Xiaomi 13 Pro Camera test. Xiaomi 13t pro

Xiaomi 13 Pro Camera test

We put the Xiaomi 13 Pro through our rigorous DXOMARK Camera test suite to measure its performance in photo, video, and zoom quality from an end-user perspective. This article breaks down how the device fared in a variety of tests and several common use cases and is intended to highlight the most important results of our testing with an extract of the captured data.

Overview

Key camera specifications:

• Primary: 50MP 1.0″ sensor, 23mm equivalent f/1.9-aperture lens, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS
• Ultra-wide: 50 MP, 14 mm equivalent f/2.2-aperture lens, AF
• Tele: 50 MP, 75 mm equivalent f/2.0-aperture lens, PDAF

Sub-scores and attributes included in the calculations of the global score.

Xiaomi 13 Pro

Use case scores indicate the product performance in specific situations. They are not included in the overall score calculations.

Outdoor

Photos videos shot in bright light conditions (≥1000 lux)

Indoor

Photos videos shot in good lighting conditions (≥100lux)

Lowlight

Photos videos shot in low lighting conditions (

Friends Family

Portrait and group photo videos

Pros

• Good exposure and detail in photo and video
• Wide dynamic range down to very low light in photo
• Neutral white balance in bright light, generally nice color
• Good-quality zoom at close and medium range tele settings

Cons

• Some exposure instabilities and tone compression in high-contrast scenes
• Halo artifacts in photo
• Frequent delays between triggering the shutter button and image capture, especially in high-contrast conditions
• Some autofocus failures

With a DXOMARK Camera score of 136, the Xiaomi 13 Pro performed well in our tests, offering bright exposure, nice colors and good detail capture in both photo and video modes. In addition, the camera was capable of producing high image quality at close and medium range tele settings and recorded still images with a wide dynamic range, even in low light.

The 13 Pro camera has some similar hardware to the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, but there are a few differences to note. The primary module uses the same large 1″ 50MP sensor, but the 13 Pro’s tele setup is different. The 13 Pro’s tele lens doesn’t use the 12S Ultra’s periscope design but comes with a shorter focal length that has better light-gathering capabilities. Another difference is that the 13 Pro is powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset instead of the 1st generation variant in the 12S Ultra. Both models have Leica-branded lens and the Leica color modes. We performed all DXOMARK Camera testing with the Vibrant setting, just like we did with the 12S Ultra.

Overall camera performance was very similar between the two devices, with differences in some sub-attributes. Notably, the 13 Pro’s shorter tele resulted in lower image quality at long-range tele settings. However, it has improved over the 12S Ultra at close and medium-range settings, especially when shooting in low light.

When compared to the current No. 1 smartphone camera in the DXOMARK Camera ranking, the Honor Magic5 Pro, the Xiaomi 13 Pro lagged slightly behind in several areas, despite its larger image sensor. In terms of exposure, the Xiaomi displayed unnatural contrast in backlighting conditions which was much less noticeable on the Honor. Our experts also observed a better texture/noise trade-off on the Honor, even in low light. Given the Magic5 Pro’s smaller sensor, this was an unexpected result. In video mode, both exposure and FOCUS were much less stable on the Xiaomi 13 Pro than on the Honor.

Test summary

About DXOMARK Camera tests: DXOMARK’s Camera evaluations take place in laboratories and in real-world situations using a wide variety of subjects. The scores rely on objective tests for which the results are calculated directly by measurement software on our laboratory setups, and on perceptual tests in which a sophisticated set of metrics allow a panel of image experts to compare aspects of image quality that require human judgment. Testing a smartphone involves a team of engineers and technicians for about a week. Photo, Zoom, and Video quality are scored separately and then combined into an Overall score for comparison among the cameras in different devices. For more information about the DXOMARK Camera protocol, click here. details on smartphone camera scores are available here. The following section gathers key elements of DXOMARK’s exhaustive tests and analyses. Full performance evaluations are available upon request. Please contact us on how to receive a full report.

