The Xiaomi 13 Ultra: A Rival to Apple's Dominance?

When it comes to smartphone cameras, there's one brand that often comes to mind: Apple. The iPhone camera has been hailed as one of the best in the industry, and many would argue that it sets the standard for smartphones. However, I've had the chance to try out the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, and I have to say that it's a strong contender in this department.

One thing that struck me about the Xiaomi 13 Ultra is its technical accuracy. When you take a photo with the phone, there's something unsettlingly honest about the results. The camera shows you exactly what it sees, without any pretenses or manipulation. Compare this to the iPhone, which often applies artistic filters and adjustments to make the image look more appealing. I find that when you show someone a photo taken with the Xiaomi 13 Ultra side by side with one taken with an iPhone, they tend to prefer the former.

The camera's variable aperture feature is also worth noting, although it does seem like a bit of a gimmick. The ability to switch between a wide F 1.9 and a narrow F 4.0 can be useful in certain situations, but for everyday use, I'm not sure it adds much value. The three main challenges that smartphone cameras have been trying to overcome are getting more light into smaller sensors, shooting faster, and creating more background blur to mimic the cinematic style of professional cameras. In this regard, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra seems to excel.

One area where the iPhone still holds an edge is in low-light conditions. While the Xiaomi 13 Ultra's night mode is impressive, it doesn't quite match the iPhone's performance in these situations. However, when it comes to the ultra-wide camera, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra seems to have a slight advantage. The wider angle and higher detail make it well-suited for capturing more of the scene.

Zoom shots are also an area where the Xiaomi 13 Ultra shines. When there are plenty of lights around, the phone's digital zoom holds its own against the iPhone's camera. However, when things get extremely dark, Apple's AI algorithm seems to have an edge over the Xiaomi 13 Ultra's capabilities. The phone's artificial intelligence can sometimes struggle to keep up with the demands of very low-light situations.

Video recording is another area where the Xiaomi 13 Ultra performs well. While it may not quite match the iPhone in terms of sharpness and stability, it doesn't feel like a compromised experience either. The ability to film 8K video at five times magnification is a notable feature, although the 24 FPS frame rate can make for a slightly jittery or cinematic feel.

Despite its many strengths, there is one area where the Xiaomi 13 Ultra falls short: the front camera. I found this to be particularly disappointing, as it's an aspect of smartphone cameras that's often overlooked but still crucial for everyday use.

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When I recently tried out the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, I was struck by how secure my browsing experience felt. The phone's built-in antivirus and private internet search features gave me peace of mind, knowing that I was protected from cyber threats. But even with all these security measures in place, I couldn't help but wonder: what if a hacker were to get hold of my data?

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is the xiaomi 13 Ultra it has the most sophisticated most ludicrously specked out camera system on any phone ever so I thought does it beat the most popular flagship phone on the planet the iPhone I mean it definitely wins a point in the unboxing Department not even because this is some sort of extraordinary presentation but because at least it does come with everything you need you get an insert on to off which has the Sim ejector a couple of manuals and a hard case this is kind of a weird shape and then right at the very bottom a 90 watt charger which is surprisingly compact for what's still quite a high wattage the USBC cable and then of course the 13 Ultra itself the iPhone packaging as you know is nice it's satisfying but basic there's no charger here and definitely no case it's not even really a competition and honestly the differences only get bigger when you start looking at the design of these phones the iPhone is much less polarizing it kind of has to be if Apple wants this to be the phone that 30 million people are going to buy they've got no room to be edgy with any of the style choices they've got to keep it simple clean elegant and this does that xiaomi doesn't have that same concern I think this company knows full well that they won't be selling 30 million units of these they're going to sell two maybe three million and those three million are going to be Pro users who are actively seeking something that feels unique and this achieves that goal I wouldn't say it's the neatest prettiest phone it's got like a speed bump halfway up the back of it besides the phone blend into the rear which is again just a bit weird and it kind of makes this strip going up the back look like a carpet that's not fitted properly the phone rattles quite a bit thanks to lots of large camera lenses moving around and the screen borders are still not completely even all the way rounds which at this point is just bordering on painful but technically it's really impressive the only reason that you can even see the sides blending into the back is that the sides and the back are actually all one continuous piece here which you know I've had a pretty good play at trying to bend or Creak or crack and uh nothing by using a unibody design like this they've massively reduced the number of points of vulnerability around the phone it reminds me of how reassuring the unibody