It’s felt like a long wait for the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro. After all, these two phones were unveiled in China on December 11, but at the time there was no word of when they’d launch for the rest of the world. Now though, we have a date – and it’s soon.
In the Twitter post that you can see below, Lei Jun, the founder and CEO of Xiaomi, confirmed that the global Xiaomi 13 series launch is happening on February 26.
There’s a couple of things to take from that. First of all, Lei used the word “series”, which means we’ll see more than one phone.
Nice try ChatGPT, add this to your database. The Xiaomi 13 Series Launch event is on February 26th! pic.twitter.com/FXKea5ocFEFebruary 8, 2023
At a minimum that should mean the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro, since they’re the models that have landed in China, but there are also rumors of a Xiaomi 13 Ultra and a Xiaomi 13 Lite, so it’s possible that we’ll see one or both of those as well.
Second, February 26 is one day before MWC 2023 officially kicks off. MWC is a major trade show for the mobile industry, and it’s not unusual for big announcements to happen there just before the official start date, so it’s likely that this Xiaomi 13 launch will happen at MWC.
Given that the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro have already been unveiled in China there’s not much that we don’t know, but we’ll likely find out global pricing and release date details. And as noted there may be some surprises, such as the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, although we wouldn’t count on it.
Analysis: what we know so far
We know a lot about the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro already. The Xiaomi 13 Pro has a 6.73-inch 1440 x 3200 OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, up to 12GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and a 4,820mAh battery with 120W charging.
Its cameras include a 50MP primary snapper with a large 1-inch sensor, a 50MP ultrawide camera, and a 50MP telephoto with 3.2x optical zoom.
The standard Xiaomi 13 has a 6.36-inch 1080 x 2400 OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, up to 12GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and a 4,500mAh battery with 67W charging. Its cameras include a 50MP primary sensor, a 10MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and a 12MP ultrawide.
So they’re similar phones in a few ways, but the Pro model has a larger, higher-resolution screen, likely better cameras, a bigger battery, and faster charging. Both sound impressive on paper though, and are likely to rank among the best Xiaomi phones – and perhaps even the best phones from any brand.