Xiaomi’s latest smartphone is coming for the mobile photography market. Continuing its partnership with Leica, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra is all about picture quality, offering a full 1-inch sensor on its main camera and full 50MP resolution across all four of its rear lenses and a 32MP selfie camera. Add to that up to 8K24 video, Leica enhanced shooting modes, and top tier hardware and performance, and you have the makings for the most exciting smartphone release of the year so far. Starting at $1,199, this is the phone to buy for picture quality and offers quite a few other advantages too.
Specifications
- Current Price:
- 12GB/256GB: $1,199
- 16GB/512GB: $1,299
- 16GB/1TB: $1,399
Xiaomi 13 Ultra - What Is It?
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is the latest flagship device from Xiaomi, following up on the 13 Pro we reviewed back in February. It is the successor to the 12S Ultra, which was a powerful and popular choice in the Chinese markets but never saw a global release. There wasn’t a lack of demand, so it was with great pleasure that we read the news that the 13 Ultra would have international availability.
The 13 Ultra looks every bit the premium device it is. It features a unique design. Its spacious 6.73-inch screen is plated in scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass Victus, its waterfall edges flowing into the flat, metal sides. The back is trimmed in anti-bacterial nanotech silicone with a leather pattern (and feels like leather under the fingers). The camera array is huge and circular with a glossy golden bevel around its side. There’s a real classiness to its design, and I found it to be less slippery and easier to hold thanks to that faux-leather back.
Camera System
Usually, this is the point where we would turn to the display, but I’m going to change course and talk about that camera array. It’s most likely the first thing you or anyone else will notice about this phone, so a detour seems called for.
Calling the 13 Ultra’s camera array a “bump” is an understatement. Its circular array takes up a full third of the device’s rear, measuring 2.6 inches in diameter and raising just under 4mm from the chassis. In fact, this whole section of the phone is thicker, bulking up about 2mm from its lower half and creating a noticeable incline toward the optical system. Laying it flat on a desk, it acts like a prop causing it to sit at an angle. While I personally don’t care about having a slight angle (the picture quality it worth it), you’ll definitely want to take care where you’re setting it down and invest in a tempered glass protector as soon as they’re available.
The 13 Ultra’s biggest claim to fame is its 1-inch Sony image sensor, leveraged to its fullest through its partnership with Leica. It’s more than double the size of most smartphone camera sensors today, which allows it to draw in more light, offer more detail with less noise, and to provide clearer shots in low light settings. It’s the same size as the sensor in Sony’s $1,300 RX100M7, a professional point and shoot camera for photographers that need to travel light. While still much smaller than Micro Four-Thirds, APS-C, or Full Frame sensors found in mirrorless cameras, the 13 Ultra offers some of the best shots currently possible on a smartphone, and has video chops too.
The phone utilizes four separate rear cameras for its imaging and a fifth for selfie shots. The four rear cameras all feature a 50MP resolution but only the wide angle lens utilizes the 1-inch sensor. The ultrawide angle lens uses a 12mm focal length (0.5x) with an f/1.8 aperture. The primary shooter utilizes a 23mm focal length (1x) and allows you to choose between f/1.9 and f/4.0 apertures, allowing you to dial in the speed and light sensitivity of your shot. It also has a 2x crop mode. The third lens uses a 75mm focal length (3.2x) and features optical image stabilization (O.I.S.) and a f/1.8 aperture. Finally, the super telephoto camera uses a 120mm (5x) focal length, optical image stabilization, and a f/3.0 aperture. The selfie camera is 32MP with an f/2.0 aperture and dynamic 0.8x/1x framing.
For video, the rear cameras are able to shoot in the following modes: 8K at 24 FPS, 4K at 30 or 60 FPS, 1080p at 30, 60, 120, or 240 FPS, and 720p at 30 FPS. The selfie camera can shoot at 720p, 30 FPS or 1080p at 30 or 60 FPS. The camera system also features gyroscopic electronic image stabilization that can work independently or alongside the optical image stabilization of the telephoto and super-telephoto lenses.