This graph compares DXOMARK photo, zoom and video scores between the tested device and references. Average and maximum scores of the price segment are also indicated. Average and maximum scores for each price segment are computed based on the DXOMARK database of devices tested.

Xiaomi 13 Pro hands-on impressions: Lucky number 13?

Update: Check out our full Xiaomi 13 Pro review at the link!

Xiaomi has never been one to shy away from power. It’s usually first in line for Qualcomm’s latest flagship chipset, and high-speed charging is guaranteed. However, the devil is in the details, as they say. Xiaomi’s penchant for conservative designs and unusual feature omissions has held back some of the company’s best phones in the last few years. Now, it’s hoping to buck that trend in a big way with the global launch of the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro.

We haven’t had quite enough time to put the new flagship Xiaomi 13 Pro through its paces (it’s been a jam-packed February!), but we’ve had a chance to gather our initial impressions. Here’s what we’ve picked up on during our Xiaomi 13 Pro hands-on testing.

New engine, new coat of paint

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — at least not too much. That seems to be Xiaomi’s approach to the 13 Pro’s display, which is nearly the same 6.73-inch LTPO OLED panel as its predecessor. You still get a crisp 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision support, and Gorilla Glass Victus durability, but the Xiaomi 13 Pro gets one significant boost — it’s brighter. Xiaomi’s premium panel now tops out at 1,900 nits of peak brightness compared to the 1,500 nits of the Xiaomi 12 Pro. Sticking with the familiar, you still get waterfall edges and a central punch hole selfie camera.

Once you flip the Xiaomi 13 Pro over, however, it’s clear that you’re playing with an all-new device. Gone is the matte-textured glass finish, as is the simple three-camera bump. In their place is either a high-gloss ceramic finish in black, white, or green or a blue silicone polymer that’s textured to imitate leather. Whatever your material, the sweeping back panel leads to the completely redesigned, much larger, Leica-branded camera bump. We’ll come back to this in a few minutes, but the overall look is similar to both the OnePlus 10 Pro and the OPPO Find X5 Pro.

The good news is that Xiaomi’s changes aren’t just skin-deep. It’s still one of the first to adopt Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, and the Xiaomi 13 Pro has picked up a slightly larger battery than its predecessor. You now get a 4,820mAh cell instead of a 4,600mAh cell, but the blistering 120W wired charging is still there. The Xiaomi 13 Pro also supports 50W wireless charging, proving that you don’t have to choose between fast wired speeds or wireless charging altogether. Take note, OnePlus.

You can still choose between quite a few configurations of the Xiaomi 13 Pro, but it pays to upgrade from the base model. If you opt for one of the versions with 12GB of RAM and either 256 or 512GB of storage, you’ll get UFS 4.0 rather than the UFS 3.1 on the 8GB, 128GB model. Essentially, that means faster read and write speeds without the same level of power consumption.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro also — finally — has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance — a move we’ve waited on for a few years.

Is the camera sensor a one-inch wonder?

As promised, we’re back to the big old (new) camera bump. It’s the shining star of Xiaomi’s partnership with Leica, and it’s capped off by the 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor that it inherits from the China-only Xiaomi 12S Ultra. Like the Xiaomi 12 Pro, the camera bump consists of three 50MP lenses — wide, ultrawide, and telephoto — but that flagship was released before the start of the Leica partnership, so there are plenty of changes in the picture.

Leica’s photography fingerprints are evident through every last element of the Xiaomi 13 Pro’s camera setup.

Xiaomi touts its 13 Pro as the first international product with Leica professional optics, meaning Leica’s fingerprints dig deeper than just some fancy color science. Each part of the triple camera setup is tuned to a Leica equivalent, with the ultrawide stepping in at a 14mm focal length, the telephoto tackling 75mm, and the primary sensor offering the equivalent of a 23mm lens.

