Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G Review: A Wellrounded Phone With An Ageold Flaw
The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G is a significant improvement over its predecessor in many ways: a new premium design, IP68 rating, almost twice the screen brightness, a faster processor, an improved camera, an in-display fingerprint sensor and more. These updates also set it apart from the competition, but there is one area where it falls behind, and that's performance. IQOO Neo 7 Pro and OnePlus Nord 3 outperform Redmi Note 13 Pro+ in synthetic tests and real games.
The popular Xiaomi Redmi Note series has consistently offered premium features to the people of India at affordable prices. This year is no exception. The Redmi Note 13 series kicks off the new year with two major features, a new design language and impressive specs. I was given the premium Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G for review and I was immediately impressed by its design language.
The first positive impression was left when we went through the higher spec range. There were a lot of things I liked about the new phone during testing; But several questions also arise. Priced at INR 31,999, it competes with several heavyweights in the segment including iQOO Neo 7 Pro ( review ), OnePlus Nord 3 ( review ) and Motorola Edge 40 ( review ). Let's dive into the detailed review of the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G to see if it's worth your money.
Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G review: build and design
Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G is a stylish phone with a distinctive design. The vegan leather back panel features a color block with various pastel shades of purple, blue and green adorning the back. It's a Fusion Purple color option that highlights the design. It stands out from the competition with its original and elegant appearance. The colored blocks have a specific component or logo: the left block has three cameras, the top right block has a dual LED flash, and the bottom block has Redmi branding. The bottom keeps it simple with just the 5G logo.
This phone is very slim and comfortable thanks to the curved front and back panels. However, it's not as heavy as the Moto Edge 40, which weighs just 171 grams. Despite this, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ looks sleek and stylish for the price. The chassis is made of plastic but has an aluminum look which gives it a more premium look. The buttons are nice and nice to the touch, but not to the point of being annoying.
The curved display on the front looks very premium and stylish. The bezels are very slim with a screen-to-body ratio of 89.7%. One of the best features of this phone is its IP68 dust and water resistance rating. Something only the Moto Edge 40 offers at this price.
How good is the offer?
Xiaomi released the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ display. The phone has a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel with a resolution of 1.5K and a refresh rate of 120Hz. Not only that, it also comes with Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support and a maximum brightness of 1800 nits! Add to that Gorilla Glass Victus protection and it's the best display in this price range.
The screen is very bright and clear and the viewing angles are fantastic. It reached over 1,400 nits in our brightness tests, so viewing the screen is no problem even in bright sunlight. HDR content looks great with gorgeous colors and high detail. The phone supports more than 68 billion colors, the highest in the industry. It also has 1920Hz PWM dimming which is completely safe for your eyes even in low light conditions. The phone also has speakers that support Dolby Atmos, but I found them to be quite weak. It would be better to use headphones.
Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G review: Performance
Compared to ultra-fast rivals like the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the OnePlus Nord 3, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ fares well in terms of performance. Unfortunately, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ falls short of the raw power that its competitors offer. This phone packs a MediaTek Dimensity 7200-Ultra chipset with 8/12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256/512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The Dimensity 7200-Ultra has a maximum clock speed of 2.85 GHz, which is significantly lower than the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and OnePlus Nord 3 processors.
As expected, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G performed poorly in synthetic tests. The phone's AnTuTu and GeekBench scores outperformed the iQOO Neo 7 Pro's Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC and the OnePlus Nord 3's Dimensity 9000 SoC. However, the phone only managed to beat the Motorola Edge 40 on AnTuTu and later failed GeekBench Multi-Core . . It scored a decent PCMark score of 11,983.
In the GPU tests, the phone refused to run a number of benchmarks such as 3D Mark and GFXBench. Then I moved on to actually testing the game and the results were wonderful; Not as innovative as the category leader iQOO Neo 7 Pro, but still powerful. I was able to play Call of Duty: Mobile at high graphics and frame rates with minimal crashes and lag. The phone also does a good job with temperature control.
In day-to-day tasks, the phone has excellent multitasking capabilities and delivers good overall performance with minimal glitches. So, while it doesn't break benchmarks, it's still a fast and reliable phone that appeals to most users.
It's not the performance, it's the interface that takes points from the performance section. The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G comes with MIUI 14 based on Android 13, so you won't get HyperOS right away, and you'll also be treated to a lot of software pre-installed on the phone. It includes random apps like PhonePe, Netflix, Snapchat, Linkedin, YT Music and nine pre-installed games. There are also a number of Xiaomi apps that come with this phone. However, software support has improved, with 3 years of operating system updates and 4 years of security updates promised.
Is the camera good?
The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ comes with a new triple camera setup: a 200MP Samsung ISOCELL HP3 camera with OIS and EIS capabilities, an 8MP wide-angle camera, and a 2MP macro camera. This sensor is capable of capturing a lot of detail in ideal lighting, but in my experience it struggles in low light.
The main camera takes clear and detailed photos with decent colors. Dynamic creative is trendy in some situations, but in most cases you end up with powerful shots worthy of social media. Natural bokeh is strong thanks to the size of the lens, and the camera focuses on subjects quite easily even in good lighting.
Portrait-style images look bright and edge detection is impressive, but there's a hint of softness. The 8MP wide-angle lens does a good job of capturing detailed images in daylight with minimal smoothness around the edges. The 2-megapixel macro camera can't handle blurry and grainy shots. The 16-megapixel selfie camera is good, but nothing to write home about; you can expect good photos in bright daylight and soft photos in low light.
In low light, I noticed quite a bit of noise creeping into the image, and the dynamic range also dropped, especially in the shadow areas. Video, meanwhile, is disappointing: the rear camera only supports 4K video at a maximum speed of 30fps, and the front-facing camera doesn't support it at all. However, the video stabilization of the rear camera has been increased compared to the previous generation.
Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G review: battery life
The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G has a 5000 mAh battery and can easily last all day. Battery life is as good as the competition, though not groundbreaking. I spent the day playing games, running tests, clicking photos and surfing the web with 10% battery left at 9pm. In our 4K loop video test, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ lasted 13 hours and 9 minutes.
The phone supports 120W super fast charging, although the charging speed is faster than most of the competition. You can fully charge this phone from scratch in 20 minutes (you need to enable maximum charging speed in settings first), which is pretty impressive. The phone gets very hot during this process.
Should I buy the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G?
The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G is a significant improvement over its predecessor in many ways: a new premium design, IP68 rating, almost twice the screen brightness, faster processor, improved camera, in-display fingerprint sensor and more. These updates also set it apart from the competition, but there is one area where it falls behind, and that's performance. IQOO Neo 7 Pro and OnePlus Nord 3 outperform Redmi Note 13 Pro+ in synthetic tests and real games.
Also, this phone doesn't come with HyperOS and Android 14 like the upcoming POCO X6 Pro will. The phone is loaded with viruses that take away the premium factor. If you can get past the bugs, the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ is definitely a well-designed phone; It won't win awards for its performance, but it will certainly be popular due to the many features and specifications it offers.
