Xiaomi 13 Pro Review – All-Rounder Flagship Phone

The Xiaomi 13 Pro has been launched in China. The phone comes in four different variants. The base variant comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage which costs CNY 4,999 (approx. Rs 59,200) while 256GB storage costs CNY 5,399 (approx. Rs 64,000). The top variant comes with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage at a price of CNY 5,799 (approx. Rs 68,700) while the 512GB variant costs CNY 6,299 (approx. Rs 74,600).

The Xiaomi 13 Pro packs the following items inside the box:

• Phone
• Type-C cable
• 120W fast charger
• SIM ejector tool
• Protective case
• Documentation

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Before we talk in detail about the Xiaomi 13 Pro, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.73 inches OLED
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
• RAM & ROM: 8GB RAM 128GB Storage
• Software: Android v13
• Rear camera: 50MP + 50MP + 50MP
• Selfie camera: 32 MP
• Battery: 4820 mAh
• Weight: 229 grams
• Dimensions: 162.9 x 74.6 x 8.3 mm

The moment you take a look at the Xiaomi 13 Pro, you can tell it’s a simple yet futuristic look. I have the Wilderness Green variant with me for the review which really looks great. The phone comes in three more colour options Tao Black, Ceramic White, and Far Mountain Blue.

With the different colours, Xiaomi also introduces different back panel finishes. The blue colour variant comes in a leather finish and the white colour variant comes with a glass finish while the green variant, which I have, comes in a ceramic finish. All of them are good but the ceramic finish gives it an extra layer of protection from scratches.

I liked the solid aluminium frame which was curved on the sides and flat on top and bottom. It makes the phone very sturdy and durable. On the front, you see a curved display with a punch hole cutout for a selfie camera which is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.

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Although it looks like a boxy phone from the back with symmetrical design aspects, you won’t notice sharp corners anywhere. Instead, each corner is curved, be it the frame corners or the camera unit, which gives it a more classy look. The squarish camera unit on the back protrudes and makes the phone wobble when placed on a flat surface.

It’s a big phone with solid build quality and a premium in-hand feel. The curved edges give you a vibe that you are indeed holding an expensive phone. However, I would say that it’s a bulky phone, weighing about 229 grams and I could feel the weight in my pockets.

Talking bout buttons and ports, the right side has the power button along with volume rockers. The left side is clean while the top has the secondary mic and IR blaster. The bottom side houses the Type-C port, SIM tray slot, primary speaker and primary mic. The Xiaomi 13 Pro comes with an IP68 rating which protects it some water and dust damage to some extent.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro features a flagship-level camera as expected from the price point of view. You get a triple camera setup on the back which includes a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide lens and again a 50MP telephoto lens. On the front side, you will get a 32MP camera for taking clear selfies.

There are too many 50MP lenses, well all of them on the back. So, do they perform good as well or is it just another number game? Well, the primary 50MP lens takes fantastic photos in daylight conditions. The photos I took were clear and packed with details. The dynamic range was great and the colours looked quite punchy and natural.

Talking about the low light shots, the main lens again did a good job of taking nice photos. It comes with super optical image stabilisation, which helps to take quite stable and detailed images at the night time. The images didn’t have much noise and the dynamic range was decent with good colour accuracy.

I was really amazed by the camera quality of the main lens. Xiaomi has really made sure that they go all out, even in the camera department.

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The 50MP telephoto lens takes portrait shots that will make you say wow. The budget focus, edge detection, background blue, details, clarity, everything was on-point. The colours were true to life and the images were super crisp.

The good thing is that even the telephoto lens comes with OIS support which means you can get super close to the subject and still get great photos without keeping your hands steady like a rock. You can get as close as 4 inches (10 cm) to the subject and take awesome close-up shots.

Coming over to the ultra-wide lens, it takes nice shots with a 115° field of view. The ultra-wide shots were detailed and sharp. The dynamic range and colours were well preserved like the main camera. However, the quality takes a hit as the ambient light drops.

Lastly, the 32MP front camera captures solid selfies in daylight. The selfies I took were clear and detailed. The skin tones were looking pretty natural to me. The dynamic range was also quite good. Overall, the selfies were nice and good-looking.