Outside of Xiaomi’s premium hardware, you also have two color profiles: Leica Authentic and Leica Vibrant. As the names suggest, Leica Authentic, which I used for the images below, is closer to real life with a hint of the “Leica look.” On the other hand, Leica Vibrant gives a little more saturation and punch if you’re into that. I quite like the Leica Authentic look, and the details out of the primary camera have been sharp throughout my time with the Xiaomi 13 Pro.

That said, portrait mode might take some getting used to. It uses the telephoto lens by default, and there’s no easy way to hop to the primary camera if you want to fit a little more in your shot. Instead, you can choose from a black and white 35mm equivalent, a 50mm swirly bokeh, or a 90mm soft FOCUS if you’re not into the default 75mm setup. Edge detection is generally very good, as seen on the clock and the Nittany Lion, but it’s an unusual approach to portrait mode, at the very least.

We’ll need to test it out a bit more to see if it can hang with the best camera phones, but the results are promising so far.

Xiaomi 13 Pro hands-on impressions: Polish meets power, mostly

Xiaomi finally has a modern flagship. It’s always had performance and charging pretty well figured out, but the Xiaomi 13 Pro brings the rest of the setup to a premium level. The upgraded materials, Leica-tuned camera, and official IP rating allow it to compete against other flagships in a way that its predecessor did not. Xiaomi’s high-gloss design — fingerprint magnet and all — now celebrates its camera rather than slapping it on as something of an afterthought.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro’s update commitment also gives its premium package some staying power. Three years of Android updates and four years of security patches might not be the longest update policy in the industry, but it will carry your flagship well into the future.

Despite the solid update commitment, MIUI 14 won’t be for everyone. It comes with a good amount of bloat out of the box, and the separate quick settings and notifications take some getting used to. On the bright side, Xiaomi’s reliance on Google apps means you can ignore duplicates like the Mi Browser and Mi Video. Also, the Xiaomi 13 Pro remains a tough sell for US users as it won’t be officially released in North America. While you can import one, its limited 5G Band support means you won’t get top-end speeds from any of Verizon, T-Mobile, or ATT, though you’ll have slightly better luck on 4G LTE networks.

In spite of the MIUI quirks and the dodgy US support, the Xiaomi 13 Pro feels like the company’s most compelling flagship yet, even in our short time with the device. It’s close to a complete package, matching top-of-the-line hardware to excellent connectivity options with a powerful camera setup to boot. If you want to break out of the Apple, Samsung, or Google track, the Xiaomi 13 Pro might be worth a look.

Xiaomi 13 Pro review: Finally, a Xiaomi flagship with a great camera

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The Xiaomi 13 Pro is a sleek, powerful phone that matches other Android flagships on features and camera quality.

Xiaomi is the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, but it’s sometimes doesn’t feel like it, especially if you live in the U.S. There, Samsung is the de facto Android phone, with an occasional Motorola or a Google Pixel thrown in.

But even though Xiaomi’s brand is more powerful in Asia and Europe, the company still makes great phones. Case in point, its new flagship, the Xiaomi 13 Pro. After a lot of experimenting with different designs and features, it appears that Xiaomi has finally settled in and produced a true flagship killer.

Elegant, slick, and slippery

The Xiaomi 13 Pro won’t sell on looks alone. Xiaomi has been directionless when it comes to smartphone design, changing things radically with each new flagship, and never sticking to a recognizable, consistent design language. The Xiaomi 13 Pro has a massive, square camera bump with barely visible lenses (compare this to the 12 Pro which had a huge main camera lens that dominated the back of the phone) and prominent Leica branding. It has a slick ceramic back, rounded edges, and it feels like a quality-made object.

The unit I got is black all over, and if I’m being generous, I could compare the look and feel to that of a luxurious black limousine. I prefer it to the look of any other recent Xiaomi phone, but from a distance, it can look a bit bland. I’d rather have something more colorful; the global version of the phone also comes in white, which (judging from the promo photos I’ve seen) suits it better.

The rounded display edges and the ceramic back, while really nice to the touch, make the phone extremely slippery, so you’ll definitely need a case for this one. Xiaomi included a very basic, see-through case with the phone, but you’ll probably want something nicer.

