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The Xiaomi 13 Pro flagship made a global debut today at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) being held in Barcelona. With this device — which was launched in China in December — the company is banking on a 1-inch main sensor, Leica lenses, and 120W fast charging to make it a Samsung Galaxy series competitor.

With Android devices cutting close to each other in performance and display sections, the camera has been a major differentiating factor in today’s flagships. Xiaomi is using a massive 1-inch Sony IMX989 50-megapixel sensor with f/1.9 aperture to get the best and brightest photos in all lighting conditions. A couple of phone manufacturers including Xiaomi, Vivo, and Sharp have included this sensor in a few devices. The camera is capable of video recording in 8K resolution — 4K resolution at 60 fps if recording in Dolby Vision.

There is also a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with a “floating lens” element, which results in a 3.2x lossless zoom. Plus, the device has another 50-megapixel sensor in an ultrawide avatar. The 13 Pro has a 32-megapixel front camera with a night mode and dual-framing (0.8x and 1x) modes.

All this camera assembly with Leica lenses is placed in a massive square housing on the back. And while we have seen square camera bumps in many phones, this one looks a bit different due to its size.

Apart from the camera system, the Xiaomi 13 Pro’s spec sheet is fitting for an Android flagship of 2023. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, 6.73-inch WQHD+ AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and 1,900 nits of peak brightness, support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HLG HDR standards, 12GB LPDDR5X RAM, and USF 4.0 storage.

Xiaomi’s latest flagship has a 4,820 mAh battery that could be charged in minutes through a proprietary 120W charger. However, these charging bricks are huge and bulky and they are not often easy to carry in a backpack. The device supports 50W wireless charging with compatible charging pucks along with 10W reverse charging if you quickly want to top up the charge your earbuds.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro will be available in ceramic white and ceramic black colorways with 256GB and 512GB storage variants. Along with the new flagship, the company also launched the Xiaomi 13 and the Xiaomi 13 Lite.

Xiaomi is in a peculiar position globally. The company has fallen behind Apple, Oppo, Vivo, and Honor in the domestic market. India, where the phone maker has dominated the phone shipment ranking for the past few years, has conceded the top position to Samsung in the last quarter. The company has also faced challenges in the South Asian country with the departure of top executives, anti-china sentiment, and tax investigations from regulatory bodies. Amid all this, Xiaomi is desperate to deliver a hit smartphone.

Xiaomi launches its 13 Pro flagship with a 1-inch sensor at MWC by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch