Xiaomi just unveiled its latest round of smart gear, and we were lucky enough to go hands-on with all of it. Today, the company is releasing its new top-tier smartphone with the Xiaomi 13T Pro, the Watch Pro 2, and the Smart Band 8. We’ll be examining all three in this article and letting you know whether they’re worth picking up for yourself.
Specifications
Current Price:
- 13T Pro: Starting at $799 (AliExpress, Amazon)
- Smart Band 8: TBD (Xiaomi)
- Watch Pro 2: TBD (Xiaomi)
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Xiaomi 13T Pro - What Is It?
The Xiaomi 13T Pro is Xiaomi’s latest high-end smartphone, following up on the excellent Xiaomi 13 Ultra. This new model features the latest MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ processor, which includes the ARM Immortalis G715 GPU and is backed by 12-16GB of LPDDR5X memory and up to 1TB of storage. It features a bright 6.67” AMOLED display and an impressive camera system that’s supported by a design that centers around content creation.
Available in three colors — Meadow Green, Black, and Alpine Blue — the phone features the kind of premium design you would expect with a flagship. It comes with a glass front and back with the main screen being protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for scratch and shatter resistance. Like any full-glass phone, it can be a bit slippery in the hand, so we recommend investing in a quality protective case and tempered glass screen protector.
The frame is metal, expectedly, and features a power button and volume rocker on the right. There are no other buttons. The top of the phone features the first of two stereo speakers (the other is on the bottom for true L/R stereo audio in landscape mode). The bottom features a dial SIM card tray, a USB Type-C port that supports 120W ultra-fast HyperCharging, and the second speaker.
The phone is slim and feels great in the hand despite its large size. Like any big-screen smartphone, texting with one hand can be difficult but the touch sensitivity is fine-tuned and accurate for use with both thumbs on the stock keyboard (or downloadable versions if you have another you prefer using). There’s a sizeable camera bump of roughly 1.67 inches square and tall enough to slightly tilt the phone when it’s set down. Nothing like the 13 Ultra, mind you, but is very prominent on the back of the phone.
As always with a device like this, you’ll want to make sure that it’s compatible with your network carrier. Certain providers support Xiaomi phones, especially if you’re using sub-carriers like H2O Wireless, but you’ll want to pay careful attention to the bands it supports and which are utilized by your network. Elsewhere on the connectivity front, it supports 5G, 4G LTE, and the slower bands, WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.
It’s a flagship smartphone in 2023 and, by now, we all know what that means: you’re getting the latest and greatest technology and all of the most cutting-edge advancements the manufacturer has to offer. So much of smartphones these days revolves around their camera and, for the Xiaomi 13T Pro, that’s where it excels, even without the 1-inch sensor of the 13 Ultra.
Camera System
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at what this camera system has to offer, shall we? Xiaomi has once again partnered with Leica on its camera system. The results on prior models have been very good, so we were excited to see how it developed with even more time in development. As you’ll see in the Photography Examples and Analysis section, it performs very well.
The main shooter uses a 24mm Leica lens and offers a 50MP resolution (available with a special 50MP mode). It features a 1/1.28-inch sensor (0.78-inch) with an f/1.9 aperture for shallow depth of field and excellent light gathering. This camera utilizes 4-in-1 pixel binning, which is an effective method of utilizing such a high resolution sensor while keeping file size and image quality in check.
Two other cameras fill out the camera bump. These include a 50mm telephoto (2x) camera with a matching f/1.9 aperture and 50MP resolution. Finally, for ultrawide (0.6x) shots, it includes a 15mm 12MP camera with an aspherical lens. The front-facing camera is 20MP with an f/2.2 aperture and both night mode and portrait mode for computational enhanced shots.
The camera system also leverages Leica’s experience with its dual photographic systems and Master-lens system. With a tap, you can swap between Leica Authentic and Leica Vibrant modes, the former offering richer colors and brighter shots while the former embraces contrast and a more natural look. The Master-lens system uses software enhancements to mimic different type of real-world lenses. What’s more impressive is that these are actually quite good! They’re more than simple photo filters and instead aim to create the impression that each shot was taken with a full camera, not a smartphone, and can deliver impressive results.
The rear camera system is able to shoot video at up to 8K resolution in cinematic 24 FPS. It can also shoot at 4K30, 1080p60, or 720p30. The selfie camera can shoot 1080p or 720p at 30 FPS, so we’re still waiting on a 4K front camera. Maybe next time!
The phone’s video capabilities are truly impressive. It offers full Pro modes for both photos and video, giving you total control over your shutter speed, white balance, ISO, and autofocus. You can shoot videos in full 10-bit HDR and even load your own LUTs for color-grading cinematic looks in-camera. It features optical image stabilization, electronic image stabilization, and motion tracking focus, both of which work quite well and make nailing focus on the move easier than ever. There’s a built-in teleprompter and even a ring-light effect when using the selfie-camera. You can cut vlog introductions right in the camera app and engage both cameras at the same time if you want to shoot picture-by-picture. The screen itself is also rated for 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, so you can trust your results as you cut together videos within mobile editing applications.
