Xiaomi 13 Pro review

Low-light photo quality

The Xiaomi 13 Pro, just like the 12S Ultra and many other Xiaomi, Samsung and Apple devices, offers auto Night mode processing in its Photo mode. It will apply whatever simulated exposure and stacking as it sees fit.

The Auto Night Mode is the default state, though we did turn it on and off for comparison purposes - the second and third sets of samples for each camera.

The default Auto low-light photos from the main camera are impressive, among the best nighttime images we've seen lately and rivaling only the ones coming from the same sensor (vivo X90 Pro, Xiaomi 12S Ultra). The resolved detail and overall rendition are class-leading, the dynamic range is impressively wide, and most of the highlights are handled with extreme proficiency.

The white balance is outstanding, and the colors retain a really nice level of saturation.

Night Mode triggers on almost most scenes, but it is a bit faster than if we were to force it manually.

Main camera, Auto

And here are a few samples shot with the Night Mode. They are similar to the default photos, though we can see some improvements in the skies, the overall contrast and dynamic range. There are deeper shadows at times and even more contained highlights. Sometimes we can see slightly more detail in foliage and random elements on buildings.

The Night Mode improvements of the Auto mode are marginal at best, and we'd stick to Auto for sure.

Main camera, Night Mode

Even without Night Mode, the primary camera offers class-leading photos. They have average dynamic range, evident by the blown highlights, but overall - the detail remains ground-breaking, the exposure is great, and the color rendition and noise reduction are thoroughly impressive.

Main camera, Auto OFF

The 2x zoomed photos at night look less like lossless zoom and more like regular digital one. Other than the halved detail, they are excellent across the board.

Main cam 2x, Auto

The 2x ones taken without Night Mode are still of the sort-of lossless kind with notably more detail and sharpness than the Auto output. They are as great as the 1x one and quite impressive for digitally zoomed ones.

Main cam 2x, Auto OFF

The Auto photos from the telephoto camera at night are incredibly detailed, with wide dynamic range, outstanding exposure and color saturation. The noise is impressively low, and we really liked their rendition.

Telephoto cam 3.2x, Auto

The Night Mode sometimes yields a bit more detail across areas of high complexity, but other than that - the photos look more or like the same as the Auto ones.

Telephoto cam 3.2x, Night Mode

Turning the Night Mode OFF on the zoom camera sometimes presents you with even more detailed photos, but they are darker and of lower dynamic range. Other times you will just get darker and noisier photos.

Telephoto cam 3.2x, Auto OFF

The Auto photos from the ultrawide camera are good. The resolved detail is satisfying, the noise is low, and the dynamic range is great. The colors remain saturated enough, too, and even if the pictures are a bit darker, they are still among the best low-light ultrawide ones we've seen.

Ultrawide camera, Auto

The Night Mode sometimes improves the skies and the dynamic range, but for the most part - the Night Mode and the Auto Mode offer similar, if not identical photos.

Ultrawide camera, Night Mode

Turning the Night Mode off will give you a bit darker and noisier photo, with still likable color saturation and enough detail.

Ultrawide camera, Auto OFF

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Xiaomi 13 Pro. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Xiaomi 13 Pro against the vivo X90 Pro and the Galaxy S23 Ultra in our Photo compare tool

Video recording and quality

The Xiaomi 13 Pro can record videos up to 4K60 with all three of its rear cameras, while 8K24 is available only for the main camera. You can choose between the h.264 codec (the one used by default) and the more efficient h.265. There's always-on stabilization across the board too.

The selfie camera is limited to 1080p@30fps, EIS is still available.

The video bitrate is about 50Mbps for the 4K footage and about 100Mbps for the 8K videos. Audio is always recorded in stereo with 320Kbps bitrate, and it always sounds great.

The 8K24 video from the main camera is great - there is a lot more detail than what we usually get from 8K footage from smaller sensors. Sure, some of the foliage and other random detail may look somewhat artificial, but the footage is detailed enough, the noise is low, the colors are accurate, and the dynamic range is impressive.

The 8K24 low-light footage is not bad, too. There is enough detail, the noise is kept reasonably low, colors are nice, but the dynamic range is rather low.

We can imagine only few of you will capture 8K videos, and those are limited to just few minutes, so let's move to the mainstream 4K resolution.

The 4K clips from the primary camera are superb - they offer a ton of resolved detail and balanced processing, the colors are vibrant and nice, the dynamic range is quite impressive, too, and the contrast is good. We can't see any noise present in the footage.

The 4K low-light videos present enough detail and good color saturation, and the noise is kept low enough. The videos are somewhat darker than we expected and have a low dynamic range.

The main camera also offers Night Mode 4K video capturing, which greatly improves the exposure and the dynamic range; the colors get a noticeable saturation boost, too. These perks are at the expense of a slight drop in the sharpness and contrast.

The 2x zoomed clips in both daylight and low-light conditions are just cropped and upscaled from the regular videos, meaning their detail is halved.

The telephoto camera captures superb 4K videos with plenty of detail, accurate colors, wide dynamic range, and well-handled noise. The contrast could have been a bit higher, but even as it is - the footage is great.

The 4K low-light videos from the telephoto camera are quite usable - the noise reduction is quite gentle, and there is enough detail even if accompanied by visible noise. The exposure is true-to-life, the dynamic range is okay, and the colors are good.

The 4K videos from the ultrawide camera are very good, too. Just like the rest of the cameras, this one captured detailed videos with excellent dynamic range, great color presentation, good contrast and natural rendering.

The low-light ultrawide videos are dark, noisy, and with low dynamic range. They are still usable, but that's the best we can say about them.

As we said, stabilization is available across all cameras, though the telephoto one relies only on optical one and doesn't use electronic stabilization.

The primary and the ultrawide cameras record well-stabilized videos, and we have no complaints at all.

Finally, the Xiaomi 13 Pro in our video comparison database.

2160p: Xiaomi 13 Pro against the vivo X90 Pro and the Galaxy S23 Ultra in our Video compare tool