If we talk about the video part, the Xiaomi 13 Pro can record 8K videos at 24fps with the main lens. You can also record 4K videos at 24/30/60fps. You get absolutely clear and detailed videos with the 8K video recording. The OIS further helps to stabilise the videos for better output.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro comes with a 4820 mAh which is a little bigger than the 4500 mAh battery inside the Xiaomi 13. You might think it’s somewhat less than the flagship standard of a minimum of 5000 mAh, but let me tell you, it’s not a major difference in real-life usage.

You can easily get a full day of battery backup with this phone, even with heavy usage. If you are a light user like me, you can even have some juice left for the second day. I got about 6 hours of screen on time which is decent for this battery size. My usage involved some Instagram scrolling, playing games for hours, taking photos and watching some DIY videos on YouTube.

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Well, even if you manage to totally destroy the battery by playing games all day, you won’t have to wait long before you start another match. The Xiaomi 13 Pro comes with 120W fast charging support which, according to the brand, takes 19 minutes to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 per cent. So, yea… it’s pretty fast.

You can’t call it a true flagship if it doesn’t support wireless charging, and Xiaomi makes sure to offer that as well. It comes with 50W wireless charging which is faster than the wired charging of many other mid-range smartphones. You also get 10W reverse wireless charging to charge your earbuds. I have to say it’s well-packed in this department.

A quick spoiler for you, it’s an amazing display. The Xiaomi 13 Pro packs a big 6.73 inches OLED display and features a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate. Well, many mid-range phones offer that…so what sets it apart? It’s a 2K display with a resolution of 1440 x 3200 pixels and a peak brightness of 1900 nits that makes it stand out.

The display gets bright enough to be used outdoors on sunny days. It’s very close to the 2000 nits brightness that iPhone 14 series offer. I did not have issues reading the texts and replying to them under direct sunlight.

Furthermore, the 120Hz high refresh rate makes the interacting experience really wholesome. The display was super smooth, be it scrolling through Instagram or playing games. I could tell that it was quite responsive as well.

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If we talk about the display quality, it’s top-notch. The content on the display was super clear and detailed. The colours were vivid and punchy with deep blacks. I watched a couple of videos on YouTube and I really enjoyed the display. What adds more to the joy is the curved edges which makes the overall experience really immersive, especially while playing games.

Not to forget, you get slim bezels on all sides and the screen-to-body ratio is pretty good. I just wish the punch hole cutout was even smaller. Well, the expectations never end. Nonetheless, it does not distract much and won’t interfere in your day to day usage.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro does not compromise when it comes to performance. It is powered by the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset to offer best in class performance. The SoC is paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 internal storage. All of this ensures you get seamless performance.

I used the phone for my day to day tasks and there were no issues at all. The apps opened up quickly and switching between apps was also smooth. Multitasking was not a problem. The phone was able to handle everything I threw at it.

Running all social media apps side by side, recording 8K videos, playing graphic intensive games, no problem whatsoever. Well, now that I have mentioned games, I tried a couple of demanding games. These include games like Genshin Impact, Apex Legends Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile.

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All the games ran on their highest graphical settings and even then I did not notice any major frame drops. The gameplay was smooth with no lags or shutters. Trust me, if you are a gamer, you are gonna love playing on this phone.

But does it sustain its performance in long gaming sessions or it starts to throttle? Well, as far as I tested it, the CPU temperature was well under the bar and I did not see any unnatural rise in temperature. You can thank the big VC liquid-cooling system inside the phone for this.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro runs on the latest MIUI 14 skin which is based on Android 13. I really appreciate Xiaomi for releasing the phone with the latest Android version out of the box. This means that there will be an extra major software update for us.

Anyways, the new MIUI version also brings a bunch of new features. You can slam an animal or plant on your home screen which greets you every time you open your phone. Privacy has also been enhanced in this MIUI version.

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Apart from that, we all know the slew of customisation and personalisation options that Xiaomi offers, and we get the same here as well. The overall UI is simple and snappy. Yes there are some third-party apps preinstalled as usual but you can uninstall most of them. Xiaomi claims that there are only 8 apps that cannot be uninstalled.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro features a stereo speaker setup, one located at the bottom while the earpiece acts as the second one. The speaker quality is good and clear. The volume gets pretty loud as well.

It comes with 5G connectivity but the 5G bands will reveal only when it launches in India. Other connectivity features include Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, NFC and even the traditional IR blaster.

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Talking about biometrics, it comes with an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which was pretty fast and reliable. It quickly unlocks the phone with good accuracy. You can also use the 2D face unlock feature but it’s not much reliable in low light.