Poco X6 review

A mid-range triple camera, OIS available

The Poco X6 features a familiar triple camera on its back - a high-res main camera, a basic ultrawide, and a tiny macro shooter. This year, both X6 models are updated with OIS for the primaries, which should help in certain occasions, such as low-light photography.

The primary camera on the Poco X6 uses a 64MP OmniVision OV64B 1/2" sensor with 0.7µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. This sensor is paired with a 25mm lens that is stabilized (OIS) and has an f/1.8 aperture.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Somy IMX355 sensor with an ultrawide-angle 16mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity.

The macro camera uses a 2MP OmniVision OV02B1 sensor behind a 25mm f/2.4 lens and a fixed focus at 4cm away.

Finally, the front camera utilizes a 16MP OV16A1Q 1/3.06" sensor with 1.0µm pixels, Quad-Bayer filter and a 24mm f/2.0 lens. The focus is fixed, too.

Camera app

The camera app on the Poco X6 is more or less the same as on other MIUI phones. The basic operation for changing modes works with side swipes as expected, and you can also tap on the modes that you can see to switch to those directly. 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.

At the far end of the viewfinder, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, and the Google Lens toggle. There's also the hamburger menu which contains additional options like aspect ratio, AI option, self-timer and grid lines, the Macro switch is here, plus the shortcut to the settings.

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 four dots that represent the ultra-wide (0.6x), primary (1x), primary (2x and 4X digital zoom) options. Or you can tap on the active magnification and reveal even more zoom modes.

There's a nicely capable Pro mode, where you can tweak the shooting parameters yourself. 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 (with peaking as an option), and shutter speed and ISO control with ranges depending on which camera you're using - primary or ultrawide.

Night Mode is available on main and ultrawide cameras.

Camera app

Daylight photo quality

The main camera saves 16MP photos by default, and those are solid. They offer a good amount of resolved detail, realistic colors, adequate dynamic range, and low noise.

Main camera

The 2x zoom delivers superb lossless-like magnification with detailed photos that often reveal more than what you can see on the 1x default ones. Their contrast is great, and so is the dynamic range; the noise is low, while the colors are lively but somewhat warmer than they should have been.

Main camera, 2x

The 4x zoom is a digital one over the 2x photos, and you can easily tell it's just a simple crop and upscale by the poor detail.

Main camera, 4x

The 64MP photos are not good - they are average in detail and quite noisy.

Main camera, 64MP

The 16MP portraits are okay - the separation is good enough and the blur is likable. There is some noise and the white balance is a mixed bag but considering that the Poco X6 is not a high-end phone, we'd say those portraits are fine for this class and will do great for the social networks.

Main camera, portraits

The ultrawide camera saves pleasing 8MP photos - they offer acceptable detail, super wide field of view, good colors, and tolerable noise levels. The dynamic range is good - not wide, but not that narrow either.

The photos are sometimes over-exposed, and that is the only viable criticism we have here.

Ultrawide camera

The 2MP macro shots are okay, with enough detail and likable colors. Sometimes they come quite noisy, sometimes they don't.

Macro camera

Xiaomi and its Quad-Bayer selfie cameras is like a never-ending story. And the Poco X6 is just another chapter. The 16MP camera here saves upscaled 16MP images, which is alright when it comes to the subject's exposure and rendition, good colors, and wide dynamic range. But the detail is average at best, and everything is soft.

Selfie camera

Low-light photo quality

The Poco X6 supports Auto Night Mode - it is enabled by default in the Advanced camera settings. This means that the camera app will decide when and where to use Night Mode and its exposure time. It uses it in most cases on both the primary and ultrawide camera even if the moon icon is not often shown on the latter.

The night photos from the main camera are average - the detail is lower than we expected, there is visible noise, and the colors are punchy, but you can spot the reddish tint by yourself right away. The photos are well-exposed with good dynamic range, though, and that is what balances out their imperfections. Average, indeed.

Main camera, Auto

The 2x toggle delivers digital zoom at night; there are no traces of the high-quality magnifications we exhibited during the day.

Main camera 2x, Auto

The 8MP ultrawide night photos are okay - they are colorful, with acceptable detail and wide dynamic range for the purposes of nighttime photography. They are overrun by noise but still usable.

Ultrawide camera, Auto

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

Poco X6 against the Galaxy A54 and the Moto G84 in our Photo compare tool

Video recording and quality

The Poco X6 supports 4K@30fps video capturing on its primary camera. The ultrawide camera maxes out at 1080p@30fps, while the 2MP macro supports 720p@30fps. Finally, 1080p at 60fps is available on the main and selfie cameras.

There is an always-on electronic stabilization working across the main and ultrawide camera, but not on the selfie and macro.

Audio is always captured stereo with a 96Kbps bitrate.

Main camera

The 4K daylight videos from the main camera are excellent - they are detailed, with low noise, accurate colors, good dynamic range, and high contrast.

The 2x zoomed video is upscaled from the regular footage.

The 4K low-light video from the main camera is disappointing - low detail, high noise level, low dynamic range, and the reddish tint is present.

EIS works great on the main camera across all resolutions and frame rate.

Ultrawide camera

The 1080p daylight video from the ultrawide camera is alright - it offers acceptable detail levels, no noise, good colors, and adequate dynamic range.

The low-light 1080p video from the ultrawide camera turned out to be quite usable - it has enough detail, the noise doesn't get in the way, and the colors are realistic.

EIS works fine on this camera, too.

Selfies camera

The selfie camera captured good 1080p clips with okayish detail, low noise, and accurate colors. The dynamic range is above average.

There is no EIS for this camera, unfortunately.

Video screenshots: Main • Main 2x • Ultrawide • Selfie • Main • Ultrawide

Here's how the Poco X6 compares to other devices in our vast video compare database.

Poco X6 against the Galaxy A54 and the Poco X6 Pro in our Video compare tool