[REVIEW] Xiaomi 13T Pro: Equipment worthy of a flagship with a (current) price under €550!

One of the last smartphones from Xiaomi this year from the flagship series is the model Xiaomi 13t pro, which traditionally offers very interesting parameters at a very reasonable price.

In the review, you will learn all the necessary information about this new product, which we will support with our personal experience gained during its testing.

Where to buy Xiaomi 13T Pro?

He provided us with the Xiaomi 13T Pro smartphone for testing our partner Gshopper, where we have prepared a special discount coupon for you. The seller delivers duty-free directly to the door of your house. The smartphone arrived relatively quickly, namely in 12 calendar days.

Current coupons for Xiaomi 13T Pro

At the time of publication of the review (December 5.12.2023, XNUMX), the smartphone sold for a price below €550 in the 12 GB RAM + 512 GB memory version. Of course, this is the price after applying the coupon.

Technical specifications

Content and quality of packaging

The Xiaomi 13T Pro was available to us from our partner Gshopper. It was brought to us by the SPS courier in a classic nylon envelope. Inside was a smartphone box wrapped with air reinforcement, where we also found a small gift from the Gshopper e-shop, a pack of sanitary napkins.

The packaging of the smartphone itself is nothing special, so we will not pay much attention to it. Here we find a smartphone, a transparent cover, a needle for opening SIM slot, charging adapter and cable.

We are satisfied with the quality and content of the package, as there was no damage during transportation and we can find everything we need in the package.

Design and layout of elements

The new Xiaomi 13T Pro smartphone is available in three colors – black, green and blue. We had it available in probably the least interesting color, classic glossy black, which is like a mirror and especially on the back cover you can really see every fingerprint.

The blue color, unlike the other two, has a different finish on the back cover. It has a leather texture and looks very interesting. Compared to last year's Xiaomi 12T Pro, the rear camera module, which is dominated by a pair of lenses, has grown significantly.

As for the layout of the individual elements, nothing surprises us here, so we can rely on the old proven classic. In the lower part there is a charging USB-C port, a speaker, a slot for SIM cards and microphone.

On the opposite, upper edge, we find the second microphone, speaker and sensors. The last control elements are the volume control buttons together with the screen lock button, which have their traditional place on the right side.

And what is the quality of the materials? Although the frame of the smartphone is plastic, it does not bother us in any way and the overall impression is excellent. IP68 certification will please.

Excellent AMOLED display with high brightness

The Xiaomi 13T Pro comes with an AMOLED display with a regular diagonal of 6.67", which, however, impresses with its extremely high maximum brightness, up to 2600 nits and 16 levels of customization. This is one of the brightest displays on the market, so you don't have to worry about low visibility in direct sunlight.

The display has a resolution of 2712 x 1220 px and carries the attribute CrystalRes. Covering the DCI-P3 color profile, it has a high refresh rate of 144 Hz with AdaptiveSync, thanks to which this frequency is adjusted according to needs, thus saving the battery.

In the middle of the upper part we find a standard cutout for the selfie camera. Overall, it is a top display with beautiful color rendering, which is definitely among the top on the market and is worthy of a flagship model.

The fingerprint reader is integrated into the display, and again it is somewhat lower than we would expect. However, her reactions are good - although she does not amaze, she does not disappoint either.

This time without Snapdragon

While in the last two generations of the T series, the lower model always had a processor from MediaTek and the higher model T Pro boasted the Qualcomm brand, this time it has changed.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ processor, which is the brand's flagship model with 5G and WiFi 7 support. The processor has one fast Cortex-X3 core with a maximum frequency of 3.35 GHz, three A715 cores with a frequency of up to 3 GHz and four economical Cortex-A510 cores with a frequency of 2 GHz. It is produced with 4 nm technology.

Compared to the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the Dimensity 9200+ is an equal rival and even slightly outperforms it in some benchmarks. Dimensity 9200+ also wins in AnTuTu, although the difference is not great.

You definitely don't have to worry about a lack of performance. The smartphone is perfectly smooth and also suitable for playing games. We had available a memory version with 12 GB RAM type LPDDR5X with 512 GB storage type UFS 4.0.

You can also buy other memory versions, namely 12 GB + 256 GB or 16 GB + 1 TB. Thanks to the fast internal storage, the function of increasing the RAM by cutting from the internal storage is also available. In our case, this is an additional 3 GB.

We also installed the latest version of the AnTuTu benchmark on the smartphone, in which we achieved a score of 1 points.

Three cameras

This time too, the cooperation with the well-known company in the world of photography, Leica, continues. The Xiaomi 13T Pro has three main cameras, the specifications of which you can see in the table below:

As with other smartphones where Xiaomi collaborates with Leica, here too we have a choice of two color modes: Leica Authentic and Leica Vibrant, between which we can quickly switch using a single button in the camera application.

Authentic mode offers more natural and less saturated colors, while in Vibrant mode, colors are brighter, richer, more saturated, but sometimes they look unnatural, as if they were embellished. On the other hand, in Authentic mode, the shadow areas are often too dark and the colors very dull.

