The Xiaomi 13 Professional launched in China again in December, however that was the Chinese language mannequin. The worldwide variant arrived to world markets fairly just lately, and I acquired it early, and spent a while with it at this level. That is principally Xiaomi’s new flagship, because the rumored Xiaomi 13 Extremely didn’t launch. It might launch in some unspecified time in the future later this yr, however that’s only a wild rumor. So far as we all know, in the intervening time, the Xiaomi 13 Professional is Xiaomi’s heavy-hitter for 2022. That being mentioned, let’s get all the way down to its assessment, let’s see what the Xiaomi 13 Professional has to supply.
This smartphone comes with really highly effective specs. It has Qualcomm’s newest flagship, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, on prime of getting a top-of-the-line show. The variant we received to assessment additionally has a ceramic backplate, whereas the cellphone is water and dirt resistant. Leica’s lenses are included on the again, and a strong digital camera setup. Does that translate into an incredible, smartphone, although? Properly, that’s what we’re right here to search out out. Let’s get to it!
Desk of contents
Xiaomi 13 Professional Evaluate: {Hardware} / Design
The Xiaomi 13 Professional is made out of metallic and ceramic. It has an aluminum body, and a ceramic backplate, on this case. A variant with a silicon polymer backplate can also be accessible, although, however not globally, solely in China. The general form is precisely what you’re used to relating to trendy smartphones. Its back and front sides curve in the direction of the aluminum body on the edges, proportionally. There’s a curved show on the machine, with a centered show digital camera gap. The bezels are fairly skinny, by the best way.
It options three cameras on the again, with Leica lenses
On the again, you’ll discover a squarish digital camera island within the top-left nook. Leica branding can also be included in there, as Leica’s lenses are used right here. The Xiaomi 13 Professional contains three cameras on the again. Xiaomi’s branding might be discovered in the direction of the underside of the backplate, whereas all of the bodily buttons sit on the right-hand facet. This handset even has an IR blaster on the prime, which isn’t uncommon for Xiaomi telephones. So you should utilize it to regulate your TV or another home equipment, if you’d like.
The cellphone feels actually good within the hand
The cellphone feels nice within the hand, truly. It doesn’t minimize into your hand, or something of the kind. The Xiaomi 13 Professional is sort of slippery, although, and this black ceramic variant that we received does entice numerous fingerprints. It does really feel undeniably premium, nonetheless. The cellphone does truly really feel a bit smaller within the hand than it truly is, even within the silicone case that’s included within the field. I’ve used similarly-sized units these days, loads of them, so the distinction is noticeable. I didn’t really feel just like the cellphone is as giant as it’s, so I used to be stunned after I take a look at the scale.
In the case of weight, it stands at 229 grams, no less than this ceramic variant does. The polymer again mannequin weighs much less, 210 grams. Total, Xiaomi did a extremely good job design-wise. The cellphone feels precisely because it ought to really feel, with none loopy design concepts/implementations. Utilizing a case could also be a good suggestion on account of its slippery nature, and the very fact it attracts fingerprints like no person’s enterprise.
A see-through silicone case is included within the field
Xiaomi does embody a case within the retail field, with the Xiaomi 13 Professional. Properly, no less than our variant received it, however we imagine that each single mannequin comes with this case. The case itself is nothing fancy, an everyday see-through silicone/gel case. That’s considerably commonplace relating to Chinese language flagship smartphones nowadays, and it’s at all times good to see. This case presents an excellent stage of safety, and it’s nice to have till you get one thing else, for those who even need to do this. Many individuals keep on with instances like these.
Xiaomi 13 Professional Evaluate: Show
The Xiaomi 13 Professional encompasses a 6.73-inch QHD+ (3200 x 1440) LTPO OLED panel. This show is curved, and it helps HDR10+ content material. It additionally comes with Dolby Imaginative and prescient assist, and might get very brilliant if wanted, it goes all the best way as much as 1,900 nits of peak brightness. It may additionally present as much as 1 billion colours, and has a centered show digital camera gap. All in all, Xiaomi used a superb show, and there’s not way more you may ask for.
