Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro officially announced. They come with very bright screens and top cameras

The Xiaomi 13 series has finally been officially announced, almost two weeks after the originally promised date. The launch event took place in China, and the phones will only be available in that region for now. Most likely these two models will also arrive in Europe in the near future, probably around early spring, as they do every year. Both models, however, are flagship devices, equipped with Qualcomm’s latest high-end chipset: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

Xiaomi 13 Pro adopts Sony’s 1″ camera

The Xiaomi 13 Pro is the company’s new flagship, which comes with some upgrades over last year’s 12 Pro and the 12S Ultra, but doesn’t change other elements. For example, the display was already a top-notch one, with a 6.73″ OLED panel, QHD+ resolution and variable 120Hz refresh rate (LTPO 2.0), so there wasn’t much room for improvement there. Xiaomi says this panel can achieve 1,200 nits across the board and 1,900 nits in HDR, so it should be a bit brighter.

The configuration is based on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the most powerful chipset of the moment, along with 8 or 12 GB of RAM and 128, 256 or 512 GB of internal storage on UFS 4.0, the fastest storage on the market.

Using the Xiaomi Surge G1 chip, Xiaomi can provide 120W charging, another feature that hasn’t changed since last year. With a 4,820 mAh capacity, the phone should provide over a day’s battery life, and full charging will be very quick, in under half an hour. The Xiaomi 13 Pro also includes wireless charging at 50W, as well as reverse charging at 10W. Xiaomi phones were water resistant last year as well, and the Xiaomi 13 Pro is also IP68 certified.

On the camera front we see the biggest upgrade over the 12th generation. The 1″ Sony IMX989 sensor with 50 megapixel resolution, which we’ve also seen on the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, now comes on the Xiaomi 13 Pro, along with an f/1.9 aperture lens and “Hyper OIS” optical stabilization for even better low-light performance. The zoom camera is also 50 megapixels and offers 3x optical zoom with f/2.0 aperture, while the 50-megapixel f/2.2 ultra wide camera comes with autofocus and macro functions. This could be one of the most well-equipped phone camera systems, and Xiaomi also benefits from Leica-tuned technologies and colors.

Xiaomi 13 remains a compact flagship

The Xiaomi 13, however, remains in the relatively compact flagship zone, just like last year’s 12, with a 6.36″ diagonal screen. It benefits from Full HD+ resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate (non-variable) and support for HDR10+, Dolby Vision and HLG, just like the Pro model. This model is also reportedly very bright, with up to 1,900 nits brightness.

We have similar configurations, with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 8 or 12 GB RAM and 128 or 256 GB internal storage, but the differences come in the cameras, in particular.

The main sensor is still 50 megapixels, but uses a smaller 1/1.56″ sensor with f/1.8 lens and the same Hyper OIS technology for improved stabilisation as on the Pro variant. But the Xiaomi 13 gets a true 3x zoom camera over last year’s model, with a 10-megapixel sensor, stabilized lens and f/2.0 aperture. The ultrawide camera has 12 megapixels f/2.2 and doesn’t appear to offer a macro function.

Despite its size, this model integrates a 4,500 mAh camera with 67W charging, 50W wireless charging and of course 10W reverse charging. Xiaomi will offer glass back variants in various shades for the Xiaomi 13, as well as a blue vegan leather variant.