Poco X3 Pro long-term review

Camera

Aside from getting a much faster chipset, the other main change in the Poco X3 Pro compared to the X3 NFC is to be found in the camera department. And while the performance is much improved in the Pro model, the cameras, at least on paper, look worse.

Where the X3 NFC had a 64 MP main sensor, the X3 Pro has to make do with a 48 MP one. It's a similar occurrence with the ultrawide: 13 MP in the X3 NFC, 8 MP in the X3 Pro. Interestingly, both of these shooters in the Poco X3 Pro seem identical to those found in the Poco F3 - and that's more expensive, although it's better-performing as well (and has a better screen).

Anyway, this probable downgrade in the camera section had us very intrigued, and so we were anxious to snap some photos and see what the Poco X3 Pro can do. We weren't expecting amazing results, and we were right not to, as it turns out. If you are hunting for a phone in the X3 Pro's price range and camera image quality is your utmost priority, then the Redmi Note 10 Pro with its 108 MP main sensor is still the way to go; let's just put it that way.

In broad daylight, the Poco X3 Pro's main 48 MP sensor churns out good enough images, with decent levels of resolved detail (but nothing outstanding), good dynamic range, and accurate colors. Noise reduction is great, so good in fact that it might be smearing some details in grass and the likes. There is some oversharpening, as you'd expect, but it's not to the point of making everything look silly.

Daytime samples from the main camera

As usual in long-term reviews, we decided against shooting in 48 MP mode because pixel-binning imaging sensors like the one here aren't really meant to be used that way. If you want more noisy (and thus slightly more detailed) images, you can try this, though. You need to be patient, however, since it takes a while to save each image. The macro cam is really nothing to write home about, so we skipped that one too, as even using it is a hassle with having to hunt for its dedicated mode in the camera app - we're guessing most people won't ever use it, and those who know how to will only do so a few times and then forget all about it.

The 2x option in the viewfinder doesn't lead to any telephoto sensor since the Poco X3 Pro doesn't have one. Instead, you're just getting a digitally zoomed picture snapped by the main sensor. These look decent on the phone's screen, but viewed on bigger screens, less so. And if you start pixel peeping, you'll basically see all of the expected artifacts of the cropping and upscaling process. Still, the choice is there for you to use in a pinch, if you can't "zoom with your feet", as they say.

Daytime 2x zoom samples

The ultrawide generally produces good photos during daytime, with reasonable amounts of resolved detail, good contrast, and decent, while not amazing, dynamic range. Distortion correction around the edges is good but could definitely be better.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide camera

At night, the main camera delivers okay photos, which are, however, nothing special. Exposure is mostly fine, colors are preserved rather well, but there's a dearth of detail all over, and softness can creep in. Noise reduction does what it says in the name, but again it does so at the expense of detail.

Nighttime samples from the main camera

Switch on Night Mode and, provided you can keep steady while it's doing its magic, things will visibly improve. Highlights are restored, noise is lower, but at the same time, resolved detail is higher. The colors get a tad more saturated, and these are just better shots than without Night Mode, so we'd advise you to use Night Mode by default at night, unless you really can't wait for it to process.

Night Mode samples from the main camera

The 2x zoom shots at night are predictably worse than the 1x images, and the delta is growing compared to the daytime results. But, again, if you have to "zoom", you can. You'll just have to make do with watercolor painting-like images a lot of times.

Nighttime 2x zoom samples

Night Mode helps here somewhat, but if the Auto mode 2x shot was watercolor painting-like to begin with, capturing the exact same scene with Night Mode will only make that "effect" more visible, and thus, worse. And the waiting time for a Night Mode snap is much longer too.

Night Mode 2x zoom samples

Without Night Mode, the ultrawide produces barely usable shots at night, lacking in detail, and full of noise. They're really not very good.

Nighttime samples from the ultrawide camera

And yet, Night Mode on the ultrawide does improve things a little. These photos are still soft, but better exposed, with better colors, and slightly improved contrast and dynamic range. That said, they still look bad when viewed on anything bigger than your phone's screen, and even there, they don't 'shine' at all.

Night Mode samples from the ultrawide camera

There's also the usual downside with Night Mode, which is that it takes much longer to capture images in this way, and, for the ultrawide's Night Mode, we also sometimes saw very weird color effects around street light colors - it happened rarely. Still, sometimes Night Mode would transform those from yellowish white to a very weird and intense blue. This hasn't happened for the main camera at all, nor for the ultrawide in Auto mode.

Selfies are produced by the 20 MP front camera that on paper seems identical to the one we've seen before in the Poco X3 NFC. These come out nice during daytime, with decent amounts of detail, good colors, and very good contrast.

Using Portrait Mode for selfies isn't great, since the subject separation could be much better, but the blur looks okay - still artificial, but not horribly so. At night if you don't want to use the screen flash function (and you may not because of how many extra seconds each capture takes), you need to find some light sources around to be able to actually see your face in the shots. Even so, there's a lot of softness and noise, predictably, and the colors aren't entirely accurately reproduced either.

Selfie samples, day and night, Portrait Mode off/on

Overall, the Poco X3 Pro's cameras deliver results worthy of a lower-midrange smartphone - which makes sense because that's exactly what this is. Unlike performance, camera image quality isn't an area where this phone stands out in a major way. You basically get what you're paying for in terms of cameras and nothing more. That means generally good (but not great) shots during the day and good nighttime shots from the main sensor - which are made better by Night Mode. At night, we'd refrain from using the ultrawide and the 2x mode at all, and on the main cam go with Night Mode as much as possible.