Xiaomi 13 Pro long-term review

Performance, smoothness

The Xiaomi 13 Pro is the smoothest feeling smartphone we've ever reviewed long-term. So far, at least. The difference between the 13 Pro and last year's smoothness king, the OnePlus 10 Pro, isn't huge, but it's noticeable for sure. And the difference between the 13 Pro and any other smartphone out there is clearly observable after a few minutes of playing with this one and then going back to anything else.

Performance-wise, this is a beast, just as you'd expect from a smartphone that's powered by what is still the best performing chipset in the Android world. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is simply faster than its predecessor, and while it may not be by much, it's pretty clear in day to day tasks even, not to mention gaming. That said, the 8 and 8+ Gen 1 aren't slouches either, but the improved thermals of the current generation really do let the chip shine more.

Battery life, charging

The Xiaomi 13 Pro's 4,820 mAh cell may not seem like all that much, since most of its competitors go with 5,000 mAh, but paired with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and MIUI 14 it's delivered outstanding longevity. We always managed to finish a day on one charge, we never had a need for a midday top-up with our use case, detailed below.

That said, even if we had needed such top-ups, the 120W charging would have made them a few-minute affair every single time. Consider the fact that this phone charges from zero to full in a measly 22 minutes. That's still insane to this day, even though it's been a while now since Xiaomi introduced 120W charging, but it continues to seem like more or less a miracle compared to what other companies are doing (looking at you, Apple, Samsung, and Google!). Yes you do need to carry the bundled charger and cable with you to get such a charge rate, but we think that's a small price to pay in order to basically fully relinquish any battery anxiety you might have.

Now, while we were very happy with the battery life we got every single day, we were very unhappy with the fact that MIUI 14 on the 13 Pro doesn't give us a screen on time number. We assume this is a bug, but it's still not been fixed, many months after the phone's launch. So we simply can't give you our usual screenshots showing screen on times on different days so you can get an idea of what it was like - you will, unfortunately, have to take our word for it. This felt like one of the best battery performers we've reviewed long-term in the past few months.

No screen on time anywhere

Xiaomi used to skimp on wireless charging many years ago, but now thankfully that's not a thing anymore, at least at this price, so you do get 50W wireless charging - though you do need a special charger to reach that speed. With a run of the mill Qi charger you won't be anywhere near that, but it could still find its use for overnight charging, for example.

As usual, our use case involves around 12-17 hours off the charger in a day starting from full, with primarily Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, about an hour or so on 5G, Bluetooth always on, an hour or two of listening to music or podcasts via TWS earbuds, an hour or so of phone calls, and about half an hour of GPS navigation via Waze (with location turned on all the time, including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi scanning).

The normal caveat applies: if your use case is more extreme than ours, and especially if you spend a lot of time where Wi-Fi and mobile network signals aren't great, then you'll get worse battery life than we did. It might still be good, just not outstanding, so keep that in mind.