I’ve been using the Xiaomi 13 Lite for three weeks , two of which as my main smartphone, and if you’re wondering why I’m only talking about it now, it’s for two reasons . The first is that it had unstable software when it came out: I wanted to wait for at least one update that improved stability and performance. The second reason is that I also wanted to wait for the official release of the Redmi Note 12 Pro , because their data sheet could have completely obscured this Xiaomi 13 Lite. Will it actually be like this?

Although we will return to the price at the end, I already tell you that we are talking about a price list that starts from € 499 for the 8 / 128GB version, € 100 more than the Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G and identical price to the Note 12 Pro + which, however, is only sold in the 8/256GB version , double the storage. For a fairly high list price, we still bring home a light and well-built smartphone with AMOLED E6 FHD + display, Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, 4500mAh battery with 67W fast charging and a “double” main selfie cam.

INDEX

• DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION QUALITY
• DISPLAY
• SOFTWARE
• DATA SHEET
• USER EXPERIENCE
• PHOTO AND VIDEO
• CONCLUSIONS
• PROS, CONS AND FINAL VOTE

CONSTRUCTION QUALITY AND DESIGN

Xiaomi 13 Lite turns out to be one of the most pleasant smartphones to hold and use in the mid-range thanks to its 7.1mm thick, 159mm high and 171 grams of weight , 16 less than the Note 12 Pro. the hand is still difficult but the grip given by the well-crafted, almost opaque rear glass is excellent. The curved edges on both sides match perfectly with the side frame which unfortunately is in chromed plastic, a visually impactful choice but over time it may not be very long-lasting. There are three colors officially on sale in our country, Black, Lite blue, Lite pink. 

The design turns out to be quite original compared to previous models. At sight, there is no doubt that it is a “premium” smartphone, slightly less to the touch due to the plastic frame. Some choices like the massive rear camera block didn’t win me over. In particular, the main chamber and the ultrawide one hidden inside the same porthole. The glass protecting the front display is Gorilla Glass 5.

Unlike the other Xiaomi 13, here we do not have holes in the upper part of the frame to let audio flow from the ear capsule which acts as a double speaker and we do not even find the IP68 certification, stopping at a mere IP53 , as for the Redmi Note 12. The Type C just like all the other Xiaomis it stops at the 2.0 standard while the trolley for the two sims, protected by a rubber pad, remained.

DISPLAY

To unlock this Xiaomi 13 Lite and be able to start appreciating its display, we can take advantage of the fingerprint sensor placed under the AMOLED display in an optimal position to be reached without having to mess around with the smartphone grip. Obviously there is also the 2D unlocking through face recognition, which takes place via the main front camera placed inside what we could call ” Static Island “, a central pill that contains the two front photographic sensors. Why “Static”? Well because there are no functions to animate it or make it interactive, it just takes up a lot of space, even if after a week of use I didn’t pay attention to it anymore, but we’ll talk about its uselessness later. 

Once the Xiaomi 13 Lite has been unlocked we are faced with a 6.5 “FHD + AMOLED display , a cross between the 6.3 of Xiaomi 13 and the 6.7 of Xiaomi 13 Pro albeit thanks to the narrow frames, the right curved edges and the its ease of use are pleasant.The display has remained, as for the other Xiaomi 13, an AMOLED E6 but with a maximum brightness of 1000Nits , support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision , among other things, all already well supported in third-party apps such as Netflix. The maximum refresh rate is 120Hz ; and I stress maximum because we lose that dynamism 1-120adopting a classic 30/60/120 scaling based on the displayed content. The AOD is the Xiaomi classic: nice indeed very nice graphically but not very useful. The specifications do not differ much from the panel that we find on the Redmi Note 12 Pro indeed, the similarities are many but we do not have curved edges on the latter. 

If the maximum brightness is 1000Nits it must be said that outdoors in automatic mode we are often on the maximum 500 Nits with a peak of about 900Nits recorded, just below the declared values. The panel boasts a supported color depth of 12-bit, which current Android versions still can’t handle by taking full advantage of this feature. One thing I really liked about the 13 Lite display is the already stock color and white point calibration , without the need to intervene in a fine way in the settings. Possibilities that we still have and in a decidedly rich way. If I think that in a few months you will be able to take home a smartphone with such a display for €300 or less, it is truly something remarkable, unthinkable years ago.

