It’s been three years since Xiaomi dipped its toes into the flagship territory and in 2023, it’s going big. Xiaomi is taking on the best of the best from Samsung, OnePlus, Vivo and Apple with the global launch (including India) of the Xiaomi 13 Pro. With the help of Leica, a 1-inch camera sensor (a first in India) that it helped Sony develop, and top-of-the-line specifications, Xiaomi is taking on the Goliaths of the smartphone world.
Xiaomi had to go the extra mile in one category to stand out in a category where every smartphone is nearly flawless. For this, Xiaomi chose the camera. Xiaomi is finally bringing the 1-inch sensor to global markets, and with some Leica tuning, is hoping to turn some heads.
I’ve been using the Xiaomi 13 Pro for over two weeks now. It’s the best smartphone the company has ever produced and I’m glad they’ve brought it to the Indian market. The Xiaomi 13 Pro goes head-to-head with the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the iPhone 14 Pro, Google Pixel 7, OnePlus 11, and the Vivo X90 Pro (which is yet to launch in India) and emerges holding its own.
Let’s Take A Look In Detail
Xiaomi is offering you top-notch materials from end to end. There’s the gorgeous ceramic back panel (very slippery though), an aluminium frame, a 6.73-inch QHD+ (3200x1440) AMOLED display (120Hz refresh rate and 1,900 nits of peak brightness), the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, a 4820mAh battery, 120W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, 10W reverse wireless charging and much more.
The company isn’t holding back with the Xiaomi 13 Pro. The Xiaomi 13 Pro comes with MIUI 14 (based on Android 13). In India, Xiaomi is only selling one storage configuration of the 13 Pro. It comes with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. It’s priced at Rs. 79,999.
A Gigantic Camera Bump And A Slippery Slope
Don’t let the sub-heading fool you here. The Xiaomi 13 Pro has a gorgeous, sleek look to it, with its rear panel made from bio-ceramic material. It’s not free from smudges (the white variant does a better job at hiding them than the black one), and it is a slippery phone.
The camera bump does stick out like a sore thumb though. The good thing is that the despite the camera bump, the phone doesn’t wobble much on a flat surface. While Xiaomi offers Gorilla Glass Victus on the front, one wishes they had provided it for the rear panel as well.
Thanks to the curved display edges and rounded glass, the phone feels good to hold in one's hand. At 229g (just 5g short of the Galaxy S23 Ultra) and 8.4mm thick, the Xiaomi 13 Pro is a bulky phone, and there’s no hiding that. Still, with that in mind, I found the Xiaomi 13 Pro to have good weight distribution. Even during long durations of usage, my hands weren’t tired of holding the smartphone.
If you’re going to be buying the Xiaomi 13 Pro, then be sure to get a case alongside it. I’ve had the phone slip out of my hands and even fall out of my pocket on many occasions. While the phone survived a few drops here and there, a case is recommended for a grippier experience, and to avoid having to take the phone to a service centre at any point.
Thankfully, for the 13 Pro, Xiaomi included an IP68 (though it doesn’t have an official rating in India) - water and dust resistance - rating, making the phone durable.
A Gorgeous AMOLED Display
There’s absolutely nothing to fault with the display on the Xiaomi 13 Pro. The 6.73-inch AMOLED display (with a mighty 3200x1440 resolution and 522ppi) is absolutely fantastic. It’s a Samsung-sourced E6 AMOLED panel (latest generation) and comes with excellent viewing angles and great colour accuracy. That 120Hz dynamic refresh rate is great for doomscrolling.
While Xiaomi has done a great job of calibrating the screen, there is one downside to the overall experience. For the 13 Pro, Xiaomi decided to ditch the quad-speaker setup. While Xiaomi does still achieve a stereo setup - a single downward-firing grille paired with the secondary speaker inside the earpiece - it does provide the best audio output.
With a superb display, one would have hoped Xiaomi would have worked on the audio output, as that’s part of the parcel while consuming media or playing video games.
Processor And Software: Clean, Smooth, And Very Fast
Qualcomm has done an absolutely fantastic job with its latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and it shows in the Xiaomi 13 Pro. The smartphone never throttled, never got too hot, and never drained the battery unnecessarily.
With 12GB of RAM, the Xiaomi 13 Pro breezes through tasks like none other. While multitasking, using apps side-by-side, gaming, watching videos on YouTube, browsing the web, and more, I noticed absolutely no lags or stuttering. I played Call of Duty: Mobile, Asphalt 9 and other games while testing and the performance while gaming was nearly flawless. If gaming for over forty-five minutes at a stretch, then yes, the phone got a little bit too warm.
