Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 4G review

Display

The Redmi Note 13 packs a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel of the traditional extended 1080p resolution (395ppi). It supports a wide color gamut, 120Hz refresh rate and 960Hz PWM dimming. There is also a Gorilla Glass 3 protection.

According to the official specifications, the screen has up to 1,800nits of peak brightness.

We recorded 492nits of maximum brightness when controlling the brightness slider manually.

When using the Auto Brightness mode or with the Sunlight Boost enabled, the screen can be much brighter - up to 1,313 nits, to be specific.

The minimum brightness at point white was just 2.5 nits.

Refresh rate

The display supports a 120Hz refresh rate, and there are two refresh modes - Maximum and Standard.

Both Maximum and Standard are fixed steps and always offer 120Hz and 60Hz. The only time we saw the Maximum mode to use 60Hz was for video apps and playback and for apps incompatible with HRR, such as Maps and Camera.

HDR video

There is no HDR video support on the Redmi Note 13. Widevine DRM is level L1, which means you can stream in 1080p resolution.

Battery life

Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.

Welcome to one of the most important aspects of the Redmi Note 13 - the battery life. The phone runs on an energy-efficient chipset and has a large battery, so we expected above-average battery life.

The test scores, however, turned out average, maybe a bit above the average, but not as impressive as we'd hoped for them to be.

The Redmi Note 13 scores 11 hours and 52 minutes of Active Use Score in our default usage mix. It lasted almost a day on calls, over 11 hours on web browsing, nearly 14 hours on video streaming and 7+ hours running a game. This aligns with the Redmi Note 13 Pro 4G and is better than the Note 13 and Note 13 Pro 5G models.

Charging speed

The Redmi Note 13 supports 33W fast charging and it comes with a 33W power adapter and a 3A-rated USB cable.

We have completed our charging test with that adapter, and we can confirm that the Redmi Note 13 does indeed charge fast enough. The charger refilled 29% of the dead battery in 15 minutes, 51% in 30 minutes, and a full charge took 72 minutes.

Note that these new Note 13 models have this Charging Boost option in the advanced battery settings. It increases the charging speed when the screen is turned off. The difference is between 5%-7% in the first 30 mins. We carried out our test with this option actived.

Speakers - loudness and quality

The Redmi Note 13 has your typical hybrid stereo speaker setup. It has two speakers placed on its top and bottom sides behind dedicated grilles. The top speaker also acts as an earpiece, and that's why it has another front-facing outlet.

The speakers offer Dolby Atmos enhancement, but with or without it, we heard no difference.

The speakers on the Redmi Note 13 4G scored a Very Good mark on our loudness test. They do not sound incredibly loud in real life, but thanks to the focus on the high frequencies, they were able to score well. Other than that, the sound quality is mediocre - no bass, okay vocals, good even if a bit annoying high range.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.