The show will get immensely brilliant when wanted
This show is a lot brilliant, even in direct daylight. Do observe that the one method you’ll get remotely near its prime brightness is in auto mode, so don’t attempt to get there manually. The show is tuned to fullHD+ mode by default, and even in that mode it’s a lot sharp, so there’s actually no have to go all the best way up. Contemplating you paid a lot for the machine, chances are you’ll need to, and that’s fully comprehensible.
It’s additionally well-optimized
This panel feels actually good to make use of. The content material is clean, because the 120Hz refresh price kicks in, and even the contact response is de facto good. Its contact sampling price shouldn’t be something loopy, by the best way, it’s 240Hz, however that’s not one thing lots of you care about both method. The cellphone is nice for gaming regardless. The viewing angles listed below are nice, and the colours are vivid. You additionally get granular controls within the settings, so you may tweak it any method you need. It’s an impressive panel that may stand side-by-side with the very best on the market. It’s additionally nice for consuming multimedia. And sure, the blacks are very deep, as you’d anticipate out of a correct AMOLED panel.
Xiaomi 13 Professional Evaluate: Efficiency
Xiaomi used top-of-the-line {hardware} right here, and that features probably the most performance-oriented {hardware}, the SoC, RAM, and storage. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC fuels the cellphone, Qualcomm’s strongest processor. Xiaomi additionally makes use of LPDDR5X RAM on this cellphone, together with UFS 4.0 flash storage. The Xiaomi 13 Professional is available in various totally different flavors, nevertheless it contains as much as 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and as much as 512GB of UFS 4.0 flash storage. That’s the variant that we received to check, by the best way.
Gaming is a bit of cake for the Xiaomi 13 Professional
The Xiaomi 13 Professional is among the best-performing units on the market, there’s little question about that. Its highly effective {hardware} internals are backed by actually good software program supplied by Xiaomi. I by no means felt like I used to be ready on the cellphone to catch up, no matter what I used to be doing. Multitasking was a breeze, as was launching apps, consuming multimedia, taking footage, and so forth. Even for those who run graphically-intensive video games, that’s not an issue in any respect. Xiaomi additionally applied VC liquid cooling, on a moderately giant floor, so the cellphone is de facto good at dissipating warmth as effectively. It can get heat, as all flagships do below heavy load, nevertheless it’ll by no means get too heat, nor will that have an effect on the efficiency. Not less than it didn’t for us.
There aren’t any performance-related oddities to report. Properly, I did encounter a couple of software-related ones, however I’ll depart that for the software program part. It’s nothing critical although, some minor issues which are barely price mentioning.
Xiaomi 13 Professional Evaluate: Battery
The Xiaomi 13 Professional features a 4,820mAh battery on the within. Along with that, it helps immensely quick wired and wi-fi charging. 120W wired charging is supported, along with 50W wi-fi charging, and 10W reverse wi-fi charging. Oh, and in case you’re questioning, sure, the charger is included within the field, with the cellphone. You don’t want to purchase it individually, you do get a 120W charger right here.
You possibly can absolutely cost this cellphone in 19 minutes
In case you’re questioning how briskly its charging is, effectively, it’s really blazing quick. You possibly can absolutely cost the cellphone through a wire in about 19-20 minutes, whereas Xiaomi says you are able to do the identical through wi-fi charging in 36 minutes. I couldn’t take a look at wi-fi charging through an official wi-fi charger, so I’m not going to touch upon that.
The battery life is great
That being mentioned, let’s discuss battery life, lets? Let’s simply say you’ll be proud of its battery life, even for those who’re an influence person. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 handles energy consumption like a champ, whereas Xiaomi additionally used a good battery dimension right here, and optimized the cellphone effectively. I used to be recurrently getting over 7 hours of screen-on-time with loads of juice left within the tank. You possibly can actually go the gap with this cellphone, particularly for those who’re not gaming rather a lot on it. The purpose is, the Xiaomi 13 Professional battery life shouldn’t fear you, in any respect.
Xiaomi 13 Professional Evaluate: Digital camera
Xiaomi spared no expense relating to digital camera {hardware} on the Xiaomi 13 Professional. The cellphone comes with three 50-megapixel cameras, together with a 1-inch sensor on the principle digital camera. What it doesn’t have is a periscope digital camera, however we’ll come to that. The Xiaomi is utilizing Sony’s IMX989 sensor, the identical on that it used within the Xiaomi 12S Extremely, and the identical one Vivo applied. That That fifty.3-megapixel most important digital camera has a 1.6um pixel dimension, OIS assist, and an f/1.9 aperture. There may be additionally a 50-megapixel ultrawide digital camera (115-degree FoV), and a 50-megapixel telephoto unit (f/2.0 aperture, 75mm telephoto lens, 3.2x optical zoom). Leica lenses are included on all these cameras, by the best way.