Stunning display, lots of power, and great battery life

The display is a 6.73-inch, 120Hz AMOLED with a 3,200 x 1,440 pixel resolution (you’ll have to turn it on manually in the settings; the phone defaults to a lower resolution to save battery life). It’s gorgeous, with accurate colors, deep blacks and plenty of brightness when you need it. I compared it to the iPhone 14 Pro Max using my favorite test for phone displays, The Weeknd’s “Starboy” video, and couldn’t tell which display is better.

While I was at it, I blasted the sound on maximum. The Xiaomi 13 Pro has stereo speakers (down from quad speakers on the 12 Pro) and boasts Dolby Atmos sound with head tracking (similar to Apple’s Spatial Audio). The sound is good but not nearly as loud and punchy as the sound coming from the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

With a 3,200 x 1,440 pixel resolution, the Xiaomi 13 Pro is on par with a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

Xiaomi was the first company to announce a phone with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, the same chip that powers the Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series. Coupled with 12GB of RAM, it makes this phone fast enough that I never wanted more power. Everything was fluid and responsive, no matter how many apps I had open in the background. A game of PUBG flew on the highest possible settings, and a pop-up window offered to further optimize the phone’s performance for gaming, though I didn’t notice much of a difference.

Having reviewed most major Xiaomi flagships that came out in the past couple of years, there was always a little something missing. This time, I’m happy to say that Xiaomi has finally reached the point in which its flagship has basically every important feature you can think of. Some highlights include incredibly fast wired charging that’ll get the phone from 1 to 100% in about 20 minutes, Wi-Fi 7 capability, Bluetooth 5.3 support, and IP68 dust and water resistance.

Battery life was excellent; the phone lasted roughly two days, except when I pushed it to the limit with games. But with charging being this fast, it didn’t even matter, I could always plug it in for a couple of minutes to get enough additional battery juice to last me another day.

A reasonable amount of bloatware

Software is traditionally the part in which phones from Xiaomi (and most other Chinese manufacturers) don’t feel very premium, mostly because they come loaded up with crap that you probably don’t need. Xiaomi has made improvements here, though some non-Google, third-party apps still do come preinstalled. Most of it is pretty common stuff, like Netflix, Spotify, and Booking.com, but I’d still prefer to install the apps I need on my own. Thankfully, all of it can be uninstalled.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro runs on the latest version of Xiaomi’s Android skin, MIUI 14.0.11, with Android 13 underneath. It’s a good and stable combo that doesn’t shy from borrowing some features from iOS. Some of the new features compared to MIUI 13 include new menu icons which are now a little easier to see and the ability to create folders that are about four times as large as regular ones. I liked the changes and I felt at home with the Xiaomi 13 Pro, even though my main phone is an iPhone. The biggest issues I’ve had was finding that one pesky option in a sea of settings, but that’s a common ailment among Android phones.

One thing that did annoy me were the constant notifications bugging me to install an app or do something that I don’t care much about. Worse, some of those notifications are impossible to flick off; instead, the software requires you to interact with them or even turn an option on before the notification bubble is dismissed.

A much improved zoom

The power is there, and the features are all there. Outside of price, this means that this phone’s camera quality will likely determine whether the 13 Pro is a true competitor for Samsung’s mighty Galaxy S23 Pro and Ultra phones, as well as Google’s Pixel 7 which don’t boast a very high megapixel count, but win on Google’s image processing power.

The main camera lenses aren’t as prominent as on Xiaomi’s recent flagships, but the camera is overall better. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

Despite the different look of the camera system compared to last year’s model, the Xiaomi 13 Pro has similar camera specs. The rear camera still has three 50-megapixel sensors: one for the wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto cameras. It’s a sound system, at least on paper, but the camera performance of Xiaomi phones was a bit uneven in recent years.

With the Xiaomi 13 Pro, it seems that the company (together with its camera partner, Leica), has finally found a good balance. The phone produces very good photos in all scenarios, even at night.