These cameras are all enhanced with Xiaomi’s different shooting modes, enhancements, and computational photography features. The capabilities here are the best in the business for mobile content creators including options for on-screen teleprompters, connecting multiple devices for Director Mode, Pro Mode features for additional image quality controls, and even templates for creating short films (perfect for video inserts and social media posts).
Another piece of Leica technology comes with two picture modes: Leica Vibrant and Leica Authentic. Vibrant mode functions much more like a modern smartphone with brighter, more colorful pictures. Authentic mode adds contrast and dials down the saturation. I preferred the Vibrant preset (which is what I used for most of the shots here) but it’s entirely a matter of taste.
The portrait mode also features Leica and Xiaomi’s new Master-Lens system to simulate different types of professional photography shots. These include the Documentary preset, which mimics a 35mm lens, a Swirly Bokeh preset (50mm), Portrait (75mm), Soft Focus (90mm), and Xiaomi’s default portrait preset. The results you can get from these are very impressive, though which is the best choice for a given situation takes a photographer’s eye, so I encourage you to play with each and discover their strengths and weaknesses for different subjects.
Display, Internals, and Charging
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra features an outstanding display. At 6.73 inches, it’s spacious and perfect for both content creation and content consumption. It uses an AMOLED display for reach, inky blacks and has a peak brightness of 2,600 nits (1,300 typical). I was able to use it in direct sunlight without any issue whatsoever, but it can also get dim enough to use for reading in bed at night with support for 1,920Hz PWM dimming. That level of dynamic range makes it a good fit for HDR content, and it’s ready for it with support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HLG.
The display has a 20:9 aspect ratio with a 3200 x 1440 resolution (though it is set to 2400 x 1080 out of the box to preserve the battery). It can also run up to 120Hz using the default adaptive refresh rate option, again a boon to battery life.
The display itself is crisp and vibrant, with a high pixel density of 522 PPI. Viewing pictures and video on this display is very nice out of the box, but if the default “Vivid” color preset isn’t to your taste, you can also choose a calibrated “Original Color PRO” preset. Having the option for calibration on a device so centered on content creation is a very nice addition indeed.
Inside that chassis, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra features top tier specs. It comes in three color variants (white, black, and green) and each utilizes the latest SnapDragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. Xiaomi also touts its advanced heat dissipation system which allows it to run demanding programs and record for extended periods without overheating and thermal throttling.
The three available tiers are segmented by memory and total available storage. The most affordable version included 12GB of system memory with 256GB of storage for $1,199. The next step up increased both specs to 16GB and 512GB respectively and increases the cost to $1,299. The highest SKU includes 16GB of memory and a full 1TB of total system storage at $1,399.
As has become the norm for flagship smartphones, there is no expandable storage option for adding your own microSD card and no headphone jack. You are given a 90W fast charger, however, which can recharge the 5000mAh battery completely in just 35 minutes. Oddly, this is a downgrade from the 120W charger on the 13 Pro, but it’s also much smaller and easier to carry with you (though still fairly large).
Xiaomi 13 Ultra - Camera and Photography Examples
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra offers an outstanding photography experience. During our testing period, we shot in a variety of conditions and across multiple subjects to really put it to the test. In this section, we’ll show some examples of what you can expect from its camera system and our thoughts on the different shots.
In this shots, you can see the range of focal lengths the 13 Ultra provides. It’s possible to manually zoom between the 0.5x, 1x, 3.2x, and 5x cameras and the phone will automatically shift between the different lenses. This is fine for photos, but I would avoid doing so for videos because the transition creates some noticeable differences in color. For photos, though, there’s quite a bit of room to frame your subject appropriately.
This is another example of the camera’s zoom capabilities, this time going from 1x to 5x. It’s impressive how much detail the 5x super-telephoto lens is able to gather, particularly when compared against the standard 1x zoom.
This gallery is a collection of general 1x shots. They were taken on the Leica Vibrant preset. The color science here is very nice and the larger sensor is able to retain much more detail than a traditional smartphone camera within shadows and highlights.
The portrait capability of this phone is very nice. It does a great job of cutting out the subject, even to the level of flyaway hairs. The bokeh effect is natural and beautiful.
