Xiaomi 13T Pro review: an exclusive taste of flagship values

Despite lacking some premium features, such as wireless charging, the Xiaomi 13T Pro offers an otherwise near-perfect flagship experience at an amazingly low price compared to its competitors. The Xiaomi 13T Pro’s class-leading display, versatile and outstanding photography capabilities, incredible performance, and beautiful, albeit unconventional, design choices all contribute to its status as one of the best smartphones in its category.

In Xiaomi’s example, the T represents a more budget-friendly choice rather than a ‘turbo’ version of the gadget. We’re not talking genuine budget levels here; the Xiaomi 13T Pro starts at £649, but it’s a lot less than the £1,099 Xiaomi 13 Pro. The question is if the trade-offs are worth the price reduction, or if you should go with a decent mid-ranger from Google or nothing. After more than a week and a half with my SIM in the Xiaomi 13T Pro, here’s what I think.

Price when reviewed: €519.13 | Check price at Amazon

Xiaomi 13T Pro KEY FEATURES

Despite significantly undercutting the competition, the Xiaomi 13T Pro is held down by a lack of availability in larger areas. Slim sensation, premium appearance, and not too heavy. However, its massive camera bump may be a limiting factor for some. The Xiaomi 13T Pro has a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 144Hz, making it excellent for mobile gaming. The Xiaomi 13T Pro’s display is crisp, bright, and snappy, making it nearly unparalleled among mid-range handsets. Small but significant enhancements to the program have resulted in a far more enjoyable day-to-day operation. While the camera performs admirably in most situations, its limits at night, while recording video, and when snapping selfies are a drawback.

Superb gaming performance, along with enhanced efficiency, ensures practically flawless performance. Long-lasting and rapid charging, but lacking wireless charging capabilities. With 120W charging – and a 120W charger included – the Xiaomi 13T Pro can charge from flat to full in just over 30 minutes.

XIAOMI 13T PRO UNBOXING

The Xiaomi 13T Pro comes in a hefty paper package, as opposed to Apple, Samsung, and Sony’s eco-friendly, puny boxes. It contains the phone and a thin protective coating that has already been put on the screen.

The paper compartment has a clear soft cover and some papers. Finally, the 120W GaN brick and USB-A-to-C connection are located at the bottom of the package.

CAMERA

• 50 MP primary sensor
• Excellent performance in a variety of settings.
• Partnership with Leica.

The Xiaomi 12T Pro had a massive 200MP sensor, so the 13T Pro’s 50MP primary sensor seems like a bit of a letdown – on paper, at least. In actuality, there’s much more to photography prowess than megapixel count, as the main sensor produces excellent pictures in a variety of situations.

In well-lit environments, photos are vivid, detailed, and balanced, with excellent HDR performance that does not appear over-processed. Furthermore, because of the company’s connection with Leica, it has the identical Leica Vibrant and Leica Authentic modes, letting you pick between vibrant photographs and those with more true-to-life colors.

That tendency continues when light levels decrease, drawing in astonishing amounts of light to illuminate even near-black landscapes like my back lawn at 11 p.m., where the sole source of light is a little LED statue. The sole drawback is that without laser autofocus, it can be difficult to find focus.

You would expect that pressing the 2x button in the Camera app will give you access to the 50mm telephoto lens, but this isn’t always the case. I’ve noticed that, depending on the lighting circumstances, the phone sometimes defaults to a cropped view of the main sensor rather than the dedicated 2x lens, though there’s no evident pattern or rationale for this.

It’s also worth mentioning that, while the Portrait camera uses the dedicated telephoto lens by default, switching to the Master Lens System – a new portrait feature that offers 35mm, 50mm, or 90mm angles for portrait shooting – will return to the main sensor. The telephoto lens will occasionally be employed, although it is inconsistent and unusual.

That’s not to say that the Master Lens System has nothing to offer – I like the distinct tones in the default, Documentary, and Swirly Bokeh settings – but I think the Soft Focus mode is a touch superfluous, producing purposefully blurred shots that look a little naff overall.

The ultrawide produces excellent pictures in well-lit situations, but with a relatively low-resolution 12MP sensor, it cannot benefit from the pixel-binning technology of the other sensors. As a result, photos may appear slightly soft. The color palette, on the other hand, remains consistent, with nearly comparable tones throughout the main and ultrawide sensors.

Flip the phone over and you’ll find a 20MP front-facing camera that’s more than enough for video calls with friends, and with HDR and Night mode compatibility, you can get creative with your selfies as well.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

• Comfortable, if a little lengthy in the hand.
• Large rear camera bump.
• 6.67-inch AMOLED display.
• Up to 144Hz refresh rate.