MacBook feels is like how resistant it is to any kind of flexing compared to a lot of these even technically more expensive laptops that just are made of more parts well that did not sound good and then this uh rug on top is actually specially treated silicon which is made for grip is completely resistant to smudges and fingerprints made to be anti-yellowing which is not a given for silicone finishes and even inhibits the growth of 99 of bacteria plus I know I bang on about this but having your camera in the middle of your phone's body is actually just really helpful because it means that when you put it on a table it's quite usable without wobble so effectively I think the iPhone is a little more form I think the xiaomi is a little more function both matter but I just think it's up to you and this case on which one matters more but then you notice something on the xiaomi that is just undeniably Peak smartphone the screen because putting aside for a minute my nitpicky gripes about the bottom chin being thicker or the top corner is looking a little bit off just because of the way the screen slopes around the edges the panel itself is dazzling you might have heard of a few phones in the last few years cropping up with 1500 nit Peak brightness levels the iPhone's actually well regarded for going even beyond that at 2 000 nits and now this pushes that all the way to 2600. that's so high that it's a difference you don't even notice in most scenarios but it means that should you be in direct sunlight this phone is not just visible from all angles but actually bright from all angles plus the fact that it is slightly curved at the sides is I think a perk too it feels a little bit rough when you have the pre-installed screen protector on because your thumb is effectively grazing over the edge of it but as long as you possess the risk appetite to take it off it makes gestures feel way more fluid than they do on the sharp edges of the iPhone and the crown jewel is that while both phones have super fast 120 hertz refresh rates the xiaomi's using more up-to-date refresh rate Tech that can scale the refresh rate up and down faster and more battery efficiently than the iPhone cam it is also the higher resolution screen but I just hesitate to call that a benefit because it's one of those strange situations where they're giving you the option to use the screen in super high res mode but then subtly telling you that they don't actually recommend it for the majority of users for battery reasons because by default the phone actually runs at 1080p which is lower than the resolution on the iPhone okay so given the xiaomi takes this super energy saving ideology and the fact that you've got this super energy efficient panel how good actually is the 13 ultra's battery so I've got a new version of both phones I've charged them up to 100 we'll unplug and I'll spare you the pain of actually having to watch smartphones die one percentage point at a time let's just fast forward all the way to the moment where the xiaomi calls it quits because sure enough yes even though it has a 5 000 milliamp hour battery which is quite significantly bigger than Apple's 4 3001 even with the low resolution and the more advanced screen technology it is still the first one to go it ends up with 10 hours and 8 minutes in this particular run and the iPhone only very marginally longer at 10 hours 18. as for where that puts these phones in Real World usage I'm using a 14 pro Max every single day since launch and I would say it's one of those phones with good battery life but not so good that you can just completely forget about it and xiaomi sits in that same ballpark but what makes me actually slightly prefer it is the new hibernation mode see plot twist the xiaomi's not actually dead it's programmed to hibernate when it hits one percentage point of battery it closes all apps it disables almost everything to give you one more solid hour of still being reachable so overall we'll call Battery a draw but that's a cool feature can we just have every phone do that from now on and if you're curious how long each one then takes to charge it up well I plugged both back in I went down to make myself an iced tea and by the time I was back which was probably four minutes later xiaomi was already at 15 it's not hugely surprising I mean 90 watt charging is significantly more powerful than Apple's 27 Watts but it is kind of interesting that even though this is xiaomi's highest end smartphone ever it's far from their fastest charging phone you can get xiaomi phones with over 200 watts of charging power nowadays that charge in like nine minutes but I guess because super fast charging comes of its own set of compromises like usually having a smaller battery capacity and that their marketing for this one is almost definitely going to focus on the cameras they decided to keep the charging a little bit more typical which is not to say slow because it's still fully charged within 45 minutes while the iPhone is lingering at 66 xiaomi is way ahead of Apple but uh we're not yet I think it'd be absolutely hilarious if me and my tiny team of seven people could actually overtake the single largest tech company on the entire platform and hey if we do I will personally build the largest most powerful iPhone on the planet myself so a sub to the channel would be me tiorik so that's five points to two points right now but what about the audio quality I actually have a very exciting new microphone that we're going to be able to test this with so for a moment try to imagine that these are your ears this is what the iPhone sounds like it's very clean sound with a little kicker bass but it's not one of those phones at the same time that like defies its dimensions in audio or anything so now let's switch over to the xiaomi and this phone does something a little differently instead of one