Xiaomi Redmi 13 5G hands-on review

Software

The Redmi 13 5G comes with Xiaomi HyperOS running on top of Android 14. The company has promised two major Android updates and four years of security updates for the device. Moreover, Xiaomi also promises 36 months of lag-free experience, something we haven't seen before.

The software experience on the Redmi 13 5G is similar to other Xiaomi HyperOS devices. The difference is that being an entry-level device, many of the UI flourishes, such as icon animations and transparency effects are disabled to maintain performance. This is similar to the non-5G model.

Since our Redmi 13 5G review unit was from India, it came with the usual set of annoyances unique to the Indian models. This mainly included an astonishing amount of bloatware (we counted 17 third-party apps) on top of the apps from Google and Xiaomi, many of which were duplicated (two app stores, two photo galleries, two file managers, etc.). Then there are also the advertisements and forced recommendations within apps, which even come in the form of push notifications.

Bloatware

Aside from that, this is your typical HyperOS experience, which we have covered in detail in our review here (Xiaomi HyperOS (Android 14) review - GSMArena.com news).

Performance

The Redmi 13 5G runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 AE chipset, which is the same chip as on last year's Redmi 12 5G but with a 100MHz boost on the two Cortex A78 cores. Aside from that, the specs are identical. Our review unit came with 8GB of memory although there is also a variant available with 6GB. All models get 128GB storage.

While it would have been nice to see a newer chip, the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 still performs quite well, with the Redmi 13 5G providing very usable performance in everyday apps. You can tell why Xiaomi feels confident claiming three years of lag-free experience on the device and while we can't verify that yet, the claim seems plausible.

Of course, being a low-end chip, it doesn't quite have the horsepower on tap for running demanding games. However, if you are mostly into lightweight titles, then you should be able to get by fine.

GeekBench 6

• Multi-core
• Single-core

Redmi 13 5G

2263

SM4450 Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 AE 128GB, 8GB RAM

Redmi 12 5G

2183

Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 256GB, 8GB RAM

Tecno Pova 5 Pro

2102

Dimensity 6080 256GB, 8GB RAM

Galaxy A25

2098

Exynos 1280 128GB, 6GB RAM

Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro

1979

Helio G99 Ultra 512GB, 12GB RAM

Redmi Note 13 5G

1978

Dimensity 6080 256GB, 8GB RAM

Poco M6 5G

1954

Dimensity 6100+ 256GB, 8GB RAM

Galaxy A14 5G

1839

MT6833 Dimensity 700 64GB, 4GB RAM

Galaxy A15 5G

1763

Dimensity 6100+ 128GB, 4GB RAM

Redmi 13

1342

Helio G91 Ultra 128GB, 6GB RAM

Galaxy A06

1276

Helio G85 64GB, 4GB RAM

Galaxy A25

971

Exynos 1280 128GB, 6GB RAM

Redmi 13 5G

968

SM4450 Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 AE 128GB, 8GB RAM

Redmi 12 5G

921

Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 256GB, 8GB RAM

Redmi Note 13 5G

780

Dimensity 6080 256GB, 8GB RAM

Tecno Pova 5 Pro

765

Dimensity 6080 256GB, 8GB RAM

Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro

731

Helio G99 Ultra 512GB, 12GB RAM

Poco M6 5G

703

Dimensity 6100+ 256GB, 8GB RAM

Galaxy A14 5G

694

MT6833 Dimensity 700 64GB, 4GB RAM

Galaxy A15 5G

682

Dimensity 6100+ 128GB, 4GB RAM

Galaxy A06

410

Helio G85 64GB, 4GB RAM

Redmi 13

406

Helio G91 Ultra 128GB, 6GB RAM

AnTuTu 10

Galaxy A25

480771

Exynos 1280 128GB, 6GB RAM 1080 x 2340 px

Redmi Note 13 5G

455421

Dimensity 6080 256GB, 8GB RAM 1080 x 2400 px

Redmi 13 5G

442953

SM4450 Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 AE 128GB, 8GB RAM 1080 x 2460 px

Redmi 12 5G

434114

Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 256GB, 8GB RAM 1080 x 2460 px

Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro

428531

Helio G99 Ultra 512GB, 12GB RAM 1080 x 2400 px

Tecno Pova 5 Pro

423437

Dimensity 6080 256GB, 8GB RAM 1080 x 2460 px

Poco M6 5G

407997

Dimensity 6100+ 256GB, 8GB RAM 720 x 1600 px

Galaxy A15 5G

364663

Dimensity 6100+ 128GB, 4GB RAM 1080 x 2340 px

Redmi 13

262438

Helio G91 Ultra 128GB, 6GB RAM 1080 x 2460 px

Galaxy A06

247675

Helio G85 64GB, 4GB RAM 720 x 1600 px

3DMark (offscreen) - Wild Life (1440p)

Galaxy A25

2320

Exynos 1280 Mali-G68 1080 x 2340 px

Tecno Pova 5 Pro

1334

Dimensity 6080 Mali-G57 MC2 1080 x 2460 px

Redmi Note 13 5G

1334

Dimensity 6080 Mali-G57 MC2 1080 x 2400 px

Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro

1245

Helio G99 Ultra Mali-G57 MC2 1080 x 2400 px

Galaxy A15 5G

1222

Dimensity 6100+ Mali-G57 MC2 1080 x 2340 px

Poco M6 5G

1202

Dimensity 6100+ Mali-G57 MC2 720 x 1600 px

Galaxy A14 5G

1197

MT6833 Dimensity 700 Mali-G57 MC2 1080 x 2408 px

Galaxy A06

749

Helio G85 Mali-G52 MC2 720 x 1600 px

Redmi 13

725

Helio G91 Ultra Mali-G52 MC2 1080 x 2460 px

Redmi 13 5G

702

SM4450 Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 AE Adreno 613 1080 x 2460 px

Redmi 12 5G

665

Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Adreno 613 1080 x 2460 px

An advantage of having a low-power chipset is that cooling is a non-issue. The phone barely even gets warm to the touch and even under demanding benchmark workflows, there was little to no thermal throttling.

Thermal throttling test