Xiaomi 13 Pro long-term review

Design

It's getting harder and harder to write this section of a long-term review with each one we do. Most high-end phones are a slab of glass with some metal sandwiched in between for good measure. Guess what? The Xiaomi 13 Pro is like this too. Some high-end phones (but less and less by the day) have screen glass that curves on the sides. The Xiaomi 13 Pro is one of those, and despite the haters, we still love both the look of curved glass and the feel it enables when performing the Back gesture. It's just way smoother when it's curved.

Speaking of the curved glass, we can practically read the "but accidental touches!" comments, and, as usual, we have to mention that, for us, these have only ever been problematic on Samsung smartphones with curved screens - and even there, the situation has been getting progressively better over the past few years.

Second, if you use such a device with a case, as most people do, 99% of those accidental touches go away simply by virtue of the case being there. Finally, if neither of these arguments has convinced you yet, you'll be happy to know that Xiaomi has implemented a special setting that lets you adjust the sensitivity around the curves. We never needed to use this, but it's there to assuage your fears if you need it.

Ignore accidental touch on the edges settings

From the front, as you'd expect, the Xiaomi 13 Pro looks like a high-end smartphone released in the past few years. It's almost all screen and has a centered hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera. The bezels aren't symmetrical, which is a shame at this price point (Nothing was able to do it on a much cheaper device, so surely Xiaomi could too) - the bottom bezel is thicker than the rest.

The metal frame is tiny because of the way both the front glass and the back ceramic curve into it, and that makes picking this phone up not the easiest experience. 90-98% of what you're touching is slippery (glass or ceramic), and the frame itself isn't non-slippery, it's just a tad less. Once you have managed to pick it up, though, using it is made very comfortable by the same curves we described earlier - you win some, you lose some, as they say.

The camera island on the rear is massive and a square with rounded corners - the shape somehow makes it look bigger than it is. There's no escaping ginormous camera islands on a flagship device these days, even Apple's doing it. So it is what it is. On the funny side, it's so huge that you won't have any wobble when typing while the phone is sitting on its back on a hard surface, only when you try and touch something in the top left part of the screen.

We wouldn't call this the ugliest camera island we've seen, but it's definitely not pretty. It just feels functional and, to some extent, to the detriment of aesthetics we'd say. Then again, the great thing about a camera island, any camera island really, is that it's on the part of the phone you aren't looking at most of the time.

Our black ceramic review unit's back is shiny, mirror-like, and extremely slippery, as you'd expect from ceramic. It looks pretty, though, and even a little bit bling - just an ever so slight embellishment to the otherwise boring colorway comes from how the rear plays with light constantly. This material does like to show fingerprints too - it's not as bad as the worst shiny glass offenders, but it is close.

Box contents, handling

With all of these slipperiness considerations in mind, you will probably rock a case with this phone, and thankfully - there's one in the box! Xiaomi is quickly becoming one of a very select few companies that still do this, and it's great to see, even if what you're getting isn't a very high quality shock-absorbent case. But it's there and you don't have to use your brand new Xiaomi 13 Pro 'naked' if you don't want to.

Speaking of the box contents, a 120W charger is provided too, as it should be since the insanely fast charging is definitely one of this phone's main selling points. After all, it's the fastest charging of the entire 13 family, even outdoing the Ultra. So the box is pretty packed, the phone looks high-end because it is, and handling is about what you'd expect for a mainstream-sized phone of today.

As usual, people with small hands - the vanilla 13 is for you. Everyone else - you've already had a phone that's sized similarly, so there shouldn't be any issues, but if you aren't planning on using the case, do bear in mind everything we just said about slipperiness. Build quality is perfect, of course.

Speakers

The Xiaomi 13 Pro's speakers are as good as the best out there on a slab-style phone that isn't gaming-oriented. You simply won't be left wanting with these, not when it comes to volume, and not when it comes to quality - although for this you need to always remember how tiny phone speakers really are, so while there is a little bit of bass on offer here, if you like loads of it, you'll love headphones, and TWS earbuds, and Bluetooth speakers much more. It's just how it is.

That aside, there's nothing bad to say about these speakers. They're just amazing, at least for where the tech is today. Perhaps in the future phones will get even better speakers in mainstream slab-style smartphones, but for now, these will serve anyone well. Of course, if you're listening in a very loud environment, you may have to bring your phone closer to your ear - but much less so than with others, and it happens at a higher ambient volume than with most.

Vibration motor

The vibration motor is actually a very similar story to the speakers. The Xiaomi 13 Pro's is as good as the best out there. It doesn't necessarily stand above all others, or if it does, it's only by a tad, but it's as good as the best out there which means it is the best out there (hopefully that makes sense).

It has depth, its vibrations are precise, they aren't jarring, it's just a joy to feel in day to day use, and MIUI still employs a few nice vibrating touches throughout the interface, though it does seem like they've toned the nudges down in the past year or so, which is a shame if true.

Haptic feedback level slider

There's also a vibration intensity slider you can play with to get it just right for your particular taste. Overall, this is outstanding and you will definitely feel like you're getting your money's worth.