Hands-on: Xiaomi 13 Pro – computerworld.ch

No design experiments

After all, the Chinese confidently ask for 1299 Swiss francs for a smartphone that they have been selling at home for a few weeks. While the competition also uses bright colors — the iPhone just came out in a new yellow color — Xiaomi remains discreet and only offers the 13 Pro in black or white. The 229-gram case and the brushed ceramic back feel high-quality, but it’s also very smooth and not too slippery. It is clear that the camera module protrudes by four millimeters from the back. Unlike its predecessors, the case is now protected from dust and water according to the IP68 standard.

Xiaomi comes with a 6.73-inch AMOLED display, which is not only very sharp with a resolution of 3200 x 1440 pixels, but also develops plenty of brightness. The refresh rate can be set up to 120 Hz. There is a responsive fingerprint sensor in the display, which is slightly curved on the side edges.

Under the hood, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is Qualcomm’s new top-of-the-line processor, which is backed up by 12GB of RAM. Even if Xiaomi gets a slightly inferior version of the chip from Samsung, the performance is more than sufficient in all usage scenarios. However, the case gets quite warm when the chipset is used heavily.

Other equipments comply with the class standard. One memory card slot is missing, here – at least in Germany, where unlike China there is only one version – 256 GB of internal data memory should suffice. Apple and Samsung offer variants of up to one terabyte.

As one of the first devices, the Xiaomi 13 Pro can also use the new and fast Wi-Fi 7 standard. The operating system is Android 13 in combination with the internal user interface MIUI 14, which unfortunately already has many unnecessary apps installed. Xiaomi promises to provide OS updates up to Android 16. Security patches should be available for five years.

With 4820 mAh, the battery has generous dimensions and easily gets users through the day with normal use – but it doesn’t set the best new values, competitors from Apple and Samsung last a little longer. On the other hand, the 13 Pro can be charged even faster using the included 120W charger: the power hub is refilled in just under half an hour. It can also be charged wirelessly at 50W.