This smartphone surprised me. It’s that time of the year again so Xiaomi released their mid-generation refresh of the T-series smartphone. This time, the entire T-series is going for full MediaTek – at least for this generation. And this MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ is no joke.
Performance
So, let’s now talk about the gaming test. This phone comes with the Dimensity 9200+ chipset and as what we’ve shown in the gaming test video that you can watch at the top right corner – it can maintain 60fps in Genshin Impact at the highest graphical setting.
However, there are two things that I want to highlight.
- I don’t know the render resolution – but the performance could be very close to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
- The efficiency while we’re playing games isn’t exactly the best. The skin temperature is indeed higher than slightly higher than the Snapdragon counterpart – but we can’t say anything concrete as we’re only measuring the skin temperature and not the real temperature of the chipset itself.
Still, it’s an amazing chipset nonetheless. I really do think that MediaTek is doing a good job. Should Snapdragon be worried? Hmmm… do let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Battery life
I think we need to talk about the battery life now. It has a 5,000mAh capacity and I think it is a dual-cell design. The battery life is pretty good as we ran the PCMark battery life test at 100 nits brightness – and it can last for slightly more than 12 hours.
If we put this number in comparison with the Xiaomi 13 with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for example, it is clear that the MediaTek 9200+ isn’t as efficient. The resolution isn’t really the problem here either as the Galaxy S23 Ultra also has better battery life than this Xiaomi 13T Pro.
Charging speed with 120W charger
However, one special feature this phone has up its sleeve is the 120W charging. There’s even a GaN charger in the box too – but unfortunately, it uses its own proprietary charging standard so we can’t use this charger to charge our laptop for example.
Anyway, if we just plug it into the charger and charge it, we can get to 100% in about half an hour. The temperature while charging is fairly decent as it is at around 37.5°C at most.
We can further boost up the charging speed by going into the settings menu and find this option. Enabling the Boost Charging option allows the phone to go up to the true 120W charging speed – but I think it’s not worth doing. Yes, we can charge to 100% in less than 20 minutes but the temperature goes beyond 45°C most of the time. That’s not particularly healthy for your battery – especially in the long term.
And just to show you what “proprietary charging standard” means, we also did the charging test once more with our Ugreen 140W GaN charger that supports USB-PD standards – but our wattmeter says the phone only takes in 25W max. As we can see from this graph, it takes around 50 minutes to charge completely, but the temperature is really good.
I should also highlight the lack of wireless charging on this phone. It’s just not there.
Cameras
Okay, now let’s talk about the cameras. We have triple cameras and the specs of each camera is as shown on the screen here. All three cameras are using lenses that are co-created by Leica – I think that’s the correct terminology? It’s sort of like the lenses are made by Xiaomi, but approved by Leica.
To have a look at all the pictures taken with the Xiaomi 13T Pro, watch our video at the top of this review.
Oh – the camera app got a new interface too. A few things I want to highlight here – the camera settings is split into this new grid-like interface and also within the usual camera settings menu. Because of this new interface, I needed some time to find the grid option since it has been moved. Definitely needed some time to learn this new interface.
Also, if you want to use manual mode to take pics on this phone, then it’s actually quite good now since the new interface is designed for single-handed usage.
Software
While we’re on that subject, let’s talk about the software. This Xiaomi 13T Pro is using the MIUI 14.0.6 on top of Android 13 – and as usual, the settings menu in MIUI is still a mess. Finding the screen timeout option is still not within the Display menu, but it’s in this menu instead.
The amount of bloatware is still considered minimal in this case, but I still don’t understand why this GetApps exists. We have to use this to update Xiaomi’s apps now but we can update them in the Google Play Store as well… so why does the GetApps exist?
Eh, other than that, MIUI hasn’t changed so that’s about it. But what has changed though, is Xiaomi’s software update policy. Finally – they’re upping their game to 4 generations of Android OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches, matching Samsung’s software update policy. We did ask Xiaomi about the frequency of the updates but we didn’t get any solid answer as of now.
Display
The phone is also using a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a rather high resolution of 2712×1220 pixels and can go up to 144Hz refresh rate. That’s fancy. Our colorimeter reports that this display can cover 100% of sRGB and 97.84% of DCI-P3 color gamuts – while maintaining a rather good ΔE number.
Even the maximum brightness is at around 1200 nits – and with all things considered, this is a very good display.
Xiaomi also stated that this phone is using 2880Hz PWM dimming – which I have no idea how that’ll affect those who are sensitive to PWM dimming. If you are sensitive to PWM dimming, do leave a comment down below. I have some questions for you.
By the way, the under-display fingerprint scanner is placed waaaaaay too low and it’s just not ergonomic to use.
Design
All of these hardware is encased in this design. If you already saw how the Redmi K60 Ultra looks, then this is pretty much identical. I don’t know why Xiaomi stuck with this glossy finish as I personally preferred a matte finish – and this camera bump is still ridiculously large.
It catches dust around the perimeter too – and it’s pretty much impossible to clean since it’s a fingerprint magnet.
Few more things to mention
However, this phone does have IP68-rating which is excellent. It also has double SIM card slots in case you want to use that feature – but there is no microSD card slot.
Unfortunately, it is still using a USB 2.0 port and copying files out takes forever. 1GB should be an instant – not 2 minutes. It still doesn’t support display output over USB-C, by the way.
Should you buy the Xiaomi 13T Pro?
The price is what surprised me the absolute most. If we compare back to last generation’s pricing, then I’m sure you’ll be surprised too. It got a price drop and RAM upgrade. If you got your wallet out and want to buy the Xiaomi 13T Pro this instant, then I suggest you buy either the 256GB or 512GB variant. That 1TB variant… well, that price hike is intense and the RAM extra is pretty much useless – watch our video at the top right corner to know why.
The only benefit you’ll be getting is of course – 1TB worth of storage. I think that’s quite a bad idea since transferring files out of this phone takes forever with its USB 2.0 port. Uploading and downloading from the cloud will literally be faster – if you have the internet speed.
So finally – is this phone a good buy? I think yes, it is a strong contender within this price and I don’t think there is any alternative for these specs at this price point as of now. By the time you watch this video, that might change – so you do subscribe to get in the loop. we’ll see you in the next video.
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hour. That’s insanely fast and definitely a standout feature. Overall, I’m quite impressed with this smartphone. The MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ chipset is powerful and can handle gaming at the highest graphical settings. The battery life is decent, although not as efficient as some other models. But the 120W charging is a game changer.
Great review 👍🏻
Do you like the 13T Pro over the 13T non pro?
Both are very different phones – but I have to choose between the two, I’ll go for the Pro