Xiaomi Redmi 13 5G First Impressions: Another 5G Winner?
If priced aggressively, don’t be surprised if the Redmi 13 5G becomes one of the best-selling 5G phones in India for the year 2024.
When Xiaomi launches a Redmi smartphone, it is often an event because its Redmi devices are among the most popular smartphones in the country, aimed at the masses and first-time smartphone buyers. Xiaomi has become the brand whose ringtone has become ubiquitous in the country, much like what Nokia used to be back in the day. The new Redmi 13 5G is an impressive kit for what it is, competing in the sub Rs 15,000 price segment. I had some one-on-one time with the phone, which I feel could be one of the phones to beat if someone is looking for an affordable smartphone.
Design-wise, this phone elicits a level of polish often associated with the Redmi Note brand, featuring a dual gloss design with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 on the front. It is an attractive phone with symmetrical sides and edges, which gives it an iPhone-like feel. It also gets some really attractive colours which could catch the fancy of a gen-z audience.This is also the first phone by Xiaomi at this price point to provide IP53 water and dust resistance. The 6.79-inch display looked very nice, with good levels of brightness that would be adequate even under scorching sunlight.
The rear of the phone features a dual camera array, which Xiaomi calls the infinite camera deco — that also includes a ring flash-like assembly which surely would come in handy when shooting photos in low light. And of course, it helps that Xiaomi is now using a 108-megapixel sensor by Samsung leveraging ISOCELL technology as the primary camera, which should take much better photos than its predecessor. But at the moment, this is conjecture, and I will have more findings when I review the phone. This sensor also enables 3x in-sensor crop, so basically lossless zoom. There is also a 2-megapixel macro camera that doubles as a depth sensor for portrait mode photos.
This phone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4 Gen 2E coupled with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. Now, this may not seem a lot, but considering this is also one of the first Redmi phones to get HyperOS, Xiaomi’s latest operating system, which is based on Android 14, this seems like a pretty responsive device. In my 15-20 minutes of use with the phone, it seemed swift, and it had surprisingly very limited bloatware, which is a big win. Xiaomi also promises 2 years of software updates and 4 years of security updates.
It also gets a side-mounted fingerprint scanner that worked quite reliably, and it also gets a headphone jack, which is much appreciated by the audiophile in me, as I like to plug in my wired earphones over TWS. Battery life should also be excellent on this device considering the frugal Snapdragon chip and a pretty big 5,030mAh battery which also gets a 33W charger in the box. Of course, I haven’t run any battery tests or run the phone fully for even a single day. But more on this in the main review.
Overall, it seems like Xiaomi has another winner on its hands. If priced aggressively, don’t be surprised if the Redmi 13 5G becomes one of the best-selling 5G phones in India for the year 2024, though just wait on for our final verdict.
