Best mobile a details and camera review Poco X2 vs redmi note 9 Pro review 2020

Hey Guys it’s Sagar from Tecworkz. And in this video, let us compare the camerason the POCO X2 with the ones on the Redmi Note 9 Pro. POCO X2 costs more than the Redmi Note 9 Pro,and it also gets the with Sony’s IMX 686 sensor as its primarycamera. While the Redmi Note 9 Pro is 1st smartphoneto come with Samsung’s new GM2 sensor. It will be interesting to see, how this Samsungsensor fairs against Sony’s. We have a lot of image and video samples togo through.

So in favour of keeping this video from gettingany longer than it already it, I will leave the camera specs of both these phones on thescreen. You can pause the video and go through themif you want. Interface of the camera app is basically similaron both the phones, with the exception of the macro mode being hidden in the secondarymenu on the Note 9 Pro. If you want a more in-depth look at the interfaceof the camera app on these phones, I suggest you guys check out my dedicated camera reviewsof both these phones. 

I will leave cards to them on the top rightof the screen, and also link them in the description section. Before we get to the image and video samples,If you are new to this channel, or if you still haven’t subscribed, please make sureto hit the subscribe button and the bell icon next to it. That way, YouTube will make sure to notifyyou, as a new video goes live on this channel. Let us start with daylight images from theprimary camera, as that is most likely going to be the Camera and Lighting conditions thatyou are guys use the most. As we look at these images, let me tell youboth the phones are running on the latest version of their operating system, which wasavailable at the time of uploading this video.

Both phons seem to capture lot of detailsin these images. Note 9 Pro captures brighter images, whileones from the POCO X2 have slightly more contrast in them. Most of the images form Note 9 Pro are slightlyover exposed, so I had to manually pull the brightness slider down for most of the shots. As we zoom in, 16 megapixel images from thePOCO X2 seems to be sharper and have more detailes, compared to the 12 megapixel imagesfrom the Note 9 Pro. This is true with all the images. That being said, if you don’t zoom in, boththese images look good. Most people I showed these images to, likedthe brighter images from the Redmi Note 9 Pro, despite of them having less overall details. But the fact remains, that POCO X2’s imagesstill have more details, so this round goes to the POCO X2. 

Colours from the POCO X2 appear a bit dullcompared to the Note 9 Pro. There is a warm tint to the images from thePOCO X2, while the Note 9 Pro makes its images appear a bit cooler. Colour is a personal choice, and which oneyou like, will depend on your preference. If I had to choose, I would say the Note 9Pro is closer to how the colours actually were. So personally, I would choose it over thePOCO X2 for colours. Coming to high dynamic range situations, boththese phones perform above average.

In most situations, they bring up enough detailsfrom the shadows, and also try to preserve the details from brighter parts of the scene. We see the Note 9 Pro doing a better job withcolours, whereas most of the images from the POCO X2 still show dull colours, and havea slight green tint in them. In this set of image, Note 9 Pro’s imageis a bit brighter, and it also brought up more details from the shadows compared tothe POCO X2. 

Based on these images, I would say Note 9Pro takes this round as well. These have all been 12 and 16 megapixel imagesfrom the Note 9 Pro and POCO X2 respectively, which use pixel binning to give us sharperimages. You can switch to the 48 or 64 megapixel modeon these phones, if you ever need to take higher resolution images. We already saw that 16 megapixel images fromPOCO X2 had more details than 12 megapixel ones from the Note 9 Pro. 

And we see the same thing with these higherresolution ones. When comparing images between these 2 phones,you can clearly tell which one has more details. But when you compare higher resolution imagesfrom these phones with their respective pixel binned ones, you can barely see any differenceunless you zoom in 4-5 times. I am sure, most of you don’t zoom in sodeep or even compare images side by side like this in real life.

So I would suggest you to stick with the default16 megapixel mode on the POCO X2, and 12 megapixel mode on the Note 9 Pro for all of your shots. That will also help you save a lot of storageon your phone, as the higher resolution images are 3-4 times larger in size. You might have noticed that colours and dynamicrange, is again much better in the higher resolution images from the Note 9 Pro. Both phones get wide lens, and here is howmuch more of the scene these lenses can capture.

This wide camera is pretty much the same onboth the phones, so any difference that we see in these images, will be purely becauseof the image processing that takes place in the background. Images from POCO X2 are slightly brighter,other than that, I don’t see any difference in these images. You might know this by now, that these wideimages are not as sharp as the ones from the primary camera. And there is a bit of distortion towards theedges.

Despite of all this, it is still good to havethe wide lens, as it give us the opportunity to capture the same scene from a differentperspective. Before moving on to the close up and macroshots, here is a quick test between the focusing speed of these cameras. Neither of them is the quickest at switchingthe focus from a near to far object. And the switch in focus is very sudden. 

This is not an issue while shooting images,but while shooting videos, it doesn’t look good. At times, the Note 9 Pro just refuses to setthe focus. I hope they fix this with a future softwareupdate. If you like to take close up shots with yoursmartphones, you are going to enjoy taking them with either of these phones. As you can see, the main subject is in perfectsharp focus, and background has a very nice optical blur. Now for some of these shots, on the Note 9Pro, I had to manually tap on the object, because the phone just refused to adjust thefocus by itself.

That being said, end results turned out tobe great from both the phones. If you don’t want to worry about the subjectsin your close up shots being nice and sharp, go with the POCO X2. For the macro shots, things are a bit different. Note 9 Pro gets a 5 megapixel sensor, as opposedto the 2 megapixel one on the POCO X2. And this shows in their macro shots. You can see much more details in the macroshots from the Note 9 Pro. It also captures less noise compared to thePOCO X2. And overall macro shots from Redmi are justmore pleasing to look at.