The in-screen optical fingerprint sensor is one of the best I’ve found on any Android smartphone. There’s also face unlock, which isn’t as secure, and I wouldn’t recommend it. The haptic motors on the Xiaomi 13 Pro have been vastly improved as well and offer granular feedback for a more engaging performance.
If you’re switching from an MIUI 13 device then you’ll feel right at home. MIUI 14 doesn’t provide an overhaul of the interface. In fact, most of the optimisations are under the hood. There’s less bloatware than before (though it’s still not entirely eliminated) and the software is far more fluid.
Xiaomi has only promised three major OS updates, one less than Samsung, OnePlus, OPPO, and that’s disappointing. Also, software updates are slower as compared to Samsung
A Leica-Able Camera
Xiaomi has continued its partnership with Leica and with the 1-inch sensor on the 13 Pro, the photography capabilities have gone many levels higher.
Let me just sum up the three 50MP rear cameras for you. Thanks to the 1-in sensor, the 13 Pro automatically becomes the best portrait camera out there. It’s so good that you needn’t have to use the dedicated mode. The natural bokeh from the camera is dreamy and edge detection is on point. Of course, it isn’t flawless, as there are times when the smartphone identifies people/objects in the background and doesn’t blur them. Still, it’s one of the best out there.
The daylight photos that come out of the Xiaomi 13 Pro are excellent. There’s no shutter lag and the whole camera setup is just consistently reliable. Even the mundane is brought to life thanks to the camera hardware and software’s post-processing. The colours are true to life and the dynamic range is quite good. There’s a good level of detail that is retained. The phone’s focussing and processing speeds impressed me.
Where the Leica cameras truly shine is with black-and-white photography. They add heft to the characters and it appears very natural.
The wide-angle is good in daylight situations and produces shots that are similar in colour balance to the primary lens. The telephoto lens, at up to 3.2x zoom, takes magnificent photos. It also doubles up as a macro shooter.
What is missing is a good amount of optical zoom. It doesn’t match up to the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 10x optical zoom, and neither does it match up to the Pixel 7 Pro’s 5x optical zoom. The Xiaomi 13 Pro can zoom in to 70x, but those photos are practically useless.
I was pretty impressed by the low-light shots, as it’s able to hold its own against the competition. There’s a good amount of detail preserved and highlights are managed well. I noticed some noise, but nothing that would ruin the photos.
Overall, Xiaomi has a winner with the trio of 50MP cameras on the 13 Pro. It’s the best of any Xiaomi phone, period. It does give stiff competition to Samsung and Google. While the Galaxy S23 Ultra from Samsung has a more versatile camera setup, Xiaomi’s 13 Pro can give it a tough fight in a side-by-side comparison.
The Best Xiaomi Phone Ever?
Yes. The Xiaomi Pro takes a lot of what made the 12 Pro and 12S Ultra good and turned it into something better.
The Xiaomi 13 Pro rocks a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, a triple-camera setup tuned by Leica, and a vibrant Samsung panel for its display. While the design might not be to everyone’s liking, with the huge camera bump, the smartphone is impressive in all aspects.
The Galaxy S23 from Samsung sits above the Xiaomi 13 Pro in price while the OnePlus 11 is somewhat cheaper. With the Xiaomi 13 Pro in the middle, it’s worth considering it with those two in mind.
While the Galaxy S23 Ultra is probably the best smartphone money can buy on the Android side, the Xiaomi 13 Pro has a set of cameras that are sure to impress just about anyone. The OnePlus 11 may be the fastest device out there, but it doesn’t have wireless charging, and it’s Hasselblad-tuned cameras are disappointing compared to Xiaomi’s Leica-tuned cameras.
There’s no doubt that the Xiaomi 13 Pro is an expensive phone. It’s going to be a hard sell to consumers, in India, that view Xiaomi as a budget-friendly manufacturer. Still, saying this, the 13 Pro is Xiaomi’s best smartphone to date and one hopes the company continues to bring its flagships to India. Xiaomi may be bringing a small number of units of the 13 Pro to India but those are quickly selling out.
To sum it up: If cameras are what you’re after on a smartphone, then the Xiaomi 13 Pro needs to be on top of your shopping list. Especially for those dreamy black-and-white portrait shots.