SOFTWARE AND UPDATES

In the display settings we started to notice the MIUI 14 based on, unfortunately, Android 12 . I want to talk immediately about the issue of updates without going into much detail on the functions of the MIUI 14, leaving you for that to the review of the Xiaomi 13 Pro which I advise you to recover in case you have not already done so. Why does this 13 Lite arrive with Android 12?Well primarily because it is a smartphone that was presented in China under the name of Civi 2 many months ago, when the choice of Android 12 was consistent. Secondly also because Xiaomi, once it decided to bring that smartphone to us under a different name, didn’t bet on it by organizing an exit on the market with the latest version of Android already available. A great pity because Xiaomi has recently announced the new 3+4 update policy, 3 major updates and 4 years of security patches, but by releasing phones with old versions of Android, all the advantage of this choice is lost.

We still don’t know how the matter will be handled, Android 13 will probably arrive shortly considering it among one of the three promised majors , but if Xiaomi took a step forward by offering three majors anyway after the release of Android 13 we believe it would score 100 by putting a boulder above all criticism and discontent with this situation. The same goes for the Redmi Note 12 Pro, which unfortunately arrive in Italy with Android 12.

DATA SHEET

• SoC: Snapdragon 7 Gen 1
• Display : 6.55″ AMOLED with FHD+ resolution, 120Hz, maximum brightness 1000 nits, HDR10+, Dolby Vision
• Memory :
  • RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
  • storage memory: 128/256GB UFS 2.2
• Camera :
  • Rear:
    • 50MP wide angle with 1/1.56″ Sony IMX766 sensor, 1.0µm pixel, f/1.8 aperture, 7P lens
    • 8MP ultra wide angle with 1/4″ Sony IMX355 sensor, f/2.2 aperture, 5P lens, 119° FOV
    • 2MP macro with 1/5″ sensor, f/2.4, 3P lens, 82° FOV
  • Front:
    • 32MP ultra wide angle with 1/2.74″ sensor, 0.8µm pixels, f/2.4 aperture, 6P lens, 100° FOV
    • 8MP depth
• Connectivity : 5G Dual SIM, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6, USB-C, NFC, Assisted GPS
• Audio: Dolby Atmos
• Battery : 4,500mAh with 67W wired fast charging
• Dimensions and weight :
  • 159.2mm x 72.7mm x 7.23mm
  • 171 grams
• Other : Corning Gorilla Glass 5 front, 3D curved glass back and three color options: Lite Blue, Lite Pink and Black
• Operating system : MIUI 14 based on Android 12

PERFORMANCE AND FUNCTIONALITY

If MIUI 14 is otherwise almost identical to the models already reviewed, the hardware is a total change with the transition to Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 accompanied by 8GB of LPDDR5x 16Bit dual-channel ram and 128GB or 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage . Yes, unfortunately we chose not to opt for a type 3 UFS which would have been decidedly more competitive in this price range. I had never tried the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, it was my first time and I didn’t feel bad at all, especially after the software update received last week . 

Let’s be clear, I didn’t notice that much-desired 20% more performance compared to the Snap 778G, on the contrary, the improvement is very limited in daily life made up of social apps, while in gaming use the step forward is already more noticeable. Among other things, the new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 was announced a few days ago , not too different from this Gen 1 but it will be produced by TSMC , not Samsung, and from past experience that is probably where we will notice the big leap forward. The temperatures are around 25 ° C in standby and 37 ° C in gaming for the battery, a temperature all in all in line with the competitors.

AUTONOMY AND RECHARGE

The battery of this Xiaomi 13 Lite stops at 4500mAh . The hours of active display reached are around 4-5h in my extreme days with 200km of travel with cell changes and wireless Android auto/Maps, lots of photos and videos as well as a connection always set to 5G without using WiFi. On quieter days, however few there have been, the 7-8 hours of display can easily be reached considering that I often completed the day at 35-45% with 4 hours of display. Cable charging stops at 67W, just like the Redmi Note 12 Pro which however has 500mAh more. 

MICROPHONES AND RECEPTION

Calling with this Xiaomi 13 Lite is satisfying, almost on par with the more expensive models. The noise cancellation is weaker with our voice which turns out to be slightly more metallic, also because the microphones on the frame go from the three of Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro to the two of this 13 Lite . Reception is excellent , even here a hair below the tops with 5G which was not always constant and with some switching to 4G+ and very rarely to Edge in my bunker-studio. However, it must be said that the swap is rapid.