I was most impressed with the telephoto camera, which I used to take some incredibly sharp shots in the dusk. I’ve compared the Xiaomi directly to the iPhone 14 Pro Max, and it blew it away when it came to zooming in in low light.

In daylight, the iPhone’s telephoto camera took slightly sharper photos, but I preferred the far more natural look of the photos I took with the Xiaomi. Xiaomi‘s software defaults to 1x, 2x, and 3.2x zoom; if you pinch out to get even more zoom, you’ll get 10x and 70x options. I was surprised to see that even 10x photos look pretty good, though anything above that was mostly useless as the photos got very artificial-looking.

All of this is in stark contrast to last year’s Xiaomi 12 Pro, which had an underwhelming telephoto camera. Digging through the phones’ specs reveals the reason: Despite the identical 50 megapixel count, the telephoto camera has been upgraded from a 48mm to a 75mm lens, and it now offers 3.2x optical zoom (compared to 2x optical zoom on the 12 Pro).

Xiaomi’s main camera was mostly great, producing very bright and detailed photos in low light. Sometimes the low light photos leaned yellow, and sometimes the processing went too far, making the photos unnaturally bright, and leaving odd artifacts around light sources (see image below), but overall the photos were never bad.

The artifacts around light sources spoil Xiaomi’s otherwise bright and detailed night photo. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

The iPhone 14 Pro Max took a sharper, more accurate photo, but it’s a bit too dark. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

Unsurprisingly, Xiaomi took excellent photos in daylight. The Leica-tuned camera software offers two basic shooting modes, “Leica Vibrant” and “Leica Authentic.” I mostly stuck with the latter, but the difference is subtle, with “Vibrant” producing slightly brighter photos with more vibrant colors.

If the conditions are perfect, you can switch to Xiaomi’s 50-megapixel mode, but most of the time it’s better to stick with the regular shooting mode. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

Xiaomi 13 Pro’s ultra-wide camera is a step down in quality, and should be used only when the main camera just doesn’t go wide enough.

If you go beyond Xiaomi’s basic camera features and tap on the “” button in the camera software, you’ll get a ton more options, including exotic ones like Supermoon. Swiping far left in the bottom menu will open up Pro mode, which enables you to control nearly every aspect of the camera, including white balance, ISO sensitivity, and shutter speed. Overall, there’s a ton of settings to go through, and I reckon only the most persistent users will try them all out.

Finally, the selfie camera is a 32-megapixel shooter that comes with a ton of options, including a multitude of filters and beautifying options; don’t go overboard or you’ll end up looking like a cartoon character. On default settings, the photos come out very detailed but soft and slightly washed out, which is pretty easy to fix in the settings.

Overall, it appears that Xiaomi has finally managed to put together a smartphone camera that takes great photos in most scenarios. It may not win every battle against other top phones, but it’ll always be competitive.

The best Xiaomi phone in a while

I like this phone more than I liked any Xiaomi phone that came out in the past couple of years. Its design may not be the most exciting, but it’s pretty sleek nevertheless (be sure to check out both colors to see which one you fancy), with a gorgeous display and a fancy ceramic back. It matches Samsung’s recently released Galaxy S23 Plus on power and features, and has a very capable camera system. It charges extremely fast, and its battery lasts up to two days.

At writing time, I had no info on a crucial piece of the puzzle: pricing.

UPDATE: Feb. 27, 2023, 3:32 p.m. CET Xiaomi has revealed the pricing for the Xiaomi 13 Pro, and it starts at 1,299 euros, which is a lot. It doesn’t change the fact that the Xiaomi 13 Pro is a very good phone, but you shoud be aware that you can get a Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus and a Google Pixel 7 Pro for less.

Xiaomi 13 Pro Full Review Part 2: Camera Test

Xiaomi 13 Pro review: Gunning for premium with Leica’s wind at its back

How much did you say that the Xiaomi 13 Pro retails at again?

It seems that Xiaomi wants to break away from its budget flagship reputation, having priced the Xiaomi 13 Pro at a whopping S1,599 (256GB storage).