Nice digital camera {hardware}, however no periscope digital camera
As I mentioned, there is no such thing as a periscope telephoto digital camera right here, which is a disgrace. The Vivo X90 Professional doesn’t have it both, solely the Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely, so far as newer flagship telephones are involved. What’s attention-grabbing is that the Vivo X90 Professional+ has it, nevertheless it solely launched in China. Now that we cleared that up, let’s speak in regards to the cameras themselves. The {hardware} itself shouldn’t be actually all that helpful with out nice software program, is it. Properly, Xiaomi did an excellent job right here, however not the extent I anticipated, to be fairly blunt. I reviewed the Vivo X90 Professional simply earlier than the Xiaomi 13 Professional, which is right, as I already had an incredible place to begin for this assessment.
When it hits the shot excellent, the outcomes are excellent
Simply to be clear, the digital camera efficiency of this cellphone is de facto, actually good, however in some conditions, it wants optimizing. When the cellphone nails a shot, you’ll be amazed. It’ll be crisp, with that creamy bokeh impact that makes it appear to be it was taken with a DSLR. The shutter if fairly quick, even in low gentle, and general the pictures are well-balanced. If you get into extra demanding conditions, nonetheless, it’s apparent additional tweaking is required. You’ll see all that within the digital camera samples I’ll embody under. Earlier than we begin, please do observe that the majority pictures I took with the cellphone have been with auto HDR (base setting), and with ‘Leica Genuine’ choice, as ‘Leica Vibrant’ appeared a bit too saturated to be, in some pictures. I most popular the look of ‘Leica Genuine’ extra of then than not.
Xiaomi must optimize HDR efficiency
These particular instances embody some HDR conditions, and a few low gentle conditions. The cellphone struggles, at occasions, to steadiness out photographs in HDR conditions, and sure, HDR was on (auto mode), and I attempted retaking nearly each shot with faucet to focus. In any case, what I mentioned right here particularly goes for indoor pictures when the solar is the brightest. If you happen to take a look at the 2 examples under, you’ll see what I’m speaking about. The Vivo X90 Professional did a significantly better job at balancing out the 2 photographs than the Xiaomi 13 Professional did. That goes for each the brilliant gentle on the Android figurine, and the colours on the show of the OPPO Discover N2 (plus the determine within the again).
Xiaomi 13 Professional vs Vivo X90 Professional (indoor HDR) pattern 1:
Xiaomi 13 Professional vs Vivo X90 Professional (indoor HDR) pattern 2:
That doesn’t occur at all times, although, in no way. The Xiaomi 13 Professional can really do an incredible job normally, even with HDR. That’s why I discussed optimization a number of occasions to date. This cellphone wants a digital camera replace that may work out the kinks in that facet, and it’ll do a significantly better job, even in such demanding conditions.
Low gentle efficiency is nice, however excessive dynamic vary might be a difficulty
One other problematic facet is low gentle, however solely in sure conditions. If you happen to check out the gallery under, you’ll see some examples. In a kind of, the Xiaomi 13 Professional didn’t balanced out the shot of a tree, which sits subsequent to a tree gentle. The sunshine is method too harsh, and it doesn’t look all that nice, the identical goes for the chandelier picture. The identical goes for the picture of a automotive wash, the place loads of gentle sources are included (it wasn’t practically as brilliant). It often does an excellent job with noise, whereas particulars in low gentle are hit or miss, all of it is determined by the scene. More often than not, nonetheless, they’re actually good.
More often than not, the cellphone did a extremely good job camera-wise
Up so far, it looks like issues aren’t that nice, however I simply wished to focus on some ache factors earlier than we get all the way down to the great. I had, typically, an excellent expertise with the digital camera. If you happen to take a look at the gallery under, you’ll see digital camera samples from numerous conditions by which the cellphone did an incredible job. A few of these are difficult HDR pictures, so, as you may see, the cellphone can nail a shot. It may truly do an impressive job. It does nice in the course of the day, because it presents loads of particulars, and balances pictures out properly. It does nice with macro pictures too. The identical goes for low gentle, so long as you’re not dealing with very demanding excessive dynamic vary conditions. If Xiaomi manages to enhance HDR digital camera processing… effectively, the Xiaomi 13 Professional can be a pressure to be reckoned with.
