is also fixed-focus with an f/2.4 aperture. It is either using a GalaxyCore gc16b3 (1/3.1", 1.0µm) or an OmniVision OV16A (1/1.306", 1.0µm) sensor.

Camera app

The camera app is a straightforward implementation, though it has its quirks. First, the basic operation for changing modes works with sideswipes, 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.

Camera UI

There is a pull-out menu for additional options, including the Macro mode, which apparently still doesn't deserve a place in the main carousel with modes. Next to that pull-out arrow, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch and a shortcut to Google Lens.

Camera settings

At the near end, you have the camera zoom switch that operates in one of two fashions. The first is simply tapping on one of the three dots representing 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 5x, plus a slider for intermediate magnifications. Also around is a magic wand with beauty effects and filters.

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 30s) and ISO control with the range depending on which camera you're using. Focus peaking is available, and a toggle for zebra patterns (exposure aid) can be found next to the pull-out 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, the ultrawide, and even the selfie.

Daylight camera quality

Let's start with the main 64MP camera first. It uses a Quad Bayer sensor, which means that it captures 16MP stills by default.

The photos are barely decent because they are quite soft overall. The captured detail level is not great and in an effort to improve things, there is some heavy sharpening applied.

Colors are a bit saturated but still look nice, especially on the phone's OLED display. Dynamic range is a bit of an issue because the applied contrast adjustment is too much for its own good.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP main camera samples

The M6 Pro captures pretty decent portrait shots with its main camera. Subject detection and separation are almost always spot-on. We also like the skin tones and general color rendition. The quality of the background blur is nice as well.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP main camera portrait samples

You can capture stills in the main camera's full 64MP resolution. These don't really offer any benefits to detail and look softer still since there is less sharpening applied by the processing algorithms. However, being less contrasty, they have good dynamic range, and you might prefer the more natural look.

Poco M6 Pro: 64MP main camera samples

Here is how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our extensive photo compare database.

Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro against the Xiaomi Poco X6 Pro and the Xiaomi Poco X6 in our Photo compare tool

64MP: Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro against the Xiaomi Poco X6 Pro and the Xiaomi Poco X6 in our Photo compare tool

The Poco M6 Pro lacks a dedicated telephoto camera, but you can still capture digital zooms with the main camera. The UI features a 2x zoom toggle. These photos look quite similar to the regular 1x ones. They have subpar levels of detail - soft and oversharpened; they are also too contrasty, leading to limited dynamic range.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP main camera 2x zoom samples

The 8MP ultrawide camera mostly fails to impress. It is not great in terms of detail and tends to overexpose shots. Dynamic range isn't particularly good either, and the frame has some visible noise.

Poco M6 Pro: 8MP ultrawide camera samples

Distortion correction near the edges of the frame varies from decent to really poor across shots. At least there isn't much in the way of corner softness.

Rounding off the rear cameras on the Poco M6 Pro, we have a 2MP macro cam. It has a fixed focus but also a pretty wide and forgiving focal plane. Overall, it captures quite decent shots, given the hardware at hand. These have plenty of detail and nice colors.

Poco M6 Pro: 2MP macro camera samples

The 16MP selfie camera is decent for the class but nothing to phone home about. It also captures plenty of detail and skin texture with nice skin tones.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP selfie camera samples

It only has fixed focus, which is perfectly expected for a budget phone, but its focal plane is not as wide as we would have liked, frequently resulting in less than perfectly sharp selfies. Still, once you get the muscle memory for extending your arm, it works just fine.

Video capture quality

The Poco M6 Pro captures video at up to 1080p resolution. There is no 4K available, which is a bummer. Videos from both the main camera and the ultrawide get saved in a standard h.264/AVC video at around 20Mbps and stereo 48 kHz AAC audio inside an MP4 container. You can, alternatively, choose to capture in h.265/HEVC and save some space.

The main camera captures decent but unimpressive 1080p videos. The detail is subpar; they are over-contrasty and oversharpened, but the colors look good.

Dynamic range is a bit limited, but nothing unexpected.

Video stabilization on the main camera is limited, but it does quite alright with small shakes and bumps.

Here is how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our extensive video compare database.

Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro against the Samsung galaxy A05s and the Xiaomi Poco C65 in our Video compare tool

At 2x zoom, videos look a bit softer, but not by a lot. Colors are still great.

The ultrawide camera captures pretty soft videos. Detail could be better. At least the colors look nice.

The selfie camera captures pretty decent 1080p videos. Colors look nice and natural, specifically skin tones. There is plenty of skin texture being captured. Dynamic range isn't all that bad, and the videos aren't even that shaky.

Low-light camera quality

The main camera on the Poco M6 Pro does a surprisingly competent job in low light. There is plenty of detail - even if not very clean. Dark areas are nicely exposed, and light sources are well-contained. Colors look nice, too. It is a very good showing for a budget phone.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP main camera low-light samples

At 2x zoom, photos from the main camera understandably look a bit softer and slightly noisier, a bit more processed. Even so, they are perfectly usable overall.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP main camera 2x zoom low-light samples

The ultrawide camera's output is subpar in low-light conditions. Surfaces come out looking soft and noisy, dark areas are quite crushed, and light sources are a bit blown out. That being said, we can't realistically expect much better from an 8MP ultrawide camera.

Poco M6 Pro: 8MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

The regular photo mode on the Poco M6 Pro automatically applies some night mode processing. Beyond that, there is also a dedicated Night mode.

Enabling manual night mode on the main camera doesn't really do much. It brightens up the shots just a little bit and cleans up a small amount of noise on certain uniform surfaces. Still, it's arguably not worth the extra wait for the additional capture time and processing.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP main camera night mode samples

The night mode algorithm works a bit harder on 2x zoom shots from the main camera. In its effort to reduce noise and softness, it tends to introduce some sharpening artifacts. From a distance, these make the shot look a bit sharper subjectively, but we can't say we prefer the look. You are probably better off staying away from night mode for the main camera altogether.

Poco M6 Pro: 16MP main camera 2x zoom night mode samples

The ultrawide camera arguably benefits the most from enabling the dedicated Night mode. We didn't see much change in the amount of detail in the frame, but night mode does bring up darker areas quite a bit, making everything more visible and pleasant to look at. Light sources and colors look about the same.

Poco M6 Pro: 8MP ultrawide camera night mode samples

Videos from the main camera look mostly unimpressive. They are quite dark and soft. Surprisingly, it's not that noisy, but the detail is pretty low, and the light sources are badly blown out.

Videos look notably worse at 2x zoom. The frame has plenty of noise and shimmering, and most surfaces look more like an oil painting than an actual image.

Videos from the ultrawide camera are extra dark and pretty noisy.