Xiaomi 13 review

New triple camera setup with a telephoto

The Xiaomi 13 has a fancy new camera system. The camera setup here is the product of a collaboration with Leica, and yes, there is a telephoto camera this time around.

But first things first. The primary camera on the Xiaomi 13 is a 50MP unit based on the Sony IMX800 sensor. That has a 1/1.49" size with 1.0µm individual pixels. Though, those are meant to be binned four-way into 2.0µm effective pixels. Speaking of effective numbers, the Xiaomi 13 does not use the entire sensor. Instead, its f/1.8, 7-piece, HyperOIS lens is positioned in front of a portion of the sensor with an effective size of 1/1.56" and an effective resolution of 50MP. This camera also has Xiaomi ProFocus, Portrait Night mode, Ultra Night Video, and video capture at up to 8K@24fps.

The 12MP ultrawide camera on our unit appears to be based on the OmniVision OV13B10. This is actually the same sensor as on the Xiaomi 12. As the name suggests, the OV13B10 is actually a 13MP sensor, though 12MP of it is being used on the Xiaomi 13. It has a 1/3.06" sensor size with 1.12µm individual pixels. This ultrawide camera has a 15mm, 120-degree, f/2.2 lens with fixed focus.

Last but not least, on the back, we have the 10MP telephoto, based on the Samsung S5K3K1 sensor, which is actually the same sensor behind the telephoto camera in the Samsung Galaxy S22, S22+, S23 and S23+. It has a 1/3.94" size and 1.0µm individual pixels. The telephoto has a 3.2x, 75mm, optically-stabilized (OIS), f/2.0 lens and uses PDAF.

On the front - is a 32MP selfie camera based on the OmniVision OV32C (1/3.2", 0.7µm pixels) with a Quad Bayer pattern that results in 8MP binned images. It has fixed focus and sits behind an 89.6-degree f/2.0 5-piece lens. Though with a brighter lens, this is the same selfie sensor as on the Xiaomi 12S Ultra.

The familiar Xiaomi camera app has its quirks, but it's nothing outside the norm regarding basic use. Changing modes works with side swipes on the black area or the viewfinder. Up and down swipes don't work for switching between the front and rear cameras; only the toggle next to the shutter release does that.

You can add, remove, and rearrange modes in the main rolodex by going to the More tab and navigating to the edit button, and you can also access that from the settings menu. The hamburger menu at the far end is where you'll find additional options like the icon to access the settings. Next to that hamburger menu, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, an AI toggle, and a shortcut to Google Lens. At the near end, you have a magic wand with beauty effects and filters, as well as the camera zoom switches.

Camera UI

New this time around is the Leica color mode switch. It toggles between the default "Vibrant" color profile and the Leica "Authentic" color mode. We will be testing both of these in a bit.

Leica color modes

There's a nicely capable Pro mode, where you can tweak the shooting parameters yourself. You can use the primary, the ultrawide and the telephoto here. You get to pick one of 4 white balance presets or dial in the light temperature with a slider; there's a manual focusing slider and shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s) and ISO control.

Pro mode

You also get focus peaking and exposure verification toggles in the hamburger menu.

Last but not least, the Xiaomi 13 has a pretty in-depth portrait mode.

Portrait mode

It now comes with different modes in the form of "Pro lenses". The idea is that Xiaomi is simulating the look of different camera lenses meant for portrait capture.

Daylight camera quality

Let's kick things off with the main camera. In its default 12.5MP mode, it produces very likable stills. These are clean and sharp with plenty of detail, nice contrast and dynamic range.

The high-frequency details, such as the grass rendering look a bit artificial under closer examination, but it's not a big deal. We don't have any real complaints about the test shots we took.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera samples

We captured the samples above using the default Leica Vibrant color mode. Switching over to the Leica Authentic one, we get largely the same overall quality photos, as expected, just with different color reproduction. As the name suggests, the Authentic camera mode should produce more true-to-life colors with less artificial "pop," but the difference between the two modes appears to be marginal.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera Authentic color samples

You can make the Xiaomi 13 capture full-res photos on its main camera. These come out in a little over 50MP and largely have the same quality characteristics as the 12.5MP stills, which is great to see. These 50MP stills don't really take too long to capture, either. Plus, they offer noticeably more fine detail in the frame.

Their only downside is the larger file size you have to deal with. Other than that, we do recommend the 50MP photos. One more thing - there is no color mode selection for 50MP stills.

Xiaomi 13: 50MP main camera samples

Here's how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our extensive photo compare database at both 12.5MP and 50MP. Pixel-peep away.