downward firing speaker and then the earpiece on the front doubling as the second this has one bottom firing and then one top firing and I like the fact that xiaomi gives you more symmetrical sound but to be honest for me the fact that Apple's earpiece fires directly towards you makes the vocals feel more direct and it's also a little bit louder so I'll go with the iPhone here the software is subjective of course but I will say one thing xiaomi is not xiaoming shying away from being clearly inspired by Apple you know it's similar when you're finding that the muscle memory that you've developed with your iPhone still works to control this phone now that doesn't make it bad I mean on the contrary this new MIUI 14 can let you open up more apps at once although who actually uses more than two on a phone as a wider selection of more colorful widgets I'm finding it better organized in terms of finding what you need from the settings plus this is the smoothest a xiaomi phone has ever been in my eyes and actually just before we get to the cameras this is something that we do need to test how fast is it a few weeks ago I compared the speed of the iPhone to a super top gaming Android which had an external cooler attached to it but arguably the even more interesting question is how does a more traditional Android Flagship one that's more focused on photography stack up to Apple in performance so I've run a whole Suite of benchmarks and the results are pretty clear that apple is far ahead when it comes to the CPU performance anywhere from 15 to 25 depending on how you measure it but xiaomi leads when it comes to the graphics and just to see how well each phone handles temperature because xiaomi does go on about how this phone has the first Aerospace grade toroidal Vapor liquid separated powered cooling system called the marketing these days kill me now I ran an extreme stress test for 20 minutes straight and actually yeah you'll notice that xiaomi not just starts at a higher score because its Graphics are better but also that this score Falls slower over the course of the test it has a higher stability of 80.8 percent as opposed to 65.8 which basically means that whatever gobbledygook they've actually called this internal cooling system it does work when you push both phones to their limits this does feel hotter on the outside but that's because the cooling system is doing a better job of getting heat out the inside and internal heat is generally where more of the problems occur which makes overall performance about a draw depending on what specifically you're trying to do on your phone time to see what this phone was made for cameras because I mean you don't have to look at the specs for long to see that on paper xiaomi absolutely murders the iPhone which talking a 32 megapixel selfie camera four 50 megapixel cameras on the rear yes four with all four having high-end sensors and the main camera having the largest sensor currently available on a phone this is why the crowd basically erupted when the price of this phone was announced we've never seen a phone camera like this but uh before we get to the rear cameras which to be honest actually do deliver on that type we need to talk about the front camera because it does not it just looks so washed out I actually look a bit like a ghost and it's a far cry from what phones like the Google pixel have done with their super deep natural skin tones and while this is somewhat rescued by the powerful image processing when you're snapping photos honestly the video is pretty trash I mean look at this room over here it's just it's just a white look plus it's limited to 1080p which I just don't understand like genuinely if there's anyone that showing me watching this video please tell me why this phone your 2023 Pinnacle Flagship Ultra phone cannot record 4k on its front camera it's not a tech limitation phone's been able to do this for years now surely it's not a cost concern they've kitted out every single other camera on the phone all the way to 8K and it can't be anything to do with the size of the cameras either because Samsung does 4K just fine with one that actually takes up less space the only thing I can think is like maybe people feel like 4K might over represent skin imperfections but honestly how your skin looks as much more down to the software processing than it is the resolution you can have sharp footage that also makes you look good like the Samsung that I'm recording this on it might seem like a small nitpicky thing but honestly in an age where everyone is creating content using their smartphones especially this front-facing camera I don't think it is this front camera has probably been the single thing that has actually stopped me from jumping ship all the way from the iPhone because I've very tempted and to understand why I've been so tempted let's talk about the rear cameras and really the best way to Showcase just how great these rear cameras are is not to bind you with a flurry of hundreds of shots taken from it I mean every Flagship from the last five years has been able to take photos like this it's showing you how easy it makes it to do that the key thing that I would say xiaomi have just mastered with this phone is the thoughtlessness everything about the way this camera system works the fact that each individual lens is super high quality and so you can zoom all the way in and all the way out without worrying about degradation the fact that focusing is first class so you don't need to sit there messing with it or even tapping your screen to pick out your subject the fact that colors are really pleasing I hesitate to say that the colors are accurate because to be honest if you're going for raw accuracy I still think the iPhone does do a better job but for me personally what the xiaomi does do is better than that I think if you point blank ask