The ultrawide and telephoto cameras do an excellent job, particularly the telephoto unit. That telephoto digital camera truly makes use of a “floating lens” and does an incredible job with portraits. It additionally acts as a macro digital camera. The standard does slip a bit in low gentle, however that’s the case with all cameras on the market. The principle digital camera is the one to make use of in low gentle conditions, and there’s no method round it. The selfie digital camera is de facto good, whether or not you desire a practical shot, or a extremely processed one, it’s as much as you. The video recording can also be fairly good, however to not the extent of the iPhone 14 Professional (Max) or the Galaxy S23 Extremely. When there’s difficult gentle within the scene, some distortion is noticeable.
Xiaomi 13 Professional Evaluate: Software program
Android 13 comes pre-installed on the Xiaomi 13 Professional, and on prime of it you’re getting Xiaomi’s MIUI 14 pores and skin. If you happen to’ve used MIUI 13, you already know precisely what to anticipate right here. There’s actually not that a lot totally different about it when it comes to performance and appears. Xiaomi did subject many optimizations right here, minimize down on some bloat, and extra. In consequence, the corporate promised as much as 60% higher efficiency in comparison with MIUI 13. Is that one thing we’re getting right here? Properly, there’s no method to measure it, however the cellphone is quick, immensely quick.
MIUI 14 is clean and really responsive
Its general nice efficiency positively has a lot to do with the {hardware}, however Xiaomi apparently did an excellent job optimizing the software program. MIUI 14 could be very practical, and filled with tons of options. Starting from the corporate’s themes and wallpapers, numerous gestures you can make the most of, and floating home windows choice, to various pre-installed apps from the corporate that you should utilize. A type of apps is devoted to safety, the opposite to customization, there’s additionally one for Xiaomi’s official boards, and so forth. Some apps you may uninstall, others not a lot. The purpose is, the OS works rather well. I did encounter a few small bugs throughout my testing, nevertheless it’s actually nothing main.
I barely had points with it
At one level, the OS merely froze up, and I needed to wait a few seconds earlier than it determined to take my enter. I’ve additionally seen a few app crashes, and at one level I needed to look ahead to the fingerprint scanner to seem on the display screen (a few seconds). Aside from that, every part ran actually easily, and I actually don’t have any main complaints right here. If inventory Android is your factor, you in all probability don’t actually like MIUI to start with. If you happen to don’t care all that a lot and desire a customizable OS that works actually, rather well… MIUI is an effective selection. It additionally has a extremely good picture and video editor baked in, and it lets you duplicate apps through the ‘Twin apps’ characteristic. It additionally doesn’t actually kill off apps within the background practically as aggressively as earlier than, although that behavior remains to be there.
Xiaomi 13 Professional Evaluate: Do you have to purchase it?
The Xiaomi 13 Professional is, for sure, a real flagship. It’s an incredible smartphone in some ways, although it’s not excellent. The digital camera efficiency nonetheless wants tweaking on the software program facet of issues, whereas MIUI 14 will want one other replace or two to squash a few bugs. Aside from that, this cellphone is excellent. The show is brilliant, vivid, and fairly responsive. The design is nice, the cellphone not solely appears to be like premium, nevertheless it feels nice within the hand. It presents actually good battery life with blazing quick wired and wi-fi charging, and extra. It actually doesn’t miss in numerous methods, and it’ll definitely be interesting to many individuals.
You should purchase the Xiaomi 13 Professional if:
- You admire premium construct supplies
- You need the newest and best specs
- You desire a 1-inch digital camera sensor in a smartphone
- You’re a heavy person, and want good battery life
- You want a few of the quickest wired & wi-fi charging choices available on the market
- You hate OEMs who don’t embody chargers with their telephones
- You admire software program customizability
You shouldn’t purchase the Xiaomi 13 Professional if:
- You require an impressive ultrawide digital camera
- Your digital camera expectations are too excessive
- You admire minimalistic software program