Home » Xiaomi 13T Pro In-Depth Hands-On

Xiaomi 13T Pro In-Depth Hands-On

Written By Abe Olandres
Published • September 26th, 2023
Hands-onSmartphones
0

The latest iteration to the Xiaomi 13 series has been announced and, as expected, we’re looking at slightly more affordable yet still very capable versions of Xiaomi’s flagship smartphones this season – the Xiaomi 13T Pro.

There are a lot of similarities to be found here between the Xiaomi 13 Pro and the 13T Pro and certainly a lot a changed since the Xioami 12T Pro. In our experience, it feels like Xiaomi combined some elements of the Xiaomi 13 Pro and the POCO F5 Pro that made it to the 13T Pro. The boxy chassis, the camera module

The Xiaomi 13T Pro will come in three color options – Alpine Blue, Meadow Green and Black. The back panel of the Alpine Blue model features Xiaomi BioComfort vegan leather with a soft and unique texture, making the phone feel more premium and you don’t get that urge to put on the gel case that came in the box. Xiaomi claims this vegan leather surface is composed of multiple layers of materials to improve wear and scratch resistance.

On the other hand, the Meadow Green and Black models have a glossy glass back panel that’s reminiscent of the design on the Xiaomi 13. One difference here is that the leather version is slightly thicker at 8.62mm vs. 8.49mm on the other two. Conversely, the Alpine Blue is actually lighter at just 200 grams vs. 206 grams on the glass variants.

: Xiaomi 13T Pro

: Xiaomi 13T Pro

: Xiaomi 13T Pro

The power button and volume rocker are found on the right side; stereo speaker grills, primary mic, USB Type-C port and SIM card slot are found at the bottom; secondary speaker grill, noise-canceling mic and IR blaster up top.

Between the Alpine Blue and the Meadow Green that we have with us, the jury is split between the two. And, just like Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro, both the 13T and 13T Pro are IP68 rated for better dust and water resistance.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro has a flat 6.67-inch CrystalRes Display supporting up to 144Hz refresh rate and 1.5K or 2712 x 1220 pixel resolution.

This display greatly improves the viewing and gaming experience, thanks to a high brightness mode of up to 1200nits and a peak brightness of up to 2600nits, along with 100% DCI-P3 coverage with 68 billion colors. Xiaomi 13T Pro also supports end-to-end HDR10+ and is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5.

They’ve installed a plastic screen protection here as well but in the span of several days we’ve been using and playing games with it, the screen protector already had scratches and bubbles, so we decided to simply peel it off.

In terms of the camera, the Xiaomi 13T Pro packs a 50MP Sony IMX707 with f/1.7 main camera, an 8MP Sony IMX355 ultrawide camera, and another 50MP telephoto lens which is capable of up to 5x optical zoom.

To be fair, the camera on the Xiaomi 13T Pro looks almost identical to the sensor that we have on the much more flagship, Xiaomi 13 Pro.

The overall image looks very cinematic right of the bat. Color reproduction is almost identical to what you will see in the real-world, which is pretty cool! We have good contrast and very little — almost unnoticeable, post-processing. Details are present without over-sharpening the image, even in low light conditions.

Since the camera system on the Xiaomi 13T Pro is tuned by Leica, a popular camera brand. You can choose between two photographic styles, Leica Authentic Look which produces images has a little boost in contrast, and Leica Vibrant which give you a little bit more vibrancy in every shot. But for the sake of this review, we stick to Leica Authentic Look. These Leica photographic style really does mimic Leica’s signature color science.

There are also host of filters to add more cinematic look to your image. Pro Mode and a 50MP mode are also present for you to take fully advantage of this device’s camera system.

We’re amazed at how this device handle different scenarios. When taking photos in board daylight, you will see that the HDR in effect and is also looks very natural.

Portrait photos on the other hand, there are moments where it struggles on picking which are on a photo to blur out, but once it understands where you want to put the focus on, portrait photos can cam out really really good. What’s cool about the Portrait mode is that you a settings in which you can choose the bokeh style of your photo. YOu can pick from Documentary, which is a 35mm lens, Swirl Bokeh which is a 50mm, or soft focus, a 90mm lens. All these settings adds a bit of a creativity factor to you every shot – which is pretty nice.

Night mode images are also good, colors a a little bit saturated and contrast is a little bit boosted on this mode. With all these adjustments, we captured pretty interesting photos as well as videos as there is also a night mode video option.

Selfies are also great on this device. We have a pretty natural looking selfies, although there are times where we find the photo output to be a little bit soft even with beautification turned off, but nonetheless, the image quality is ample for social media postings.

Overall, the camera on the Xiaomi 13T Pro is something that I didn’t personally expect on this calibre of smartphone. We actually find myself taking more photos on this device than my iPhone 14 Pro as we like the sharpness and color reproduction we get on every shot, whereas on the iPhone, you can really notice the post processing that has taken place on every image.