someone would you rather your photos are realistic or not the vast majority of people would say I want realism we don't like the idea that images are being tampered with and I'm the same I like the concept but the truth is every smartphone is doing thousands of calculations and adjustments to each photo you take anyways and when it actually comes down to it and you show someone what technical accuracy actually looks like side by side with what the xiaomi does which I would say is stylistically prettier I have a strong feeling that most people would rather actually have xiaomi's photo it delivers not necessarily exactly what your eyes see but more what your eyes think a great photo should look like and so it makes you feel good it makes you excited to use it to see what other beautiful cinematic artsy shots you can take while also for one of the first times matching the reliability of the more functional tool iPhone camera now it does also have a variable aperture on its main camera which allows it to switch between a wide F 1.9 and a really narrow F 4.0 but I just think it's kind of dumb for this phone I mean the three main challenges that we spent the entire last decade trying to overcome with smartphone cameras are getting more light into these smaller sensors shooting shots faster and creating more background blur to mimic the Cinematic style of professional cameras switching your aperture to F 4.0 basically shuts off your light into each shoots shot slower and reduces background blur I mean there's a couple of super Niche situations where you might want this like long exposure photography but come on when your front camera looks like this fix that first anyways whereas actually even more impressed by this phone was it's night mode Let's be very clear the iPhone is good at night but the xiaomi 13 Ultra feels not like it's kind of close could go either way genuinely like there is no competition like this is a photo from both phones main cameras you can see so many little Parts where the 13 Ultra is just picking up a little bit more information or is a little bit sharper but where you notice the difference even more is flicking to the ultra wide cameras kashami is both wider while also being more detailed I was expecting xiaomi to also steamroll when it came to the zoom shots since Apple's zoom camera is just not equipped for the dark so it uses its main camera and just digital Zooms in I mean to be fair so long as there are lights around the xiaomi does tend to win but it's just when you go to those super super dark scenarios that Apple's artificial intelligence algorithm does seem to just creep out ahead a little bit and xiaomi freaks out but the video really impressed me I wouldn't go as far as to say that this has better video than the iPhone but it's not really worse the sharpness the stability the dynamic range this feels like a big thing to say but for all the time that I've used this it hasn't felt like a compromised video experience which is one of those things that I've just come to expect when using an Android phone it's still a little bit grainier in super low light but then on the other hand you can film 8K video at five times magnification yeah it's only 24 FPS so it's a little jittery or cinematic but that's not normal on a phone so xiaomi definitely wins in more categories than the iPhone it doesn't outright mean it's a better phone for everyone like to me the front camera is particularly important and I can't work with this but it is enough for me to say that if you like the sound of it I can very easily recommend it when it launches in your country okay this will be cool actually try filming this on the zoom camera of the phone so recently I've gone into a bit of a rabbit hole when it comes to securing my accounts I've been seeing how even YouTubers who followed all the recommended steps they've still managed to get hacked it's scary and it's made me realize that there are entire forums out there on the dark web whose entire purpose is basically just for people to buy and sell user data your addresses your passwords and sometimes they don't even need your passwords a hacker can just send you a link via email and if you so much just click on that link can download a file that gives them access to your session ID which effectively just means they can start browsing the internet already logged in as if they were you so using surfsharkvpn it's not a one-click solution that instantly solves all internet security problems but it does make it a lot harder for Bad actors like this to mess with you it serves as basically a middleman to receive your internet traffic and scramble it to keep you Anonymous to whoever's hosting the network plus it comes with a proper antivirus a private ad-free internet search and surfshark alert which will let you know if your data has been compromised it's a very simple quite inexpensive way to strengthen your security using the code boss it ends up as less than three dollars a month with an extra three months for free for unlimited accounts and a money back guaranteethis is the xiaomi 13 Ultra it has the most sophisticated most ludicrously specked out camera system on any phone ever so I thought does it beat the most popular flagship phone on the planet the iPhone I mean it definitely wins a point in the unboxing Department not even because this is some sort of extraordinary presentation but because at least it does come with everything you need you get an insert on to off which has the Sim ejector a couple of manuals and a hard case this is kind of a weird shape and then right at the very bottom a 90 watt charger which is surprisingly compact for what's still quite a high wattage the USBC cable and then of course the 13 Ultra itself the iPhone packaging as you know is nice it's satisfying but basic there's no charger here and definitely no case it's not