Xiaomi 13 against the Xiaomi 12T Pro and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra in our Photo compare tool

50MP: Xiaomi 13 against the Xiaomi 12T Pro and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra in our Photo compare tool

The ultrawide camera captures competent 12MP stills. Detail is plenty for this class of camera, and sharpness is good as well. Some very fine grain is visible on uniform surfaces, but it's nothing dramatic. Dynamic range is about what we can expect from a good ultrawide, too.

Xiaomi 13: 12MP ultrawide camera samples

Colors are very well matched between the main camera and the ultrawide. This goes for both the default Leica Vibrant mode and the alternative Leica Authentic. Here are some samples taken in Authentic mode. Again, the differences are very subtle and hard to spot.

Xiaomi 13: 12MP ultrawide camera Authentic color samples

One of the bigger additions to the Xiaomi 13's camera setup is the telephoto camera. It has a 3.2x zoom level and captures photos in just under 10MP resolution. These look great, with plenty of detail, almost no noise, and a very good level of sharpness across the frame. The contrast is slightly boosted compared to the main camera, but with a rather pleasing effect.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera samples

Colors reproduction, once again, is almost spot-on with the other cameras. Xiaomi and Leica have really done a great job in this department all around. Again, this also goes for the Leica Authentic color mode and its slightly more subdued colors.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera Authentic color samples

While the Xiaomi 13 lacks a dedicated macro camera and can't focus with its ultrawide, its main camera is actually pretty good at capturing macro-style close-up shots.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera macro samples

Interestingly enough, despite the inclusion of a dedicated telephoto camera Xiaomi still includes a 2x zoom toggle in the camera UI, which captures cropped and zoomed images from the main camera. They aren't as sharp and contrasty as those from the telephoto but could work well in a pinch.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples

Portrait shots

As already mentioned, a lot of attention has gone into portrait mode on the Xiaomi 13. There are a total of five (or four, depending on how you count them) different "Pro lenses" you can choose from when capturing portraits.

Subject detection and separation are great across the board, though you do have to frame the subject more carefully with the more zoomed-in portrait modes to get the focus just right. The quality of the background blur is also very convincing.

First off, we have the sort of "default" portrait mode, which uses the telephoto camera.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera portrait shots

Then we have black and white effect portraits from the main camera. This is called the "35mm Black and White lens".

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera black and white portrait shots

Then we have a "50mm Swirly bokeh lens" effect, which also uses the main camera for capture.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera Swirly bokeh portrait shots

Following that, there is a "75mm Portrait lens", which uses the telephoto camera to capture portraits and looks to be identical or, if not very similar to the "default" portrait mode.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera Portrait lens shots

And last but not least, we have another mode called "90mm Soft focus lens," which uses a zoomed-in camera feed from the telephoto.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera Soft focus lens shots

Portrait mode works pretty well on non-human subjects too.

Xiaomi 13: non-human portrait mode samples

Selfies

Selfies on the Xiaomi 13 come out at the full 32MP resolution, and we've said before, this is too much. You get large file sizes and none of the benefit that comes with pixel binning.

Still, the selfies are very detailed and have very mature processing of that detail - even at a (ridiculous for 32MP selfies) 1:1 magnification. These look about as good as any from phones with similar specs. In any case, we suggest downscaling them to something more sensible, like 12MP or even 8MP.

Colors look great, too, with natural and well-preserved skin tones. Skin texture looks great too. You get two distinct levels of zoom from the selfie camera - 1x and 0.8x.

Xiaomi 13: 32MP selfie camera samples

Selfie portraits look fine in terms of subject detection and separation. The background blur is a bit on the aggressive side but not too excessive. However, we did notice that outdoors the selfie portrait mode tends to blow out the exposure of the background for no apparent reason.

Xiaomi 13: 32MP selfie camera portrait samples

Video quality

The Xiaomi 13 can capture video at up to 8K@24fps on its main camera, which is a bit odd given that its chipset - the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is perfectly capable of 8K@30fps. Perhaps it's a sensor limitation. Video gets saved in h.264 by default, with the option of h.265 (HEVC) also available in settings.

8K video from the main cam is always captured in HEVC video format with a video stream at around 105 Mbps and a 320 kbps, 48 kHz stereo audio track inside an MP4 container. Quality is great, with plenty of detail, low noise and excellent contrast.

4K videos are very comparable to the 8K ones, with the added bonus that the Xiaomi 13 can record these clips at much smoother 30fps or even 60fps if that is your fancy. Detail is comparable, and so are contrast and the image's overall appearance.

4K videos get recorded in h.264 by default with an AVC video stream of a little over 50 Mbps and the same audio stream as the 8K video again in an MP4 container.

Here's the main camera of the Xiaomi 13 in our video compare database. We include samples at both 4K and 8K.

