Xiaomi has recently added a new mid-range smartphone to its lineup – the Xiaomi 13 Lite. This device is designed to offer a balance of performance and affordability, making it an attractive option for budget-conscious consumers who still want a high-quality phone.
With its sleek design and impressive features, the Xiaomi 13 Lite is poised to compete with other mid-range devices on the market. Let’s take a closer look at what this new smartphone has to offer.
The Xiaomi 13 Lite is a new addition to the crowded mid-range market, boasting a range of competitive features that differentiate it from its predecessors. These features include a new chipset, a larger battery, a curved display, and a dual selfie camera setup.
Made with glass and a plastic frame, the phone’s three-step camera bump, with a separate black dot for the macro cam, is a new addition. Unlike last year’s model, the glass panels curve into a razor-thin frame, giving the phone a sleek look.
The 6.55-inch OLED display with a 1080p resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate is similar to last year’s model but supports 12-bit color depth, HDR 10 plus, and Dolby Vision. The display produces sharp and contrasty images with accurate colors, and it is bright enough to use outdoors.
The refresh rate control is straightforward, with 120 Hz for smooth swiping and scrolling and 60 Hz to save energy. However, the phone has only a single bottom-firing speaker, which is a downgrade from the stereo setup in the previous model, and the sound quality is not impressive.
The Xiaomi 13 Lite is available with either 128 or 256 GB of onboard storage, but unfortunately, it cannot be expanded via microSD. The phone can be easily unlocked with its under-display fingerprint reader, and users can even launch apps or functions with a simple finger hold after unlocking.
The latest MIUI 14 interface is featured on the phone, which runs on Android 12, while flagship models come with Android 13. While there aren’t many significant changes from previous versions of MIUI, MIUI 14 brings behind-the-scenes optimizations for improved performance, and the home screen now has large folders for better space management.
However, the Xiaomi 13 Lite is still missing some of MIUI 14’s unique new features found on newer Xiaomi phones. The phone features a new Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset, which is a high-end mid-range processor, meant to be an improvement over the Snapdragon 778G on the Xiaomi 12 Lite.
Despite being a modest upgrade in benchmark tests, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 offers excellent performance, though other competitors at this price point may offer similar features.
The newly released Xiaomi 13 Lite boasts a larger 4500 milliamp-hour battery than its predecessor, but it appears to have slightly lower battery life in both screen-on and screen-off tests.
Nevertheless, it still has a decent overall endurance rating of 93 hours, and it supports 67-watt charging, which can charge the phone from 0 to 83 percent in just half an hour.
The device features a triple camera setup on the back, including a 50-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera.
Photos taken with the main camera during the day are sharp with excellent detail, low noise, and wide dynamic range. However, portraits leave something to be desired in terms of overall sharpness and detail, particularly in less-than-ideal lighting conditions. The ultra-wide camera produces decent photos with nice contrast and colors, but the detail level and sharpness could be better.
The macro camera is mediocre, producing close-up photos with the level of detail you’d expect at 2 megapixels. In low light conditions, the Xiaomi 13 Lite automatically switches to night mode, producing clean and well-exposed photos with pleasing colors and sharpness.
However, the ultra-wide camera struggles at night, producing soft images with washed-out colors and high levels of noise, regardless of whether the night mode is active.
Moving on to the selfie performance, while the dual front cameras might seem intriguing, it’s somewhat misleading. Like last year’s model, the Xiaomi 13 Lite features a 32-megapixel front-facing camera, but it lacks autofocus now, and the second 8-megapixel unit only serves as a depth sensor for portrait mode.
The selfies are generally underwhelming with soft and grainy details. However, the colors and contrast are decent. The selfie portrait mode is marginally better than the average mid-range phone due to the extra depth sensor, but it’s still not perfect, and you may notice some errors in tricky areas like hair.
The Xiaomi 13 Lite can record video with the main camera at up to 4K resolution and 60fps, which looks great with true-to-life colors, good detail and sharpness, great contrast, and a wide dynamic range. However, the ultra-wide camera is limited to 1080p resolution, and its videos look quite soft with a narrow dynamic range and washed-out colors, and visible noise. Electronic stabilization is available for both cameras, and it does a good job even in 4K.
In summary, the Xiaomi 13 Lite boasts a really nice display that’s even flagship-grade, a powerful mid-range chipset, fast charging, and good performance from the main camera.
However, it has some missteps, such as a single speaker, a dual selfie camera that feels gimmicky, and mediocre selfies. Additionally, the ultra-wide and macro cameras don’t add much value.
The worst part is that the Xiaomi 13 Lite’s launch price is quite high, making it difficult to recommend, especially when there are many more competitive options available. If you’re looking for alternatives to the Xiaomi 13 Lite, you can start with the Xiaomi 12T or consider the Realme GT2. Let us know your thoughts, and we’ll see you at the next one.
