Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro+ hands-on review

Design

Xiaomi has done a few interesting things with the design of the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G. For starters, this is the first Redmi phone to feature a curved display. There aren't many functional advantages to this design but it does look quite nice and since the company is starting to charge a premium for these phones they may as well look premium.

The back of the phone also has something interesting going on but only on one specific variant. The Fusion Purple model features a vegan leather back. Vegan leather sounds fancy but it's just another word for plastic. Anyway, the interesting thing is the use of multi-colored geometric segments that invoke the work of the famous Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, although with much more subtle colors.

Unfortunately, this interesting bit of design is exclusive to the Fusion Purple model, as the Fusion Black and the Fusion White pictured here feature a plain glass back with minor differences in the reflectivity of the material for the upper and lower portion of the panel. Still, some may prefer the glass back on the black and white models as it feels nicer in hand and will stain less than soft-touch plastic.

Sandwiched between the two glass panels is the plastic frame, which has been flattened on all four sides. With some skill and patience, you can make the phone stand on three of the four sides, should you have nothing better to do with your time.

The top of the phone features a cutout for the loudspeaker, microphones, and IR blaster. The bottom has another speaker, microphone, and the SIM tray. The right side has the power and volume buttons.

Aesthetically, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G does have the premium look and feel the company set out to achieve. But what makes it truly premium is the inclusion of IP68 dust and water resistance. This is on par with flagship devices from other manufacturers and a really nice thing to have, especially if you live or work in challenging weather conditions.

Display

The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G has a 6.67-inch, 2712 x 1220 resolution AMOLED display. The display can refresh up to 120Hz, has a peak brightness of 1800nits, 100% P3 coverage, and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.

The display has impressive image quality. Out of the box it is set to the typical cooler, saturated mode but can be switched to a standard sRGB mode through the settings, at which point it looks even more impressive and color-accurate. You can adjust the color gamut, RGB color balance, HSV, contrast, and gamma manually through advanced settings.

The display is capable of hitting 500 nits of brightness under typical conditions. It can reach up to 1200 nits globally under bright sunlight and the 1800 nits advertised figure is peak brightness that can be achieved for HDR although only for a small section of the display at a time or for very short durations.

Display settings

The display can refresh up to 120Hz but it can also drop down to 90Hz and 60Hz depending on content and app. It can also go down to 30Hz but only for the always-on display mode. The OS allows you to pick your refresh rate between 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz on a per-app basis. The YouTube app, for example, is set to 60Hz by default but can be increased to 120Hz. This doesn't affect fullscreen video playback, which is handled separately based on content frame rate, although the display will usually settle at 60Hz.

The phone supports all major HDR standards, including HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG. We were able to play Dolby Vision content locally as well as in the Netflix app.

Now for some complaints. The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G has a permanent sharpening and color enhancement filter applied for all video apps such as YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, and even the built-in Gallery app. This applies a very strong edge enhancement and saturation filter that looks extremely garish, especially in HDR content. Dolby Vision content seems exempt from the color enhancement but still gets oversharpened.

The worst part of this is that it's not optional and there is not much you can do to disable it. The phone already has a high-resolution display that renders a crisp image with good color saturation. Tacking on additional sharpening and color boost destroys the image and makes it look like something you'd find on a bargain basement television in your local electronics store. If Xiaomi must insist on including this abomination, the least it could do is provide an option to switch it off.

Another annoyance is that even though the phone has an 'always-on' mode, it doesn't actually stay on. Once enabled, it will only stay on for ten seconds and you have to tap the display to see the always-on screen after that. Talk about defeating the purpose of having an always-on mode.

The display has a built-in optical fingerprint scanner, which, interestingly enough, also doubles as a heart rate monitor. The option is buried a bit under the settings but once you find it, just hold your finger over the sensor and it will tell you your heart rate in real time. Neat.

Overall, there isn't a lot to complain about the display on the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G. The high brightness is especially useful when shooting outdoors in daylight. The only issue is the abhorrent image sharpening applied to all video apps. This should never be a forced option on any device and certainly not one claiming to be premium.

Battery and charging

The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G features a 5000mAh battery. We will be doing a full battery test in a full review but got good battery life from the phone during our everyday usage.

The supports 120W charging using Xiaomi's proprietary HyperCharge technology. Xiaomi claims it will take 19 minutes to charge the phone completely.

Using the supplied 120W charger in the box, it took the phone around 25 minutes to report 100% from 1%. We have gotten similar results in the past from other Xiaomi phones with a 5000mAh battery and 120W charging, and even then the company had claimed 19 minutes. We think Xiaomi should reconsider its advertised claims since they are consistently off the mark.

Still, 25 minutes is a very short amount of time to completely charge a 5000mAh battery and you can get around 70% in just 15 minutes or 30% in just five. That is very impressive but does require the use of Xiaomi's proprietary chargers.

Out of curiosity, we also tried to do a full charge with a 65W USB-PD charger and it took just over an hour, which is still pretty good.

Speakers

The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G has a set of stereo speakers, one within the earpiece and the other at the bottom of the phone. The earpiece speaker has an additional vent at the top of the device.

The speakers on the phone don't sound very good. The sound is fairly thin and while we won't use the word tinny there isn't much bass or body to the sound. On top of that, the speakers also don't get particularly loud for outdoor use, although they are adequate indoors. The two speakers are reasonably well balanced in tonality and volume when playing together but it was surprising to see the earpiece speaker having more body and bass than the bottom-firing speaker when played individually, as usually it's the other way around for most phones.

The phone supports Dolby Atmos codec and audio processing. It improves the spatial characteristics of the speakers when enabled while also making them sound more fleshed out in the lows and highs but only to a small degree.

The phone does support analog audio output through the USB-C port so you don't need to invest in aftermarket USB DACs for wired audio. Thankfully, you can disable Atmos and all other audio processing while using wired or wireless headphones.