It’s 18% more expensive than its predecessor and well within HWZ’s Tech Awards definition of a premium-grade smartphone (above S1,500). While that’s ambitious of Xiaomi, we’d have to assess the phone as an alternative to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra or the current-gen Pro models of Apple’s iPhones.

The TLDR version:

Nice Leica optimisations, good performance, and solid construction. Overall, a fun, but expensive phone that could use more ‘polish’.

To help with its newfound premium classification, Xiaomi 13 Pro offers many top-end components. It has the same flagship-grade chipset as the Samsung Galaxy S23 series (Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2), and the latest RAM and storage types (LPDDR5X and UFS 4.0, respectively) like its Samsung rival.

It also has all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a premium-tier handset, like an IP68 resistance rating, in-display fingerprint sensor, fast wired (120W) and wireless (50W) charging, and 5G connectivity. As an Android 13 phone representing Xiaomi’s best foot forward in our market, it features its MIUI 14 operating system.

For its trump card, the triple-rear camera Xiaomi 13 Pro taps into its partnership with Leica, offering a co-engineered Leica camera system with lenses, image tuning, and a user interface that harkens to the aesthetics of the German optics manufacturer.

We’ve covered what the cameras offer in our initial launch coverage, so our review below will touch on the results we got through the Leica-touched Xiaomi 13 Pro instead.

Huge imaging promises aside, is the Xiaomi 13 Pro a good smartphone? Would it make a good premium smartphone too? Let’s find out.

• 6.73-inch, 3,200 x 1,440 pixels, LTPO AMOLED, 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, HDR10, DCI-P3, Dolby Vision, 1,900-nits peak brightness
• Rear:
• Leica Vario-Summicron 1:1.9-2.2/14-75 ASPH lenses
• 50MP main, Sony IMX989 sensor, 1.6μm pixel size, 3.2μm 4-in-1 Super Pixel, f/1.9, HyperOIS
• 50MP ultra-wide, 115° FOV, f/2.2, AutoFocus
• 50MP telephoto, f/2.0, 10cm macro, Focal Shift, Floating Telephoto lens, 75mm equivalent focal length, OIS
• Front:
• 32MP, f/2.0, 0.7μm pixel size, 1.4μm 4-in-1 Super Pixel, FOV 89.6°
• Up to Wi-Fi 7 (Market dependent), Bluetooth 5.3, L1L5 GPS, G1 GLONASS, E1E5a GALILEO, Beidou, Type-C USB, NFC
• 4,820mAh
• 120W wired Xiaomi HyperCharge
• 50W wireless Turbo Charging
• 10W reverse wireless charging

A familiar face at a different price point

The Xiaomi 13 Pro’s sandwich body with curved sides is all too familiar to fans of Chinese Android handsets. The company said that the rear is made from medical-grade bioceramic material, which implies that the Xiaomi 13 Pro uses the same mediums one would use to make prosthetic limbs and implants. Bioceramic is typically used for its durability and special “soft touch” texture and we think it helps to justify somewhat its premium asking price today.

That said, the phone weighs 229g, bringing about some heft to day-to-day operation. For reference, the harmonica-sized Galaxy Z Fold4 (a winner in our books) is only 34g heavier.

If you’re the type to derive a sense of quality assurance from the weight of products, the Xiaomi 13 Pro satisfies that. To us, it feels almost too heavy for portable gimbals, much less a low-tech selfie stick. The weight is pretty much a preference, but make no mistake: the Xiaomi 13 Pro is sturdy enough to be a blunt weapon in a desperate pinch (no, we don’t recommend doing that).

On the sides are raised metallic rims that run around the phone’s body with two cutouts for buttons: the power nub and volume rockers. As a premium handset, we wished the phone’s buttons carried a little more tactile or visual flair so that it improves the glance value when you’re mindlessly operating the device.