All of this adds up to a camera that feels incredibly well suited to content creation. So much of the system is designed around allowing you to embrace your creativity on the go and Xiaomi pulls it off incredibly well. While I love the 1-inch sensor on the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, this is nothing short of impressive and eye-opening for how far mobile camera systems have come, both software and hardware.
Bright, Fast, and Responsive Display, Solid Speakers
The 13T Pro has an excellent screen. It comes in with a 2712 x 1220 resolution. Spread across its 6.67-inch size, it has a crisp density of 446 pixels per inch (PPI). With its 20:9 aspect ratio, this technically classifies it as FHD+ and isn’t the highest resolution screen on the market, but looks outstanding thanks to its vibrant Super AMOLED panel.
The display gets exceptionally bright, peaking at 2600 nits while typical brightness is 1200 nits. This makes it easy to use in direct sunlight so you won’t be shading the screen with your hand just to read an incoming text. As described in the last section, it’s designed for content creation and covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color space and is well calibrated straight out of the box. It’s also great for videos and mobile gaming, as it handles HDR content very well. While it can get very bright, its OLED panel means blacks are deep and inky, and if you’re using it in a dark room, it can get exceptionally dim thanks to its 2880Hz PWM dimming.
The screen is also fast and very responsive. It runs with an adaptive high refresh rate that peaks out at 144Hz but slows down when displaying content that doesn’t need such high frames to save battery life. This makes games feel fluid and extra responsive, as well as simply scrolling long web pages, but allows you to maintain normal battery life.
It begs for a stylus but you’ll have to bring your own. It has a 480Hz touch sampling rate, which can make writing with one feel almost like writing with paper.
The speakers are also surprisingly good. They get quite loud and have a quality stereo sound with reasonable fullness. You can’t expect the world from the tiny built-in speakers from any smartphone, but you could easily enjoy videos and music without headphones in a pinch. It also supports Dolby Atmos spatial audio, which bolsters the sound from the speakers but provides a bigger spatial bump when enabled using headphones.
Battery Life and Charging
Despite its slim size, the 13T Pro features a massive 5,000mAh battery. This gives it parity with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and is 578mAh larger than the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I’m a heavy user, so my screen tends to be on often during the day. Even so, it easily lasts until bedtime, usually with about 30% left spare.
If it does run short, it can be rapidly recharged with its 120W HyperCharger. The charger is a brick — much larger than virtually any other common charger for competing brands — and is definitely something you’ll want to leave at home, but it’s also able to completely recharge its battery in just 19 minutes from dead. Compare its wattage to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (45W), iPhone 15 Pro Max (35W), or Pixel 7 Pro (23W). You trade speed for size but it can be a real lifesaver when you need it.
Xiaomi 13T Pro - Photography Examples and Analysis
The Xiaomi 13T Pro offers an excellent camera that can deliver truly impressive results. The partnership with Leica has paid dividends in photo quality, such that I’ve been able to use the 13T Pro for everything from family pictures and video to semi-professional product photography that has appeared in a number of publications, including here at MMORPG.
Beginning with a gallery of normal shots using the primary wide-angle lens, one of the first things that struck me about its photos is that the 13T Pro does not over-exposure pictures as many smartphone cameras do. Instead, its pictures are slightly darker but more true to life. This can be adjusted within Pro mode or by tapping to focus and sliding the exposure meter up, but on virtually every other phone I have used and reviewed, it is the exact opposite. Typically, you’ll find yourself sliding exposure slightly downward for the most true-to-life shot. This definitely shows that Xiaomi and Leica put an emphasis on camera-like photo quality.
That’s also true with the color balance and detail within these shots. Even though the camera doesn’t utilize a 1-inch sensor like the Ultra, it still renders quite good detail and offers solid low-light performance as well.
The tuning Xiaomi did with Leica is also evident. You’re able to shoot in Authentic or Vibrant modes, with the former being more natural and contrast-heavy. There seems to have been some fine tuning that has occurred here also, as Vibrant isn’t quite as saturated as on the Ultra but still looks more lively overall. It’s well-balanced between light, contrast, and color.
Moving onto portrait photography, the camera system does reasonably quite well with its computational bokeh. There are still some areas where you’ll notice a little bit of fringing, where the AI doesn’t quite nab exactly where the edge is (this is especially common through fences and banisters) but overall I think it does quite well at rendering realistic blurred backgrounds.
Another high point here is that the portrait system doesn’t require you to be any certain distance away and isn’t limited to human faces. You’re able to tap to identify a subject and the phone does the rest. Samsung phones require 3-5 feet of distance, which is very finicky if you’re shooting a still object and balancing closeness/detail with entrancing background blur. Plants, objects, and animals are all fair game and are quicker to shoot.
The front-facing camera does a good job with selfie shots and provides an exceptional amount of detail. It also offers solid low-light performance, though does become grainier a bit quicker than the rear-facing camera array.
Finally, I wanted to show the impact of the beautify filters. They do a great job of smoothing the skin and removing years from your age. I honestly found it a bit surprising the first time I turned it on. It was like looking into a magic mirror at my younger self. With that said, the blur effect is noticeable if you know what to look for and examine closely. Still, Xiaomi did a very good job here.
