Specs

Display

• 6.36 inch Screen
• 89.4% Screen-to-body ratio
• 120Hz OLED
• 1200 Nits, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, 1900 Nits peak

Internals

• MIUI 14 (Android 13)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
• 128gb - 512gb Internal memory
• UFS 4.0 Storage (UFS 3.1 for 128gb)
• 4500 mAh non-removable battery
• IR Blaster
• Bluetooth 5.3
• NFC

Features:

• IP 68 Water and Dust Protection
• Under display fingerprint sensor
• IR Blaster
• 67W USB C charging
• 50W Wireless charging
• 10W reverse charging
• Dolby Atmos

Cameras

• 50 MP Sony IMX800 main camera
• 10 MP Telephoto camera, 3.2x optical zoom
• 12 MP Ultra-wide
• 32 MP Front camera

Initial Impressions

The unboxing experience and initial setup is standard and fairly quick. The phone comes with a clear case, sim tool, and 67W usb c charger. The Xiaomi 13 is very nice to the touch but it is a little slippery with the glass back. When I initially tried to turn on the phone, it did not seem to quickly respond which made me almost believe that it was packaged with an empty battery but after holding the power button for an abnormally long time, it booted with around 50% charge. I was pleased to see a stock android setup screen with only a few Xiaomi privacy and permissions pages. While it was great to have a quick setup, I did wish that it had a couple more pages to set up some theming like gestures without having to dig through the settings app. 

It was surprising to see that MIUI has not changed much from the last time I used it. MIUI 14 is not a visual update from MIUI 13 but Xiaomi has made a lot of internal improvements such as various performance gains. This does mean that it still has a lot of the grievances I had with the android skin when I had the Mi Mix 3. The global version of MIUI 14 was said to have less bloatware than the Chinese Rom but it still came with a plethora of pre-installed apps. While some were nice to come pre-installed like Gmail, Google Meet, and Spotify, apps like LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok did come pre-installed in folders on the home screen.

Cameras

The first feature I wanted to test out was the camera system. As someone who does professional photography as a side-gig, I particularly love to see what photo quality phone manufacturers can cram into a small sensor. Xiaomi has partnered with Leica to improve its lenses and even has a couple of color profiles with their name on it. As far as the detail and clarity of the photos taken with the main camera, I was quite pleased. My first impressions of the camera were not too great as it was a gloomy and cloudy day but once the sun came out, the Sony sensor really shines. The 50-megapixel sensor makes objects pop and in the 50MP mode, you can zoom pretty far in and still have a usable cropped photo. I was very happy with the photos being outputted. The colors can sometimes be too desaturated or the camera wants to overexpose but its nothing that can't be fixed in post. The front camera was really impressive as well. It captures sharp selfies, even in less lighting.

The other two cameras do start to lose a lot of detail once the lighting isn't in ideal scenarios. Low light photography works well, but I didn't find it any better than other flagships' performance. Sometimes the Xiaomi 13 would outperform my iPhone 12 Pro Max but often the latter would be a tiny bit more detailed in low light. While I didn't expect the ultra-wide and telephoto cameras to be amazing, in any lighting scenario other than a bright sunny day, those cameras definitely struggled. Even the main sensor would start to look more artificial with less light.

Even though I came from daily driving an iPhone, the video performance was pretty great. Stabilization worked well but has an artificial feel. The high megapixel sensor allowed for sharp video with even the option to record at 8k. However expectations need to be made for 8k recording as while it is sharp, it only records in 24 frames per second. That may seem fine but 24p really only looks good when the shutter speed is set correctly for motion blur. In daylight, 8k at 24p looks choppy as the phone cranks the shutter speed to bring the exposure down. 

There are the standard camera app features like slow motion, night mode, and panorama but Xiaomi's app also has other extra modes. All of them are pretty niche and would likely only be used once to test out so if anything, they just clutter the menu. Thankfully, the app is customizable and the modes that are shown can be changed. The Pro mode allows for control of the iso, focus, white balance, and shutter speed. I did find that outputting a RAW photo did not allow for the 50MP resolution mode which was disappointing. 

Second Generation Chipset

The more exciting part of this phone for non-photographers is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that powers it. This chip would be the fastest Android phone processor but the Samsung S23 actually has a slightly higher-clocked version. Still, the 8 Gen 2 is a beast at whatever you throw at it. Compared to the last generation, Qualcomm has improved on the thermals so it can achieve higher clock speeds for longer. For mobile phones, I'm not much of a fan of benchmarks so I won't go much deeper than the screenshots below. What I really tested was real-world scenarios like gaming, emulation, photo-editing, and just casual scrolling.