Xiaomi 13 against the Xiaomi 12T Pro and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra in our Video compare tool

4320p: Xiaomi 13 against the Xiaomi 12T Pro and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra in our Video compare tool

The ultrawide camera produces very decent 4K clips, but nothing to phone home about. Detail is alright for this class of camera, and so are contrast and dynamic range. There is practically no noise, which is great to see.

Colors appear to be slightly muted, and you can already see the dynamic range hitting its limit.

Just like with photos, the Xiaomi 13 has a 2x toggle in its video capture mode, which uses the main camera to capture softer zoomed-in 2x clips. There is nothing particularly special about these.

The dedicated telephoto camera does alright with its 4K video capture, but again nothing spectacular. There is a decent amount of detail, and colors, once again, match the main camera well.

However, there is plenty of shimmering in these clips and even some color fringing in areas with finer detail and overlapping colors, like the tops of trees. The footage is still perfectly usable, though.

The Xiaomi 13 has two or three (depending on how you count them) levels of video stabilization. By default, video from the main and telephoto cameras is stabilized to an extent, thanks to the inclusion of OIS. Beyond that, there are two levels of EIS available. Steady video and Steady video PRO are both capped at 1080p resolution and have an increasing degree of intensity of the applied EIS. Both do a great job, respectively. The main difference between them is that Steady video Pro uses the ultrawide camera, whereas the regular Steady video applies its effects on the main camera.

The selfie camera is limited to 1080p@30fps video capture. Even so, these clips look pretty good in terms of detail, skin texture and tone. Dynamic range is a bit of an issue, though and with a challenging backlit scene, highlights will almost certainly get blown out.

However, the footage appears to be quite steady, so it clearly has an always-on EIS enabled.

We only wish 4K was available on the selfie cam.

Low-light camera quality

The main camera does great in low-light conditions. Photos come out looking detailed and quite sharp. Noise is pretty much nonexistent. Both shadows and highlights are handled competently, and the same goes for light sources.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples

Switching over to Leica Authentic color mode is not really advisable in low-light conditions. Despite having the same exposure, these shots look much darker to the point of detriment to detail in the shadows.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera low-light Authentic color samples

The Xiaomi 13 has an automatic Night mode that triggers when the phone deems the environment too dark and is indicated by a small red moon icon in the corner of the viewfinder. Beyond that, there is also a manual Night mode, which is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it contains light sources better and sharpens finer detail a bit more.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera Night mode samples

However, often times it also produces darker photos, with less visible detail in darker areas of the frame.

Shooting Night mode photos in Leica Authentic color mode only further exacerbates the issue and produces darker images still. You should really avoid doing so.

Xiaomi 13: 12.5MP main camera Night mode Authentic color samples

The ultrawide camera does a decent job in low light but is far from spectacular. Detail is plenty, contrast looks good, and both shadows and highlights are well handled.

Xiaomi 13: 12MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

However, there is noticeable softness, especially on uniform surfaces and more so near the edges of the frame. Colors look good in the default Leica Vibrant mode. We won't be including any more Leica Authentic samples since these share the same brightness issues across all of the cameras on the Xiaomi 13.

Just like on the main cam, Night mode is a bit of a mixed bag on the ultrawide. It handles light sources a bit better and makes the whole scene look slightly more detailed, thanks to some extra sharpening.

Xiaomi 13: 12MP ultrawide camera Night mode samples

However, it can result in a visibly darker shot, which is not exactly a pleasing look.

The telephoto camera holds its own decently well in low light but is nothing to phone home about. There is plenty of detail in these shots. Light sources are handled very well. Contrast is good too.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera low-light samples

The one complaint we have is that these shots look a bit soft. Not really noisy, though, which is great to see, just soft. Night mode generally takes care of that by additionally sharpening up lines. Once again, however, despite sharing the same exposure, Night mode shots look noticeably darker and can sacrifice some detail in the shadows.

Xiaomi 13: 10MP telephoto camera Night mode samples

Low-light selfies look good with a decent amount of detail, pleasant skin tones and even some skin texture intact.

Xiaomi 13: 32MP selfie camera low-light samples

The background in these shots tends to be pretty noisy and soft, though.

Night mode cleans that up nicely. Again, it tends to darken the shots a bit, but it seems to be to a much more reasonable degree. We would definitely recommend night mode for the selfie cam.

Xiaomi 13: 32MP selfie camera Night mode samples

The Xiaomi 13 captures very good low-light video with its main camera at both 8K and 4K. Detail is plenty, colors look good, and light sources are well-handled. There is low noise too.

The ultrawide camera struggles quite a bit. While usable, its videos are pretty dark and generally soft and a bit noisy. Light sources are blown out. Colors still look good, though.

Telephoto videos are a bit more impressive than the ultrawide ones, but not by much. The detail is there, contrast is good, and so are colors. Everything in frame, however, is decidedly soft.