DOUBLE SPEAKERS

The double speaker of this Xiaomi 13 Lite works in the same way as the 13 and 13 Pro models with the difference that here we always have Dolby Atmos in support but we do not have holes on the upper frame to make the secondary audio of the ear capsule flow better . You should watch the video review because I show you the difference between 13 Lite and Redmi Note 12 Pro + , a huge gap as well as the Note also has a 3.5mm jack input with Hi-Res certification.

CAMERA

Xiaomi 13 Lite renounces a lot of the photographic side compared to the 13 and 13 Pro, regardless of the collaboration with Leica. As the main camera we rely on the evergreen 50MP Sony IMX766 with dimensions of 1/1.56 “with f/1.8 aperture and 7 lenses. Unfortunately we do not have an optical stabilization that we find on the Redmi Note 12 Pro; absurd that the Redmi have functions that we lose on the main Xiaomi series but this is always because the 13 Lite is a “rebrand” of that Civi 2 that I mentioned previously. We then have an 8MP ultra wide-angle camera with a 1/4″ Sony IMX355 sensor, f/2.2 aperture and a 2MP macrowith 1/5″ sensor, f/2.4, in short, the macro is almost useless and the ultrawide only serves to give us a broader point of view, 119°, in those few situations that require it. 

In the end, the main chamber allows us to take home excellent shots: we know the IMX766 by now and you will know it by heart, both during the day and with little light and with artificial ones it manages excellently. The result is identical to that of the Redmi Note 12 Pro which, however, has the OIS on its side which helps a lot in many scenarios and especially in videos, which often suffer from camera shake in this 13 Lite, especially at night. If photos are your focus, in reality there is also the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ which with its 200mp Isocell HPX as the main camera offers you excellent results in the same price range. 

​SELFIE CAMERA

If the ultrawide and the macro camera are decidedly situational, the same goes for the second camera inserted to capture depth information close to the main selfie camera . I’ll be very direct: as nice as the idea was on paper, it’s badly done but for a simple reason, we don’t have the quality and autofocus we found on the 12 Lite or the Chinese Civi 2 , just as we don’t even have an OIS or support for 4K , all things that would have made this 13 Lite actually a Selfie Phone. At present, however, the only “selfie phone” feature worthy of note are the two front LEDs, cute but don’t add much. However, the main camera is a 32MP one with a 1/2.74″ sensor and f/2.4 aperture. Unfortunately, here too the result in the end does not deviate from what we get from a Redmi Note 12 Pro, however low quality, with a single selfie room. 

CONCLUSIONS

Drawing conclusions for this Xiaomi 13 Lite is simpler than I thought since we are faced with a smartphone that appears to be discreet today, but it could make much more sense when in a few months we find it in the €300 range (and everything will change there ).

At €499 in the list, however, I expected more, starting from Android 12 and passing through the UFS 2.2 memories and the cameras with only the main one defending itself very well, however losing the OIS, which we find at €100 less in the list now on a Redmi Note 12 Pro. And here we return to the initial discussion: in the current state, does it make sense to consider this Xiaomi 13 Lite with the decidedly more competitive and cheaper Redmi Note 12 Pro? Probably not, at least until there is an actual price drop. And you? What do you think?

8.2
Hardware

 

Xiaomi 13 Lite

BEST PRICE
€399 

Smartphone Xiaomi 13 Lite 8+128GB Blu Blue 120Hz AdaptiveSync AMOLED 6.55″

€ 399

Xiaomi 13 Lite Smartphone 8+128GB, 120Hz AdaptiveSync AMOLED 6.55″, Snapdragon 7 gen 1, 50MP wide angle camera, 67W turbo charging, 4500mAh, Lite Black (IT + 2 anni garanzia)

€ 448

Xiaomi 13 Lite 16,6 cm (6.55) Doppia SIM Android 12 5G USB tipo-C 8 G

€ 499
 

AESTHETICS AND DESIGN DISPLAY TOP AUTONOMY

SELFIES UNDER ANDROID EXPECTATIONS 12 UFS 2.2

VOTE: 6.5

Xiaomi 13 Lite is available online from eBay for 399 euros . To see the other 39 offers click here. (updated March 24, 2023, 6.50pm)