Xiaomi 13 Ultra Review - Beyond The HYPE!

00:00 - Intro
00:55 - Unboxing
01:33 - Design, fingerprint reader, and features
04:16 - Variable mechanical aperture or just two-stage?
04:59 - The LTPO 120hz AMOLED screen
07:12 - MIUI 14 performance
09:00 - Camera app and camera samples (see the comparison for more!)
14:42 - The deal breaker
15:33 - Bloatware, updates, widevine cert & camera 2 API
16:36 - Thermal throttling test, Antutu score and storage speed
17:52 - CPU throttling test and charge time
18:35 - Battery life at 1440p and 120hz
18:50 - Audio with loudspeaker sample
19:53 - Gaming performance
20:45 - Final words with Pros and Cons

[danielinciongtungol]

1st time commenting here. I see that you are being honest there is nothing wrong with that, it only goes to show you really care about your viewers and you are giving us more options to choose when buying a phone, laptop or tablets. Thank you for your honesty and help to us.

[Techtablets]

00:00 - Intro
00:55 - Unboxing
01:33 - Design, fingerprint reader, and features
04:16 - Variable mechanical aperture or just two-stage?
04:59 - The LTPO 120hz AMOLED screen
07:12 - MIUI 14 performance
09:00 - Camera app and camera samples (see the comparison for more!)
14:42 - The deal breaker
15:33 - Bloatware, updates, widevine cert & camera 2 API
16:36 - Thermal throttling test, Antutu score, and storage speed
17:52 - CPU throttling test and charge time
18:35 - Battery life at 1440p and 120hz
18:50 - Audio with loudspeaker sample
19:53 - Gaming performance
20:45 - Final words with Pros and Cons

[riddy]

Mine arrived a week ago and can't talk enough about it. Such an incredible phone

[nikatapi]

Probably one of the few reviewers i still trust to this point! Keep it up Chris! I hope to see reviews for Poco F5/F5 pro from you!

[GFourGadget]

Detailed and amazing review as always. The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is such a great flagship, despite the minor flaws. Waiting for the global release 🌍

[azuDemagen]

Thanks for in-depth review!
As a fellow Xiaomi 13U owner I have some things that I wanted to add and some I disagree with, not saying you are wrong, just my subjective opinion is different:
1. Going from Xiaomi 11U, this phone actually feels "light".
2. Fingerprint scanner causes issues for me with my thumb. To be fair I have calluses on it. Other fingers are OK, but I don't use them that much to notice if there are issues as well.
3. A bit more about colour profiles - the default "Original colour PRO" is the "best" setting for reference colours. I have compared it against iPad Pro (M1) and this mode seems to be the most consistent with what iPad shows. Compared to 11U, the default presets are a bit less saturated and tend to run more on reddish hue, while 11U appears slightly more green.
4. The thing about brightness is that perception of it is not linear, so having 2000 -> 2600 nit difference is not the same as 1000 -> 1600. So yeah, I agree that it is nothing exceptional (for 2023 flagship). Important thing is that it is legible under sunlight if you pick auto brightness.
5. One thing that I have not heard or seen anyone mention is that you do not have palm rejection zone at the right side in landscape mode (side with USB), so if you try to shoot one-handed in landscape, sometimes part of your palm touches the screen and makes it unresponsive. Could be skill issue, but again that is how I usually take pictures, so I have to adapt the grip a bit from 11U.
6. This is a stupid one on Xiaomi side - the street photography (fast shot) mode cannot be triggered if you listen to music, because you have to double tap "volume down". You can select it in the app, but the whole point/gimmick is that you get the shot immediately when you pull the phone out. I wish they have added a shutter button.
7. There is a setting to reduce wind noise under Camera -> Audio Settings -> Smart noise reduction. It kind of sucks though anyway.
8. Band 20 (wide area 4G, basically) being absent is an issue if you live in more rural area. Personally I had no issues with speed and connectivity, but I live in a city. So yeah, major thing to consider if you want to import.
9. Also pretty much no-one talks about how good their Gallery app is. The editor is REALLY powerful. Much more so than free version of VSCO, for example. And easier to use than something like Lightroom or Snapseed.
10. One more thing about heating under load. It is mainly on upper side (where the cameras are), so if you play portrait oriented games (like Umamusume, lol) it will be much more bearable than landscape ones (Genshin/Honkai)

[kennethdaniellemonsales]

It's good to have a tech reviewer not being biased on phone brands. I hope that other tech reviewers will do the same as you do. Kudos!

[MrDavidsic]

Thanks for this good review Chris 👌 For the lenses switching while filming for what i saw it can up to 15X using all lenses including 5X periscope if i'm not wrong...

[sophiaisabelle]

We appreciate your tech reviews. Keep up the good work.

[eoin]

Thanks for another comprehensive review. Another bit of false advertising is the first telephoto is 2.6x and not 3.2x. It switches to the telephoto from the main camera at 2.6x and then uses a crop at 3.2x

[jamesthompson]

Having the mi10 ultra for the past 3 years which has and still is a great phone I was considering buying the 13 ultra however decided on the Honor magic 5 pro and wow!! what a fantastic device it is and with the early bird discount along with the free gift gs3 smart watch and ear buds it has to be the best bangs for bucks at the moment.... Great review Chris 👌

[embo]

The 5g struggles surprised me. My last phone was the 10 ultra and I now have the 13 ultra(both Chinese roms) and I've had little issues finding 5G reception. In fact I've found the 13 actually finds more 5G then the 10.

[JohnAkaSB]

Waiting for mine to come 😮
Can't wait to play with it, thanks for the review 😊

[chtwk]

Always love to visit your honest video for my next smartphone!

[Brightsparks]

Very useful analysis with some good insights into the pros and cons that I have not seen from other tech reviewers. Now subscribed to your channel, thank you.

[XeZrunner]

Regarding software, I'm so glad that MIUI is smoother than ever, but it's really unfortunate that the Global versions of their software don't receive the same treatment with optimization.
Great video!

[tinetannies]

One of my favorite reviewers. Fast info, focused and well presented and, not skewed - these always feel like reviews and not glorified commercials. Excellent.

[ihateweebs]

Incredible amount if detail, your an incredible phone reviewer

[MrVladalv]

Thanks for the detailed review, and the pros and cons. I was considering trying it, but maybe I'll go with the 13t pro

[nerovanguard]

I'm a new subscriber here and I gotta say, THANK YOU for pointing out the misleading aperture feature. I think it should be called DUAL aperture instead of "variable" since it only has two apertures unlike the one from Huawei like you said. also, it should say "F1.8 AND F4.0" instead "F1.8 TO F4.0" to make it clear that it can only go to 2 apertures and not in between aperture settings.

you're the only YouTuber who reviewed this phone that actually called that out and I actually thought it has multiple different apertures. THANK YOU