If you have been following my channel, andthese camera reviews for a while, you might know that I love taking portrait shots withmy smartphones. Xiaomi’s phones have been the best at detectingthe edges and separating the subject from their background, for these portrait shots. And since both these phones share their resourceswith Xiaomi, I am sure they are using the same algorithm for this, as both are doingan excellent job.

If anything, there is only a small differencein how both these handle colours of the skin tones and the overall dynamic range. There is also slightly more contrast in portraitsfrom the POCO X2, while the ones from the Note 9 Pro are slightly brighter. I like these shots from both the phones, butif I had to choose, I will go with the Note 9 Pro, as it shows more natural looking colours,and the background in its shots show much better dynamic range.

Movie mode on these phones is my new favouritemode, and I have started using it just as often as the portrait mode. These 21:9 images with black bars at the topand bottom, really make you images appear more cinematic. I still prefer the dynamic range in theseshots from the Note 9 Pro. But overall I would prefer to take these shotsfrom the POCO X2, as the subject is a lot softer in shots from the Note 9 Pro. While taking portraits of objects, again thedynamic range is better from the Note 9 Pro. But the subject is much sharper from the POCOX2.

No matter how complex the edges are, or howbusy the background is, edge detection is near perfect for both these phones. In some of these shots, POCO actually showedbetter colours then the Note 9 Pro, and I wish it did so more often. I like having better details in my subjects,so I prefer taking these shots with the POCO X2. But if you prefer better dynamic range inthe background of your portrait shots, you should choose the Note 9 Pro.

Moving to the images shot in indoor, artificialand lower lighting conditions. This is where see the gap between these phonesgetting wider. As we zoom in on this shot, note 9 pro barelyseems to have any details, making poco x2’s image look so much better. In this next shot, look at the amount of noisethat Note 9 Pro captured. While the POCO X2 again did really well, andkept that noise to a minimum. 

As we move to even lower lighting conditions,things become even worse for the Note 9 Pro. As I said in its dedicated camera review,I don’t know if the new GM2 sensor needs more tuning, or if there is any other issue,but Redmi really needs to fix this with a software update. POCO X2 does well in these situations, andwhile its low light performance is not the best in its class, compared to the imagesfrom the Note 9 Pro, it certainly comes out to be victorious. Both phones get night mode, so they can takebetter images in lower light, but even that could not save the Note 9 Pro.

While this mode isn’t doing too many favoursto the Note 9 Pro, it does help it handle exposure from light in a better way. But even with the night mode, POCO X2 is milesahead of the Note 9 Pro. In some situations like this, I feel a smartphonewhich is even an year or two older than the Note 9 Pro, would perform better. So when it comes to indoor or low light photography,POCO X2 wins by a huge margin. That brings us to the front facing cameras.

POCO X2 shows slightly more details in itsselfies. It is also showing more accurate colours ofthe 2, while the Note 9 Pro is adding a slight yellow tint to its selfies. As I zoom in, you can clearly see more detailsand less noise in the selfies of the POCO X2. The beauty mode is on by default on both ofthem, so if you don’t want soft images, you will have to disable it everything youswitch to the front facing camera. 

POCO X2 gets a secondary depth sensor at thefront for helping it take better portrait shots. I am not too sure if this makes any differenceor not, because even without the secondary depth sensor, edge section is pretty accuratein the portrait from the Note 9 Pro. However like with the portraits from the rearcamera, faces are again sharper in the portrait selfies from the POCO X2. Dynamic range is tossed out of the picturewhile taking portrait selfies. Look at how badly both of them handled thebright background in this shot.For the selfies, I would choose the POCO X2.

It is also better at rejecting the unwantedsound in the background, while you take videos with this front camera. Here is a video from the front facing cameraof the POCO X2 and the Redmi Note 9 Pro. You can see how these phones handle overallcolours of the scene, exposure and stabilisation when I am walking around with them. You can also let me know in the comments,which one of these is picking my voice better. 4K 30fps videos get electronic stabilisationon the POCO X2.

And its video is not as oversaturated as the4k 30fps video from the Note 9 Pro. 1080p 30fps videos get electronic stabilisationon both these phones, and I think they look very identical. If I had to choose, I would again choose thePOCO X2 since it is showing more natural colours and better dynamic range. After looking at all these image and videosamples, we will have to agree that the Note 9 Pro, despite of being priced much lower,can go head to head and sometimes perform even better than the POCO X2 in daylight. POCO X2 definitely captures more details inany lighting conditions, and while it is just marginally better at taking portrait shots,when it comes to lower lighting situations, it blows the Redmi Note 9 Pro out of the competition.

It has also got a better front facing camera,and is better at shooting videos. So the POCO X2 is a clear winner in this comparison. With that said, other than in lower light,overall performance of the Note 9 Pro was not too bad. And if you look only at its images, they lookgood on their own. I just hope Redmi is working on fixing itslow light performance. You guys saw close to 90 image and video samples,who do you think performed better? And what are your thoughts about cameras onthese phones? Please let me know in the comments. If you are planning on getting any of thesephones, I will really appreciate if you get them from the affiliate links in the descriptionsection. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, butit goes a long way in helping me make these detailed videos.

That is it for this video guys. Please hit the like button if you found thisvideo helpful, and subscribe to the channel for more quality tech videos like this. You can also check out some of the other videosfrom this channel. This has been Sagar, and I’ll catch youguys in the next video. Take care.