even really a competition and honestly the differences only get bigger when you start looking at the design of these phones the iPhone is much less polarizing it kind of has to be if Apple wants this to be the phone that 30 million people are going to buy they've got no room to be edgy with any of the style choices they've got to keep it simple clean elegant and this does that xiaomi doesn't have that same concern I think this company knows full well that they won't be selling 30 million units of these they're going to sell two maybe three million and those three million are going to be Pro users who are actively seeking something that feels unique and this achieves that goal I wouldn't say it's the neatest prettiest phone it's got like a speed bump halfway up the back of it besides the phone blend into the rear which is again just a bit weird and it kind of makes this strip going up the back look like a carpet that's not fitted properly the phone rattles quite a bit thanks to lots of large camera lenses moving around and the screen borders are still not completely even all the way rounds which at this point is just bordering on painful but technically it's really impressive the only reason that you can even see the sides blending into the back is that the sides and the back are actually all one continuous piece here which you know I've had a pretty good play at trying to bend or Creak or crack and uh nothing by using a unibody design like this they've massively reduced the number of points of vulnerability around the phone it reminds me of how reassuring the unibody MacBook feels is like how resistant it is to any kind of flexing compared to a lot of these even technically more expensive laptops that just are made of more parts well that did not sound good and then this uh rug on top is actually specially treated silicon which is made for grip is completely resistant to smudges and fingerprints made to be anti-yellowing which is not a given for silicone finishes and even inhibits the growth of 99 of bacteria plus I know I bang on about this but having your camera in the middle of your phone's body is actually just really helpful because it means that when you put it on a table it's quite usable without wobble so effectively I think the iPhone is a little more form I think the xiaomi is a little more function both matter but I just think it's up to you and this case on which one matters more but then you notice something on the xiaomi that is just undeniably Peak smartphone the screen because putting aside for a minute my nitpicky gripes about the bottom chin being thicker or the top corner is looking a little bit off just because of the way the screen slopes around the edges the panel itself is dazzling you might have heard of a few phones in the last few years cropping up with 1500 nit Peak brightness levels the iPhone's actually well regarded for going even beyond that at 2 000 nits and now this pushes that all the way to 2600. that's so high that it's a difference you don't even notice in most scenarios but it means that should you be in direct sunlight this phone is not just visible from all angles but actually bright from all angles plus the fact that it is slightly curved at the sides is I think a perk too it feels a little bit rough when you have the pre-installed screen protector on because your thumb is effectively grazing over the edge of it but as long as you possess the risk appetite to take it off it makes gestures feel way more fluid than they do on the sharp edges of the iPhone and the crown jewel is that while both phones have super fast 120 hertz refresh rates the xiaomi's using more up-to-date refresh rate Tech that can scale the refresh rate up and down faster and more battery efficiently than the iPhone cam it is also the higher resolution screen but I just hesitate to call that a benefit because it's one of those strange situations where they're giving you the option to use the screen in super high res mode but then subtly telling you that they don't actually recommend it for the majority of users for battery reasons because by default the phone actually runs at 1080p which is lower than the resolution on the iPhone okay so given the xiaomi takes this super energy saving ideology and the fact that you've got this super energy efficient panel how good actually is the 13 ultra's battery so I've got a new version of both phones I've charged them up to 100 we'll unplug and I'll spare you the pain of actually having to watch smartphones die one percentage point at a time let's just fast forward all the way to the moment where the xiaomi calls it quits because sure enough yes even though it has a 5 000 milliamp hour battery which is quite significantly bigger than Apple's 4 3001 even with the low resolution and the more advanced screen technology it is still the first one to go it ends up with 10 hours and 8 minutes in this particular run and the iPhone only very marginally longer at 10 hours 18. as for where that puts these phones in Real World usage I'm using a 14 pro Max every single day since launch and I would say it's one of those phones with good battery life but not so good that you can just completely forget about it and xiaomi sits in that same ballpark but what makes me actually slightly prefer it is the new hibernation mode see plot twist the xiaomi's not actually dead it's programmed to hibernate when it hits one percentage point of battery it closes all apps it disables almost everything to give you one more solid hour of still being reachable so overall we'll call Battery a draw but that's a cool feature can we just have every phone do that from now on and if you're curious how long each one then takes to charge it up well I plugged both back in I went down to make myself an iced tea and by the time I was back which was probably four minutes later xiaomi was already