Some of the Xiaomi 13T Pro’s design choices are ideal for standing out from the mid-range crowd. The Xiaomi 13T Pro has a 20:9 aspect ratio, semi-rounded corners, and a curved rear panel, making it feel comfortable in the hand, if slightly lengthy. With a 6.67-inch display at this ratio, operating the phone one-handed may be difficult at times if you need to reach the topmost portions of the display, and it may not be as pocketable as some other handsets. Most notably, the curved rear panel does an excellent job of making the phone appear and feel slimmer than it is, bringing it visually closer to its more costly rivals.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro only comes in three colors, but both the black and green glass-paneled versions are appealing to the eye and, in the case of the green, a welcome departure from typical colors. Alpine blue, however, stands out from the three possible colors. The Alpine Blue model, available exclusively in Xiaomi’s BioComfort vegan leather, is a unique and fantastic approach how to create a premium smartphone. The vegan leather not only looks great on the gadget, but it also gives more comfort than its glass rivals and considerably decreases the chance of those annoying finger marks, stains, and scratches that are practically unavoidable with glass-backed phones.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro’s rear camera bulge, like that of other well-equipped phones on the market today, is one of its most notable design features. The device features a triple camera arrangement from Leica, and with huge camera capability comes an even bigger camera bump. Although it’s well-designed and certainly not an eyesore, the camera bump does pose some issues for the phone if you choose to use it without a case, as its position on the left-hand side of the phone’s rear, as well as its protrusion from the rest of the device, causes the phone to become rather wobbly on flat surfaces, which is fixed if you use the free clear case that comes with the device.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro’s display is one of its most striking features. The phone’s 6.67-inch AMOLED panel can refresh at up to 144Hz (with refresh rate intervals of 30, 60, 90, 120, and 144Hz) and supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ standards, resulting in one of the most pleasurable and visually pleasing displays on a smartphone at this price point. The display can achieve a maximum brightness of 2,600nits and has rich color reproduction, so it doesn’t struggle to create stunning graphics.

Because of the high nit count, I never had trouble using the gadget in a variety of lighting circumstances; the screen even has a sunlight option to assist in particularly bright environments. However, in daily use, the phone’s visibility and viewing angles proved amazing.

The 13T Pro’s adaptive refresh rate is enabled by default, but you can adjust it in the settings to lock the screen at 60Hz if you wish, though I doubt many people will do so. When it comes to variable refresh rate capabilities, the display performs admirably in some of the most demanding mobile games available today.

In testing, we experienced high refresh rates as well as sharp, vivid, and vibrant images, making it difficult not to appreciate how pleasurable gaming on the Pro is, even without some of the device’s additional gaming-oriented capabilities enabled. When using the Xiaomi 13T Pro for social media, browsing, and general use, the phone operates at a frequency between 1Hz and 120Hz to optimize battery consumption while still giving an astonishingly smooth experience.

The phone includes three preloaded color profiles that control how visuals appear on the screen: Vivid, Saturated, and Original. If you like to tinker with more precision, whether for color accuracy or personal choice, you can access several more complex options in the phone’s deeper display control menu.

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

• MediaTek Dimensity 9200 Plus Chipset
• Up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage.
• Up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM.

For many, an Android handset without an ever-reliable Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU may be cause for concern, but the Dimensity 9200 Plus SoC powering the Xiaomi 13T Pro performs an outstanding job of allowing this phone to compete with even some premium models. The 13T Pro’s Plus-branded chip was designed to boost efficiency and performance over the normal 9200, with a focus on improved gaming performance and battery efficiency in everyday use, both of which the Xiaomi 13T Pro appears to excel at with ease.

While gaming, the phone was not only able to maintain a consistent and high frame rate across games such as Call of Duty Mobile, Genshin Impact, and Grid Autosport, but it was also able to retain an impressive amount of battery life for longer gaming sessions, thanks to both the hardware – such as the improved Immortalis-G715 GPU – and the integrated performance optimizing software.

During testing, I noticed some warmth across the device throughout my gaming session, but nothing too uncomfortable or unusual for the fidelity of the games being played, and thermal throttling had no obvious influence on competitive performance.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro is also one of the first Xiaomi gadgets to venture into the realm of artificial intelligence. The HyperOS version also has an AI eraser tool and a backdrop editor, which adds to the already amazing camera capabilities stated before. Furthermore, this is only the beginning, as Xiaomi plans to add even more AI features to the Xiaomi 14 series. However, the extent to which these will reach the 13T Pro is currently unknown.

Buy it if...

• Top-notch design, IP68 rating, and especially lovely Alpine Blue.
• Superb OLED with 12-bit color depth, color accuracy, 144Hz, and Dolby Vision.
• Excellent battery life and charging speed.
• Effective Dolby Atmos speakers.
• Flagship-level performance and stability.
• All rear cameras provide excellent photo and video quality, both day and night.
• IR blaster, four anticipated major Android updates, and five years’ worth of security fixes.

Don't buy it if…

• The selfie camera is disappointing.
• A 3x optical zoom camera would have performed better than a 2x.

FULL SPECIFICATION