With such a powerful chip, you can expect that many apps will consistently use the 120hz screen. In the default mode, the refresh rate will dynamically change depending on the content you are viewing. While I would keep it on for better battery life, I could really feel when it would drop the refresh rate, even in non-demanding apps. Other than that, using the Xiaomi 13 is smooth and snappy.

Editing photos on the Xiaomi 13 makes me want to throw my iPhone 12 Pro Max into a river with how satisfying and fast is. Lightroom and Snapseed are the main photo editing apps I use on mobile and they work great with the Xiaomi 13. Initially, Lightroom would be slow to import photos but after a couple of weeks of use, it is snappier than my iPhone. With the calibrated color profile enabled in the settings, the colors even match closely with my iPhone which is great as most of my target audience here in the States use them. Snapseed, which is literally broken on my iPhone, works splendidly and the 120hz screen makes it so satisfying to zoom in and out of photos when making detailed edits. I literally feel myself editing faster as a result.

Gaming is also not an issue with this Snapdragon chip. You can expect to max out the graphics in any game that you throw at it. Competitive games like Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG play smoothly with minimal stutters. Genshin Impact, which is known to be a highly demanding game for mobile, runs at 60fps on the highest settings but I wish that the resolution wasn't forced to be lower than native so I could push the chipset. Genshin Impact is also one of those games that actually feel like a console experience and the graphic style really pops on the Xiaomi 13 screen.

Emulation on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was already good but the Gen 2 makes the Nintendo Switch almost seem obsolete. This compact phone can emulate Super Mario Odyssey and the recently released Metroid Prime remastered at full speed using the EggNS emulator. While not all Switch games are optimized, it does go to show how much power is in this device. Apple can rant all they want about the speed of their phone processors but it doesn't matter if they can't make use of it without some tinkering. I also tested Uncharted: Golden Abyss and it also ran close to full speed but with glitches and some slowdown on Vita3k. The Dolphin emulator works pretty much perfectly with only stutters happening during shader compilation. This phone and chip make for a great portable emulating machine which is made even better when you combine it with something like a Razer Kishi.

Daily Driving

While great performance is nice, it would mean nothing on a phone if it killed the battery but the Xiaomi 13 does a pretty good job. Gaming at max graphics and emulating Switch games definitely kill the battery faster but during normal use, I have ended the day with 15% left consistently over 2 weeks. The typical load would be scrolling social media feeds, texting, quick photo edits, and watching youtube. Screen-on-time can range from 5-8 hours depending on what I needed to do that day but never did I feel that the battery was small. Considering that I crank the brightness when editing photos, I'd say the phone has been great for my daily usage. With the 67W fast charging, battery life wasn't every something I stressed about and I didn't even worry about charging it at night sometimes. Additionally, the 50W wireless charging makes keeping this phone juiced up a breeze. I did use the ultra battery savings mode once but I feel that the biggest thing that mode does is block other apps from being launched so I couldn't use my phone other than to make calls. Weirdly, you can't add the Google Messages app to that mode even though it is the default messaging app. 

I wish I could say I loved coming back to Android after being on iOS but MIUI still is a little frustrating to use. First off, themes seem to be broken currently on MIUI 14. Installing any of the themes that are on the front page of the themes app will usually only be 90% working. Many of the themes had custom lock screens but 9 out of 10 would install without it. Additionally, some themes will break dark mode but I feel that it is an underlying issue with how MIUI does dark mode itself. For example, the theme I installed made it so that notifications would either be hard to read with gray text on a gray background. Some even just a completely black notification that can't be read. Even unattached from any custom themes, some apps will only change from light to dark mode (or vice versa) halfway. Instagram, for example, would change its background but not its text. I've had the Google New Feed also do the same. Usually, an app refresh would fix it but it is still common and annoying. Another annoyance that may even be intentional is that Spotify, my main music player, has no media controls in the notification shade. So if I wanted to play, pause, or even skip a song, I would need to unlock my phone and open the app to do so. There are other annoyances like not being able to switch what device media outputs to but most of them come down to MIUI making one step forward with some features but taking 5 steps back with others.

I was overall pleased with the Xiaomi 13. It didn't amaze me like how the Mi Mix 3 did back in 2018 but it can be a solid option compared to the Samsung S23 and iPhone 14 depending on the price. It has some great advantages like 67W fast charging over USB C and even 50W charging wirelessly. Though the S23 is able to take more advantage of the chipset with USB 3.0 and the ability to use it as a desktop with Samsung Dex. The biggest factor for any phone is the operating system and MIUI still has some kinks to work out but when it does, I think it could be the best Android skin on the market. For $799, I can recommend the Xiaomi 13 but for the €999 that I have seen it be listed at for the global version, I would consider the other options.