The Chinese brand will be announcing the Xiaomi 13 line in China tomorrow, December 1. Of particular interest will be the Xiaomi 13 Pro and its enhanced camera system, which will bear the fruits of a new(ish) partnership with camera specialist Leica. We saw the first official results of that partnership in the Xiaomi 12S line, but the Xiaomi 13 will be the first big global outing for the team-up. Over on Xiaomi’s Weibo page, the company has posted a series of images captured by the Xiaomi 13 Pro. While it’s worth noting that they’ve almost certainly been captured by professionals, and that there’s no information on whether they’ve been edited, it’s already clear to see that this is a high-tier smartphone camera. The images are particularly notable for their dynamic range, the richness of the colours, and for their clarity even in low light. A large part of this performance has to come down to what Xiaomi claims is a 1-inch image sensor, which is extremely large (though not unprecedented) for a smartphone camera. Previous reports have suggested that the identity of this image sensor will be the new 50MP Sony IMX989. Xiaomi also claims that this “extraordinary image strength” comes down to the Xiaomi 13 Pro’s “original Leica flavor”. This is likely to amount to some custom colour science tuning from the German specialist. All in all, the iPhone 14 Pro, Google Pixel 7 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra could be facing some serious competition in the camera phone stakes. We’ll know for sure once we’ve had a chance to review the phone. Judging from last year’s Xiaomi 12 series, we might not get our hands on a global model until the spring.
