Xiaomi 13 Pro
⬤ £1,099 ⬤ mi.com/uk
One of the newest models on the list, the Xiaomi has been made in collaboration with a traditional camera manufacturer – Leica. An interesting specification here is also the 50MP one-inch main sensor, which is much bigger than you’ll traditionally find on most smartphones. There are three lenses, most notably for portrait shooters a 50MP 75mm equivalent lens, which uses a ‘floating’ element for focusing.
We’ve got some standard marketing-speak about how the lenses have been ‘inspired’ by Leica’s Noctilux-M 75mm f/1.25 ASPH, but the results are pretty good, creating natural outlines in the vast majority of cases.
The 13 Pro’s Portrait Mode takes strong advantage of that Leica collaboration too, offering a range of different ‘lenses’ to experiment with. In essence, these give a variety of effects including Black & White (35mm), Swirly Bokeh (50mm), Portrait (75mm) and Soft Focus (90mm). Some of these are better than others, but this is largely down to personal preference – we particularly like the 35mm option. You can also shoot in standard colour with standard out-of-focus areas at either full-body length or standard headshot.
It offers a Pro mode with raw shooting, but again, you can’t shoot with Portrait mode activated. Selecting the tele lens while in Pro mode is a good way to get around this.
Leica steps in again with the ability to switch between ‘Authentic’ and ‘Vibrant’ colour in Portrait, Photo and Pro mode, as well as a set of other filters including ‘BW Natural’ and ‘BW High Contrast’ which can be used in Pro and Photo mode – but are worth trying out for portraits too.