Xiaomi 13T Pro hands-on review: Lucky number 13

The Xiaomi 13T Pro arrives in a good year for the brand. We’ve already seen the best compact flagship phone in years with the Xiaomi 13, and impressive, if slightly flawed, top-end handsets in the Xiaomi 13 Pro and Xiaomi 13 Ultra. The Xiaomi 13T Pro comes in as a mid-cycle alternative, offering flagship-level features for upper mid-range prices.

This tactic has been a bit hit and miss in the past – we adored the Xiaomi 11T Pro, but found too many faults in the Xiaomi 12T Pro – so the pressure is on for the Xiaomi 13T Pro and its cheaper sibling, the Xiaomi 13T, to prove their worth. We’ll need to wait for the full review to be completely sure, but judging by the specifications, this could indeed be a return to glory for Xiaomi’s T-series phones.

Xiaomi 13T Pro hands-on review: Specifications, price and release date

• 6.67in, 144Hz FHD+ AMOLED display
• Octa-core 3.35GHz MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ processor
• 12GB or 16GB of RAM
• 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage
• Triple rear cameras: 50MP (f/1.9), 50MP (f/1.9) telephoto, 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide
• Selfie camera: 20MP (f/2.2)
• 5,000mAh battery
• 120W fast charging
• IP68-rated waterproofing
• 162 x 76 x 8.6mm (Alpine Blue), 162 x 76 x 8.6mm (Black, Meadow Green)
• 200g (Alpine Blue), 206g (Black, Meadow Green)
• Alpine Blue, Black, Meadow Green
• UK release date: 26 September
• UK price: £649 (12GB + 256GB), £699 (12GB + 512GB), £799 (16GB + 1TB)

Xiaomi 13T Pro hands-on review: Design and key new features

That’s a lot of high-end features for a starting price that limbos under the flagship line to count among the mid-rangers. Unfortunately, however, the design doesn’t doesn’t follow this mantra. To be clear, the Xiaomi 13T Pro isn’t unattractive – the rounded corners and flat-edged aesthetic is tried and true – it’s just that I’ve seen this style a thousand times before at prices a lot lower than this.

There’s an asterisk here because those impressions are mostly based on the glass-backed models, which come in Black and Meadow Green colours. You have a third option, though, and this one is easily the best-looking of the three. The Alpine Blue model forgoes the glass back in favour of a premium vegan leather, which makes it slightly chunkier than the Black and Meadow Green versions (8.6mm, compared to 8.5mm), but also the lightest of the bunch, weighing in at 200g, compared to 206g.

Regardless of which colour you opt for, the Xiaomi 13T Pro offers plenty of protection, with a layer of Gorilla Glass 5 sitting over the display and an IP68 rating certifying the phone as fully dustproof and able to withstand being submerged in 1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes. This is a vast improvement over the Xiaomi 12T Pro, which we criticised for only offering a fairly rudimentary IP53 weatherproofing rating.

Looking at the display, we’ve got a 6.67in AMOLED panel with a 20:9 aspect ratio. The 2,712 x 1,220 resolution produces a reasonably high pixel density of 446ppi, and the variable refresh rate can switch from as low as 30Hz all the way up to 144Hz. The display is HDR-ready, with Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support, and this is complemented by stereo speakers that support Dolby Atmos.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9200 Plus processor is clocked at 3.35GHz and can be paired with either 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, so performance numbers are likely to impress. This is the first phone we’ve seen that uses this top-end MediaTek chip, so it will be interesting to see how it measures up to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 when it comes to running the benchmark tests.

As well as different RAM options, you’ve also got a selection of storage choices: the 12GB RAM models can come with either 256GB or 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, while the 16GB RAM version gets a massive 1TB. There’s no microSD slot here, so whichever storage option you opt for will be the limit, but you do get dual SIM functionality, as well as support for Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7.

On the battery front, we’ve got a 5,000mAh unit, and the phone also supports Xiaomi’s 120W HyperCharge technology, though there’s been no confirmation whether or not a charger is included in the box. Xiaomi claims that this tech can take the 13T Pro from dead to 100% in just 19 minutes, as well as hitting 36% after just five minutes of charge. For me, ultra-fast charging speeds tend to offer diminishing returns, so I would have preferred that Xiaomi left charging as it was and put the focus on including wireless charging, which is still a notable omission.

Cameras are often a big focus on Xiaomi phones, and the 13T Pro is no exception. As we saw with the standard 13-series, the lenses here are co-engineered with Leica, and the focus is on quality over size. Gone is the gimmicky 200MP sensor that featured on the 12T Pro, replaced by a 1/1.28in 50MP (f/1.9) main lens. This will shoot 12.5MP pixel-binned images as standard and, like the rest of the 13 series, you can shoot in either Leica Authentic, for more natural images, or Leica Vibrant, which produces punchier colours.

Video recording goes up to 4K at 30fps, or 8K at 24fps, and Optical Image Stabilisation is included to keep the shaking out of your footage.

While the 12T Pro backed up its massive 200MP camera with extremely basic ultrawide and macro lenses, the 13T Pro redistributes its resources to pack in a 50MP (f/1.9) telephoto shooter as the secondary sensor. The rest of the cameras – a 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide lens and a 20MP (f/2.2) selfie snapper – fall into the realm of fine, but this telephoto lens is exactly the sort of thing I want to see at this price.

Xiaomi 13T Pro hands-on review: Early verdict

With true flagships nudging into four figures more often than not, there’s more need than ever for affordable alternatives that don’t compromise too much on power. Based on my initial time spent with the phone, the Xiaomi 13T Pro certainly appears set to fill that niche, with impressive specs across the board.

More importantly, the Xiaomi 13T Pro has taken on criticisms levelled against the 12T Pro and made steps to improve. The weatherproofing rating is a big one, rocketing this up to one of the most resistant handsets out there, but the redesigned camera system could also prove to be a boon, trading in an unnecessarily high pixel count on the main camera for a more useful telephoto lens as secondary.

Our full review will have the final word on how good these cameras actually are, along with how well the MediaTek chipset competes against Snapdragon’s best, so be sure to check back with us soon to see what we think of the Xiaomi 13T Pro.