at 15 it's not hugely surprising I mean 90 watt charging is significantly more powerful than Apple's 27 Watts but it is kind of interesting that even though this is xiaomi's highest end smartphone ever it's far from their fastest charging phone you can get xiaomi phones with over 200 watts of charging power nowadays that charge in like nine minutes but I guess because super fast charging comes of its own set of compromises like usually having a smaller battery capacity and that their marketing for this one is almost definitely going to focus on the cameras they decided to keep the charging a little bit more typical which is not to say slow because it's still fully charged within 45 minutes while the iPhone is lingering at 66 xiaomi is way ahead of Apple but uh we're not yet I think it'd be absolutely hilarious if me and my tiny team of seven people could actually overtake the single largest tech company on the entire platform and hey if we do I will personally build the largest most powerful iPhone on the planet myself so a sub to the channel would be me tiorik so that's five points to two points right now but what about the audio quality I actually have a very exciting new microphone that we're going to be able to test this with so for a moment try to imagine that these are your ears this is what the iPhone sounds like it's very clean sound with a little kicker bass but it's not one of those phones at the same time that like defies its dimensions in audio or anything so now let's switch over to the xiaomi and this phone does something a little differently instead of one downward firing speaker and then the earpiece on the front doubling as the second this has one bottom firing and then one top firing and I like the fact that xiaomi gives you more symmetrical sound but to be honest for me the fact that Apple's earpiece fires directly towards you makes the vocals feel more direct and it's also a little bit louder so I'll go with the iPhone here the software is subjective of course but I will say one thing xiaomi is not xiaoming shying away from being clearly inspired by Apple you know it's similar when you're finding that the muscle memory that you've developed with your iPhone still works to control this phone now that doesn't make it bad I mean on the contrary this new MIUI 14 can let you open up more apps at once although who actually uses more than two on a phone as a wider selection of more colorful widgets I'm finding it better organized in terms of finding what you need from the settings plus this is the smoothest a xiaomi phone has ever been in my eyes and actually just before we get to the cameras this is something that we do need to test how fast is it a few weeks ago I compared the speed of the iPhone to a super top gaming Android which had an external cooler attached to it but arguably the even more interesting question is how does a more traditional Android Flagship one that's more focused on photography stack up to Apple in performance so I've run a whole Suite of benchmarks and the results are pretty clear that apple is far ahead when it comes to the CPU performance anywhere from 15 to 25 depending on how you measure it but xiaomi leads when it comes to the graphics and just to see how well each phone handles temperature because xiaomi does go on about how this phone has the first Aerospace grade toroidal Vapor liquid separated powered cooling system called the marketing these days kill me now I ran an extreme stress test for 20 minutes straight and actually yeah you'll notice that xiaomi not just starts at a higher score because its Graphics are better but also that this score Falls slower over the course of the test it has a higher stability of 80.8 percent as opposed to 65.8 which basically means that whatever gobbledygook they've actually called this internal cooling system it does work when you push both phones to their limits this does feel hotter on the outside but that's because the cooling system is doing a better job of getting heat out the inside and internal heat is generally where more of the problems occur which makes overall performance about a draw depending on what specifically you're trying to do on your phone time to see what this phone was made for cameras because I mean you don't have to look at the specs for long to see that on paper xiaomi absolutely murders the iPhone which talking a 32 megapixel selfie camera four 50 megapixel cameras on the rear yes four with all four having high-end sensors and the main camera having the largest sensor currently available on a phone this is why the crowd basically erupted when the price of this phone was announced we've never seen a phone camera like this but uh before we get to the rear cameras which to be honest actually do deliver on that type we need to talk about the front camera because it does not it just looks so washed out I actually look a bit like a ghost and it's a far cry from what phones like the Google pixel have done with their super deep natural skin tones and while this is somewhat rescued by the powerful image processing when you're snapping photos honestly the video is pretty trash I mean look at this room over here it's just it's just a white look plus it's limited to 1080p which I just don't understand like genuinely if there's anyone that showing me watching this video please tell me why this phone your 2023 Pinnacle Flagship Ultra phone cannot record 4k on its front camera it's not a tech limitation phone's been able to do this for years now surely it's not a cost concern they've kitted out every single other camera on the phone all the way to 8K and it can't be anything to do with the size of the cameras either because Samsung does 4K just fine with one that actually takes up less space the only thing I can think is like maybe people feel like 4K might over represent skin imperfections but