Let's compare both modes in the shot, where the differences can be seen the most. As we mentioned above, the photo from the Authentic mode is overall darker and the colors are less pronounced. In the second photo in Vibrant mode, the colors are visibly brighter, but the grass, for example, is somehow too green, as if it has been tinted.

Main vs wide angle camera

Overall, the quality of the cameras is very good, and not just when using the main camera. Despite the fact that the wide-angle camera is only 12 Mpx, compared to the main one, which has up to 50 Mpx, the difference in the quality of the output is not so significant.

Of course, we can observe a slightly weaker sharpness with the wide-angle camera, especially in dim light or a more demanding scene, but the result is better than with older generations of smartphones from the T series. The difference is more visible in the color presentation of the photo, where the wide-angle camera has warmer colors.

The main camera is the best and takes really good pictures. However, you need to play with the aforementioned Authentic and Vibrant modes to achieve the best possible result under the current conditions. For example, in the dark, the Authentic mode is already too dark for us.

Perhaps the biggest negative of cameras is taking pictures of moving objects, especially in low light or indoors. Moving objects are all too often blurred even in fairly good lighting conditions.

Double zoom

Thanks to the telescopic lens with a resolution of 50 Mpx, we have the possibility of using a double optical zoom. Although for today's time, a double zoom is not unusual and we would also welcome a larger zoom, but at least the quality is pleasing.

Double-zoomed photos offer a lot of detail, high sharpness, good dynamic range, and thanks to the high resolution, you can easily zoom in on the photo a little more in the post-process.

Night mode

In night mode, the difference between Authentic and Vibrant modes is minimal and in many cases almost invisible. However, sometimes the Vibrant mode brings too warm colors, but on the other hand, it better dampens the strong light from illuminated banners.

With the wide-angle camera, the photos are slightly darker, but the difference is not huge. In all cases, however, weaker sharpness and fine noise can be seen, especially with poorly lit objects.

Video

As is usual with flagship models, there is also support for a maximum resolution of up to 8K, which we still think is unnecessary, especially for the low number of frames per second, 24. The 4K resolution makes more sense, where we can now choose between 24, 30 and 60 fps.

Although the main camera also has optical stabilization, it is not perfect for video. While walking, you can see slight tremors and weaker tearing of the image, which is not perfectly smooth. After turning on better stabilization, the video automatically switches to 1080p / 30 fps resolution.

When shooting video, we no longer have the option to choose between Authentic and Vibrant modes, but the result is closer to the latter. The colors are colorful, saturated and often too unnatural.

Battery and endurance

The new Xiaomi 13T Pro received a 5000 mAh battery and very fast, up to 120 W charging, which, however, is nothing new. As usual with the T-branded model series, we lack wireless charging support here.

Several posts have appeared on the Internet where owners of the 13T and 13T Pro smartphones complain about poor battery life. We used the smartphone really to the full, especially during the first days of testing, and we have to admit that we sometimes charged it more often than once every 24 hours.

Later, during normal daily use, however, we achieved an average one-day endurance without any problems, which is the standard these days. We do not feel that this smartphone would last significantly shorter compared to others.

In addition, the fast 120 W charging recharges the battery within 20 minutes, which is really express fast charging. You can see the entire charging process from 20 to 100% in the table below:

MIUI 14 and Android 13

At a time when we are slowly waiting for a newer version of the operating system from Xiaomi, the Xiaomi 13T Pro is probably one of the last models with the already well-known MIUI 14, which runs on Android version 13.

Almost a year after its introduction, the system probably does not need to be introduced in any special way. Let's mention just a few of its conveniences, such as dual applications, different folder sizes, or the ability to remove most of the pre-installed applications.

The graphic superstructure from Xiaomi is modern, offers plenty of customization options, and in the new Xiaomi 13T Pro smartphone it runs completely smoothly and smoothly.

The smartphone should receive four more Android system updates and 5 years of security patches. With next year's Android 14, we also expect a new version of the graphics superstructure called HyperOs.

Connectivity and speakers

The Xiaomi 13T Pro will please you with support for the latest WiFi 7 standard or Bluetooth version 5.4. It goes without saying that fifth generation (5G) networks are also supported. Since the Xiaomi 12T Pro was the first smartphone from the Chinese giant to support eSIM, otherwise it is not even in this case and support eSIM can also be found in the Xiaomi 13T Pro.

And what is the quality of the speakers? Very good. The sound is well balanced and you will also be pleased with the good sound quality in recorded videos using this smartphone.

Xiaomi 13T Pro: Final evaluation

Xiaomi 13T Pro is a successful model from the flagship series. It will delight you with a top AMOLED display with extremely high brightness, which can reach up to 2600 nits in a short time, high-quality cameras, modern design and high performance.

Compared to last year, this time the manufacturer reached for a processor from the MediaTek brand in the model with the Pro attribute, namely the Dimensity 9200+. However, it plays its role excellently and, together with fast storage and RAM memory, provide enough performance even for demanding games.

You will also be pleased with the extremely fast 120 W charging, good speakers and WiFi 7. Perhaps the only thing that will freeze is the absence of wireless charging, which is traditionally missing in this model line.