For videos, the Xiaomi 13T Pro is capable on recording 8K at 24fps. There is also a OIS and EIS built-in ensuring that you will have a perfectly stable video output. There’s also Motion Tracking Focus on this device, which is a feature that we can see on a high grade cinema camera. This feature tracks your subject to keep it in focus at all times which is also an amazing feature especially for those content creators out there!

What excited us the about the Xiaomi 13T Pro is the ability to record up to 10-bit 4K 30fps LOG video recording. I mean, WHAT? You won’t really going to use this feature everyday, but it is so amazing that this smartphone is capable on recording LOG video giving clips that are ready for color grading and very versatile in post.

Powering the Xiaomi 13T Pro is the latest MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ which is made from 4nm process that incorporates an Arm Immortalis-G715 GPU.

With LPDDR5X RAM + UFS 4.0 storage technology, you’re looking at a powerful combo here in terms of benchmarks – it managed to cop a score of 1,458,068 in Antutu Benchmark, the highest we’ve tested this year.

Check out the rest of the benchmark scores here:

Antutu Benchmark v10: 1,458,068
Antutu Storage: 3,769MB/s (Read), 3,220MB/s (Write), 1,075MB/s & 967MB/s (Random R&W)
PCMark Work 3.0: 13,670
GeekBench 6 CPU: 1,294 (Single), 3,584 (Multi-core) / 1,694 (Single-core), 3,912 (Multi-core) in Performance Mode
GeekBench GPU: 7,470 (OpenCL), 7,293 (Vulkan)

The Xiaomi 13T Pro has two Surge P1 charging chipsets to achieve a single-cell battery with 120W HyperCharge, allowing the device to be charged to 100% in just 19 minutes. In our battery benchmark test, the Xiaomi 13T Pro got a score of 12 hours and 56 minutes on a single full charge at 50% brightness, zero volume, and in airplane mode.

This is 2 hours shorter than what we got last time with the Xiaomi 13 Pro. It could be primarily due to the fact that the Xiaomi 13 Pro uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that has a TDP of 6.3W while the 13T Pro’s Dimensity 9200+ has a higher TDP of 8W, even if both are manufactured using the 4nm process. The latter also has a higher clock speed of 3.35GHz vs 3.2GHz on the SD8Gen2.

As for connectivity, the Xiaomi 13T Pro has everything you’d expect — dual nano-SIM with 5G support, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4 and WiFi 7 capability.
It also comes with a built-in IR blaster which you can use as a remote control for your home appliances like TVs, aircon and more. Works like a universal remote control and is usually a staple in mid-range and flagship Xiaomi phones.

This iteration of the Xiaomi 13T Pro is like a mixed bag nuts — a lot of great features and a couple of let-downs. Performance is really good if you asked us but the battery life isn’t at par with the 13 Pro. The Leica cameras are very nice though and everything else seems spot on!

Xiaomi 13T Pro specs:
6.67” FHD+ CrystalRes AMOLED display, 144Hz refresh rate
20:9 aspect ratio with 2712 x 1220 pixels @ 446 ppi
Mediatek Dimensity 9200+ chipset
1x Arm Cortex-X3 up to 3.35GHz
3x Arm Cortex-A715 up to 3.0GHz
4x Arm Cortex-A510 up to 2.0GHz
Arm Immortalis-G715 GPU MP11
12GB, 16GB RAM LPDDDR5X RAM
256GB, 512GB, 1TB UFS 4.0 internal storage
Triple-camera LEICA VARIO-SUMMICRON 1:1.9-2.2/15-50mm ASPH
50MP 24mm wide angle camera (1/1.28” sensor size), f/1.9, 7P aspherical lens, OIS
8K @ 24fps
50MP 50mm f/1.9 telephoto camera
12MP 15mm f/2.2 ultrawide camera
20MP f/2.2 front camera
Dual nano-SIM 5G
WiFi 7 capable
Bluetooth 5.3
NFC
GPS (NSA+SA)
Dual Speakers with Dolby Atmos
MIUI 14 based on Android 13
5000mAh battery with 120W HyperCharge
Meadow Green, Black, Alpine Blue*
200 grams* / 206 grams (weight)
162.2mm x 75.7mm x 8.49mm / 8.62mm* (dimensions)

xiaomi 13t proxiaomi 13t pro philippinesxiaomi 13t pro price philippinesxiaomi 13t pro review philippinesxiaomi 13t pro specs

Latest smartphones

Realme 14x

realme

Philips S7710 Omni 10

Philips S6310 Essence 20

OnePlus 13R

OnePlus

Energizer Ultimate U6G

TNT Panalo Phone 5G

Tecno Megapad 11

Tecno

Ulefone Armor 27

Ulefone

Realme Neo7

realme

Honor 300

Honor

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.