Xiaomi 13T Pro long-term review

Design, handling

From the front, the Xiaomi 13T Pro gives off the vibe of a late-2023 high-end phone. They all kind of look the same, let's face it. The minute differences these days are whether or not the screen is curved (it's not, in this case) and bezel size and symmetry (or lack thereof). The center-aligned hole-punch camera is a staple in almost all Android devices, and the 13T Pro is no exception to that rule.

Speaking of bezels, the top one seems to be the same size as the side bezels, but the bottom one is ever so slightly thicker. Not so much that everyone would instantly notice, however - you need to peek a lot to figure it out, and the screen needs to show white or light color content for it to be more observable. But it is one of those things that, once you have seen it, it will subtly inform you that this isn't among the most expensive smartphones out there at the current moment - those all have more symmetry and some even pack thinner bezels too.

The frame is plastic, or at least plastic-covered (the dead giveaway is the lack of antenna line cutouts throughout). It's sort of, but not quite entirely matched to the color of the rear on our blue review unit, and while it is flat, it doesn't give off that iPhone look because of how thin it is on the sides and how the rear panel curves into it. It's a bit of a weird design in this case because the screen isn't curved. We appreciate the symmetric look created when both the screen and the rear curve into the frame, but here it just seems like we're literally halfway there with the flat panel. Still, it's probably not something most people will notice or care about.

Handling is great even with the thin frame since your hand is gripping the back and its curviness helps. Our review unit has a faux leather rear, and this reviewer really likes these, even though some people dismiss them as 'cheap plastic'. The latter, yes. The former, not really. The pattern feels good in the hand on this one, and the color is very nice too - it does catch almost everyone's attention, for what it's worth.

The feeling you get once you slap the bundled case onto the phone is the opposite of good - there's a huge gap between how luxurious the faux leather feels and how very cheap-feeling the case is. We still commend Xiaomi for actually shipping one in the box, but this almost seems like it's intentionally cheapened as if to get you to just use the phone without it.

The camera island is a rectangular monstrosity this time around, with sloped sides. It's definitely not the prettiest out there, not by a long stretch, but it's also, in this reviewer's opinion, slightly better looking than the one on the 12T Pro, so... progress? The usual caveat applies here - how much are you actually looking at it on a day-to-day basis? Probably not a lot.

The Leica branding comes with additional information about the range the cameras cover, which we much prefer over nonsensical terms like "AI camera" seen in other devices, including lower-tier offerings from Xiaomi and its sub-brands. There isn't much else on the back aside from the Xiaomi brand and the regulatory text (thanks, EU!).

This isn't a light phone at all, but it manages to not cross the line into 'too unwieldy', at least for this reviewer. It is the tiniest amount top-heavy, but not so much that it's a hindrance in day-to-day use. It's got Xiaomi's favorite screen size, and so it's big for people with small hands, decent for those with medium sized hands, and perfectly okay for those with large hands. One-handed usability is therefore great for large hands, only reasonably adequate for those with medium hands, and definitely not good for those with small hands.

Overall the Xiaomi 13T Pro comes with a familiar and safe design on the front, and, honestly, a pretty boring rear that's only elevated in our review unit by the faux leather finish and the bright blue hue. That's perfectly fine for most people, however, so we can't say we dislike it - it's just not very exciting in any way. What is exciting is the IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, a first for the T series and a feature some 'flagship killers' still miss.

Vibration motor

The 13T Pro's vibration motor is very good, but it's lacking some crispness we've felt with the ones that we've rated "best nowadays", so it's not quite there, but pretty close in terms of feeling. The vibrations are good, they're just a bit more dull than what the best motors out there produce, hence we'd rate this as a tier A (using the oh-so-popular tier list format where the best is tier S, and the second best is tier A).

Haptic feedback settings

You can use a Haptic feedback level slider to customize the UI-related vibrations to your liking, and we found that we always max these out when we get them, in order to feel the maximum oomph that that motor is capable of delivering. Again, there's plenty of that, but not quite enough for our taste.

Speakers

The 13T Pro's speakers are very, very good. They are easily among the best speakers we've heard so far from a phone that we've reviewed long-term, in both maximum volume but also quality (as much as we can talk quality for speakers so tiny, of course).

Outside of very noisy environments, we never felt the need for more volume or needed to bring the phone closer to our ears to hear what's going on. That's not something that we can often say, and thus these feel like they're on par with any 2023-release mainstream flagship's speakers - which is especially impressive considering the handset's pricing which undercuts said those.

As usual Xiaomi opted to have the top speaker have two sound outputs, one being the earpiece, the other in the form of an oval cutout in the top side of the frame. This makes the sound fuller when you're playing media, but does have the side effect of 'leaking' sound around you when you're talking to someone on the phone. We've never had any issues with this in public, but whether you will like it or not probably depends most on your personal privacy tolerance. Of course you can just use some earbuds to fully mitigate this. We think the tradeoff is definitely worth it for the extra quality and volume you're getting when playing media.