Xiaomi 13T Pro - Performance
The Xiaomi 13T uses the latest MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ processor and delivers impressive results. It’s an octo-core CPU and features a maximum clock speed of 3.35GHz. This is very similar to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which tops out at 3.2GHz. Though, there’s much more to this than simple core counts and top speeds, it’s a handy point of comparison that actually leaves the 13T Pro slightly in the lead on paper.
Thankfully, it also holds up in real life with the 13T Pro delivering some impressive results. In our testing against the Gen 2, however, the Snapdragon still holds a slight edge in synthetic tests like Geekbench — though the results are close. Xiaomi has 3DMark blocked, so unfortunately our point of comparison there is no longer available. Below you can see that it performed exceptionally well in PassMark’s GPU test, however.
In real world testing, however, its performance lacked nothing compared to the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Productivity and entertainment tasks were consistently smooth and responsive, though you would expect them to be due to their more demanding nature. Cutting videos together is a more fitting task, but even then the 13T Pro rendered quickly and fluidly.
It’s also great for mobile gaming. PUBG ran silky smooth and felt exceptionally responsive. Genshin Impact was another game I spent a lot of time testing and it never once slowed down, running consistently fluidly. Asphalt was also like butter.
Even over long periods of time, gaming for an hour or more, thermal throttling wasn’t a noticeable issue. This is where 3DMark can be really useful as it graphs out frame performance with temperature, but for real-world perceptions, throttling just isn’t a concern even with demanding games.
Two New Smart Watches: Xiaomi Watch Pro 2 and Xiaomi Smart Band 8
Alongside the 13T Pro, Xiaomi is also launching two new smart wearables with the Watch Pro 2 and Smart Band 8. These watches occupy two different segments of the smartwatch category, so let’s break down each.
The Watch Pro 2 is much closer to what you likely think of when you hear the term “smartwatch” and is a multifunction companion that can be used throughout the day. It looks like a traditional watch with a large, 1.43-inch AMOLED display and a customizable watch face (20 built in, many more available for download). It features a glass face and a stainless steel encasement alongside a silicone band. As you would expect from a high-performance watch, it’s rich in sensors to track your health and activity, and actively communicates with your smartphone to pass-through notifications and allow you to response to messages and even enjoy limited form of content through the notification system.
Internally, it's a wearable powerhouse. It uses the latest Snapdrop W5+ Gen 1 processor, which means that it’s fast, responsive, and power efficient. It comes with 2GB of memory and 32GB of storage, which is more than enough for a watch. The screen features a crisp 466 x 466 resolution. It also features a 495mAh battery for multi-day battery life. It clearly takes aim at the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and point-for-point slays it. It’s a much closer battle between it and the Ticwatch Pro 5, which has an edge in battery life but a more expensive price.
The Watch Pro 2 features an array of sensors to track your activity. It includes an accelerometer, a gyroscope, an ambient light sensor, an electronic compass sensor, a barometer, and optical heart rate sensor, and a bioelectric impedance analysis sensor. It also utilizes global positioning with 5-system, dual-band GNSS. Your activity can also be tracked with Google’s Fitness system.
The biggest upgrade from last generation is that it now utilizes WearOS, giving you access to a familiar layout and the Google Play Store. This is a game-changing improvement and makes the Watch Pro 2 one of the most compelling watch options available.
The second watch is the Smart Band 8. It’s a dedicated fitness wearable that’s fairly innovative in how it can be used. It features a narrow watch face design with a resolution of 192x490 pixels and a 1.62” size. It’s very small and light and can even be used as a necklace with Xiaomi’s pendant attachment. It also ties in with the Mi Fitness app for more advanced tracking.
The Smart Band 8 embraces low key style and a lack of maintenance. The band can easily be swapped and it ships with 200 pre-installed watch faces that always look crisp thanks to the screen’s 600-nit peak brightness. It also features 16 days of battery life, so you won’t need to worry about plugging it in more than once or twice a month.
I’ve spent a good amount of time with both watches now and can say that both impressed me. As a denizen of the time before smartwatches, I like the Watch Pro 2 a bit better as it has more of the classic “watch” look that I go for, but these are both great choices for different preferences. Like I’ve remarked in other watch reviews, once you get used to being able to monitor your health, heartrate, and notifications, it’s hard to go back. These are two stellar options to do just that without breaking the bank.
Final Thoughts
With the Xiaomi 13T Pro, Xiaomi is upping its game. Imaging technology that was previously reserved for the very top of the product stack is now making its way down to more accessible price points. If you’re looking for a high-performing phone that takes excellent photos and videos, it’s simply excellent. The same holds true for the Watch Pro 2 and Smart Band 8, which provide stylishly high-performing alternatives to Samsung and iPhone without sacrificing quality or key features.
Xiaomi is a leading brand in the world for a reason, and these releases continue to demonstrate why. If you’re shopping for a new phone and your carrier supports it, or are looking for a great smartwatch that suits your style, these are options well worth considering.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes. Purchasing items through our links results in a small commission for the site. Authors are not compensated based upon clicks or commission.
