Xiaomi 13 officially presented: small but mighty
from Jacob Kluge 
on December 12, 2022, 8:00 | Write a comment
With the Xiaomi 13, the Chinese manufacturer presented a new flagship smartphone for 2023. You can find out what this has to offer in the following lines.
As in previous years, Xiaomi first presented the flagship for the Chinese market. With the Xiaomi 13, the path taken last year is being followed and a smartphone is being launched that is significantly more compact than the comparable competition.
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Display
At 6,36 inches, the display is slightly larger than the 6,28-inch panel of the Xiaomi 12. This still has a resolution of 1.080p, which results in a PPI of 414, which should be perfectly sufficient for everyday use. The maximum brightness has been increased from 1.100 nits to a whopping 1.900 nits. This makes the display of the Xiaomi 13 one of the brightest on the market. In addition, Xiaomi now does without an edge display. Instead, the manufacturer relies on a flat display with all-round symmetrical screen edges.
Design
The resemblance to the iPhone is obvious due to the new angular design. We already know that from Xiaomi, which doesn't have to be a bad thing. New this year is an IP68 certification, which finally protects the Xiaomi 13 against the ingress of water and dust. In general, the smartphone makes a very high-quality impression at first glance. The frame is made of aluminum and the back is made of glass, which is available in the colors black, white, green, blue (leather) and in five special colors (grey, blue, green, red and yellow).
Picture: Xiaomi
However, I also have to be critical, because the Xiaomi 13 looks different again than the Xiaomi 11 or Xiaomi 12. You just can't stay true to a design language and you try to reinvent the wheel every year, which I really like a pity. The brand lacks recognition value. If you put the Xiaomi Mi 11, 12 and 13 next to each other, you would not guess that all smartphones are from the same manufacturer.
Proprocessor and battery
The Snapdragon 8 Gen2, the current topProprocessor from Qualcomm. This is again manufactured by TSMC and should therefore be significantly more powerful, but above all significantly more efficient than the 8 Gen1.
In combination with the 4.500 mAh battery, we should probably get really long runtimes here. Unfortunately, Xiaomi keeps the 120 watts Pro-model before. The Xiaomi 13 only uses 67 watts fast charge and even if that is still very fast, I would have liked to see 120 watts. But what bothers me much more is that USB-C 2.0 is still used here.
Camera
In recent years, compared to the Pro-Model always cut back on the camera. Unfortunately, that is also the case this year, but there is also good news. The 13 is the first non-Pro- Smartphone of the manufacturer, which has an optical zoom. This uses a focal length of 75mm, which corresponds to a 3,2x optical zoom. A 50 megapixel sensor is used as the main camera, which measures 1/1.49 inches and is optically stabilized. This makes it larger than the IMX766 in the Xiaomi 12, but smaller than the IMX909 in the Xiaomi 12s. The whole thing is rounded off by a 12 megapixel ultra wide-angle camera.
With the Xiaomi 13, the manufacturer is once again working with Leica, making the Xiaomi 13 the first Xiaomi smartphone to appear globally with the Leica collaboration. Ultimately, a test will have to show how the influence of the German company will look like.
Price
The Xiaomi 13 starts at 3.999 yuan, which is 300 yuan more expensive than its predecessor. Converted, the smartphone costs 545 euros, with Xiaomi that Proproduct at this price will not be offered in this country. Personally, I assume that the Xiaomi 13 will cost us between 849 euros and 899 euros. That seems like a lot, but I think it's fair.
On paper, Xiaomi has improved all the points that bothered me personally about the predecessor. So now we finally have an optical zoom, an IP68 certification and outstanding brightness. In addition, aspects - which were already good - such as the excellent speakers and the great vibration motor have been improved again. So I wouldn't be surprised if we're dealing with one of the best, if not the best, compact Android smartphone on the market.