The front is the display, which uses Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, which has the same scratch resistance as the current-gen Victus 2 that’s on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. The display glass also offers curved sides, so we won’t fault you for thinking that the Xiaomi 13 Pro looks just like any other modern Chinese mobile.

Topping it all off is a comically huge rear camera housing that even its provided phone casing cannot help to balance out against its back. Granted, it’s a very neat square block with a thoughtful Leica-like design that emphasises clean lines, smooth surfaces, and formal minimalism, but all that aesthetic goes away when the hump catches on your fabric or scuffs other belongings in your bag.

As a whole, the Xiaomi 13 Pro’s physicality makes it a very classic Xiaomi product: it has a design that’s mostly sensible and familiar if a bit formulaic, with generally solid operational handling. Unfortunately, it has little flaws that make people go “eh, it’s a bit cheaper than the others, anyway”.

But it’s not cheaper now. It’s S1,599 for 256GB, so we hope Xiaomi understands that a different price point comes with different expectations, even in the ‘superficial’ areas of a phone.

Display and Audio

The front and centre of the Xiaomi 13 Pro is a lovely 6.73-inch LTPO AMOLED panel rated at WQHD resolution (3,200 x 1,440 pixels). LTPO means that the panel is capable of 1Hz to 120Hz refresh rates, and it proved capable of playing back our favourite shows with high framerates. The panel offers mildly aggressive saturation that’s similar to the earlier days of Samsung’s phone AMOLED displays, with a lower contrast tolerance.

It looks vibrant and sharp even under harsh sunlight, thanks to the display’s 1,900-nits peak brightness (it typically sits at 1,200-nits if you don’t need ultra-bright displays). To aid with environmental detection, the phone has 360° ambient light sensors that determine whether you need 1,900 nits.

Other panel perks include support for HDR10, Dolby Vision, and a touch sampling rate of up to 240Hz for gamers. We found the panel sufficient for the price it commands, but phone displays are hardly disappointing in recent times.

What surprised us was the default audio quality offered by the Xiaomi 13 Pro’s dual speakers. Typically, speakers built into phones have a bloated or muddy sound that favours loudness over accuracy, but the Xiaomi 13 Pro can be obscenely loud without losing out on too many details. It was actually bearable to use the speakers for watching YouTube and swiping on TikTok, and there wasn’t a need to reach for true wireless earbuds for better absent-minded listening. We’d still recommend getting a pair of TWS if you want a more focused musical experience.

The default Mi Video content player app supports its built-in Dolby Atmos surround sound technology, which makes onboard, Dolby Atmos-ready videos more easily compatible right out of the box.

User Interface

MIUI 14 and Android 13 need no introduction at this point because the Xiaomi design language hasn’t really changed much over the years. It’s still the same blocky palette paired with an iPhone-like notification dropdown menu (swipe down from the top-centre for notifications, swipe down from top-right for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, brightness etc. settings).

Camera Comparison ft. Xiaomi 13 Pro vs Samsung GALAXY S23 Ultra #shorts

In classic Xiaomi style, the UI’s attention to detail is still inconsistent. Not all notifications feature bolded text for its headline. Video and email previews in notifications eat towards the margin where the “expand notification” button is, but certain other apps do not intrude into those margins and instead go into the next line.

The Settings app categorises the features based on their primary objective (security-related settings, for example, are all within the same space), but there are no headers to indicate why they are grouped together. Text inside the Settings app (like our Wi-Fi name under the Wi-Fi setting) goes into the next line mid-sentence. We can point out even more flaws, but that would be unkind since the MIUI 14 is clean and intuitive.

Xiaomi’s UI being less polished is hardly new to the brand, and we’ve never really minded it until now. If Xiaomi wants to charge users premium prices, the polish and attention to detail set these brands apart from the rest. For instance, Apple and Samsung have come a long way to make their UI less icky for their fans, and we think Xiaomi fans also deserve some level of polish.

The under-display optical fingerprint sensor is blazingly fast and reasonably accurate, which makes it a breeze to unlock your phone once you whip it out of your The phone is also very speedy in day-to-day use.