One of the things I really like about the camera’s portrait capabilities is that it’s not limited to human faces or particular distances. You’re able to tap on your subject and the camera usually does a very good job of sussing out what to cut out and fade into bokeh with.
It’s not perfect, however. It did occasionally get confused. In the picture of the basketball hoop above, it clearly missed that the net was part of the subject. In the picture of my son, something about the composition of the scene caused the camera to apply this artificial haze that’s quite distracting. These issues were rare, however.
The Master Lens system is great — much better than I anticipated. The photos of the flow utilize the Documentary and Portrait presets and were taken from the same distance. The photos of my cat and dog used the Soft Focus preset, which gives them a warm, nostalgic feeling. Soft Focus in general was hit or miss, however. For some things, like objects, it just doesn’t work well, so I would limit it to people and pets.
The selfie camera is also quite nice. The quality of the portrait mode is echoed here, but it also supports Night Mode to enhance brightness in low light settings. It captures quite a bit of detail and has a wide enough field of view that you can hold it at a comfortable distance and be completely in-frame.
The ultrawide lens doubles as a macro shooter and works quite well. You can get within just a couple inches of your subject and gather some nice shots. There’s a bit of fisheye image distortion due to the ultrawide lens but the camera mostly mitigates that well. It delivers impressive results, but for true macro shots, you’ll still want to hold onto your mirrorless and a dedicated lens.
Xiaomi 13 Ultra - Performance
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is a top-tier device with cutting edge components, so performance is expectedly fantastic. To get a feel for how it would compare, I tested in with a mix of synthetic benchmarks and real world gaming tests.
In Geekbench 5, you can see that it performed excellently, leading the charts of the comparative phones according to the software. Those devices are out of date, however, so I put it against my current daily driver, the Samsung Galaxy Note 22 Ultra 5G and the Xiaomi 13 Pro which released earlier this year.
As expected, the 13 Ultra leads the way. Its advances over the 13 Pro are modest but present, exactly what you would expect from a phone built on extremely similar hardware.
For gaming performance, I first turned to 3DMark’s suite of mobile benchmarks. Needless to say, it offered exceptionally good results. It completely maxed out the Wildlife and Slingshot benchmarks. The final test, Wildlife Extreme, renders in full 4K. It’s not realistic for the types of games you would be playing, but it still rendered 4.6 FPS faster than the 13 Pro and 767 points higher.
As you might imagine, these kinds of results point to exceptionally good gaming performance in real world scenarios. That proved to be the case in extensive runs in Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile. The games played effortlessly, looked gorgeous, and didn’t experience any noticeable slowdowns.
Finally, I wanted to dig deeper into Xiaomi’s claims of advanced heat dissipation. I ran it through a Wildlife Extreme Stress test, which runs the benchmark on a loop 20 times and records data on its performance. The graphs above speak for themselves. Even rendering 4K visuals non-stop, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra offered consistent performance. Heat simply was not an issue — and if it’s not a problem here, it won’t be in any real world game either.
Final Thoughts
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is expensive, but is a high-performing devices that offers the best built-in camera system of any smartphone available today. I was initially concerned that Xiaomi wouldn’t be able to differentiate it from the 13 Pro, which also had a 1-inch sensor. Yet, it has, offering slightly better image quality and (perhaps thanks to) improved features to make sure you nail that shot or video clip. This is a camera phone that could replace a mirrorless camera in some settings and saves editing time after.
Taken in combination with its excellent performance and feature set, it is well worth investing in if your carrier supports it. Xiaomi has delivered one of the best phones of the year, and if you enjoy taking pictures, it’s one of the easiest recommendations we’ve made in 2023.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
"Smartphone" - Google News
April 27, 2023 at 12:01AM
https://ift.tt/3e9p7ig
Xiaomi 13 Ultra Review: The Smartphone Camera of the Future - MMORPG.com
"Smartphone" - Google News
https://ift.tt/SbjFfmG
https://ift.tt/Ff3McSu
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Xiaomi 13 Ultra Review: The Smartphone Camera of the Future - MMORPG.com"
Post a Comment