honestly how your skin looks as much more down to the software processing than it is the resolution you can have sharp footage that also makes you look good like the Samsung that I'm recording this on it might seem like a small nitpicky thing but honestly in an age where everyone is creating content using their smartphones especially this front-facing camera I don't think it is this front camera has probably been the single thing that has actually stopped me from jumping ship all the way from the iPhone because I've very tempted and to understand why I've been so tempted let's talk about the rear cameras and really the best way to Showcase just how great these rear cameras are is not to bind you with a flurry of hundreds of shots taken from it I mean every Flagship from the last five years has been able to take photos like this it's showing you how easy it makes it to do that the key thing that I would say xiaomi have just mastered with this phone is the thoughtlessness everything about the way this camera system works the fact that each individual lens is super high quality and so you can zoom all the way in and all the way out without worrying about degradation the fact that focusing is first class so you don't need to sit there messing with it or even tapping your screen to pick out your subject the fact that colors are really pleasing I hesitate to say that the colors are accurate because to be honest if you're going for raw accuracy I still think the iPhone does do a better job but for me personally what the xiaomi does do is better than that I think if you point blank ask someone would you rather your photos are realistic or not the vast majority of people would say I want realism we don't like the idea that images are being tampered with and I'm the same I like the concept but the truth is every smartphone is doing thousands of calculations and adjustments to each photo you take anyways and when it actually comes down to it and you show someone what technical accuracy actually looks like side by side with what the xiaomi does which I would say is stylistically prettier I have a strong feeling that most people would rather actually have xiaomi's photo it delivers not necessarily exactly what your eyes see but more what your eyes think a great photo should look like and so it makes you feel good it makes you excited to use it to see what other beautiful cinematic artsy shots you can take while also for one of the first times matching the reliability of the more functional tool iPhone camera now it does also have a variable aperture on its main camera which allows it to switch between a wide F 1.9 and a really narrow F 4.0 but I just think it's kind of dumb for this phone I mean the three main challenges that we spent the entire last decade trying to overcome with smartphone cameras are getting more light into these smaller sensors shooting shots faster and creating more background blur to mimic the Cinematic style of professional cameras switching your aperture to F 4.0 basically shuts off your light into each shoots shot slower and reduces background blur I mean there's a couple of super Niche situations where you might want this like long exposure photography but come on when your front camera looks like this fix that first anyways whereas actually even more impressed by this phone was it's night mode Let's be very clear the iPhone is good at night but the xiaomi 13 Ultra feels not like it's kind of close could go either way genuinely like there is no competition like this is a photo from both phones main cameras you can see so many little Parts where the 13 Ultra is just picking up a little bit more information or is a little bit sharper but where you notice the difference even more is flicking to the ultra wide cameras kashami is both wider while also being more detailed I was expecting xiaomi to also steamroll when it came to the zoom shots since Apple's zoom camera is just not equipped for the dark so it uses its main camera and just digital Zooms in I mean to be fair so long as there are lights around the xiaomi does tend to win but it's just when you go to those super super dark scenarios that Apple's artificial intelligence algorithm does seem to just creep out ahead a little bit and xiaomi freaks out but the video really impressed me I wouldn't go as far as to say that this has better video than the iPhone but it's not really worse the sharpness the stability the dynamic range this feels like a big thing to say but for all the time that I've used this it hasn't felt like a compromised video experience which is one of those things that I've just come to expect when using an Android phone it's still a little bit grainier in super low light but then on the other hand you can film 8K video at five times magnification yeah it's only 24 FPS so it's a little jittery or cinematic but that's not normal on a phone so xiaomi definitely wins in more categories than the iPhone it doesn't outright mean it's a better phone for everyone like to me the front camera is particularly important and I can't work with this but it is enough for me to say that if you like the sound of it I can very easily recommend it when it launches in your country okay this will be cool actually try filming this on the zoom camera of the phone so recently I've gone into a bit of a rabbit hole when it comes to securing my accounts I've been seeing how even YouTubers who followed all the recommended steps they've still managed to get hacked it's scary and it's made me realize that there are entire forums out there on the dark web whose entire purpose is basically just for people to buy and sell user data your addresses your passwords and sometimes they don't even need your passwords a hacker can just send you a link via email and if you so much just click on that link can download a file that gives them access to your session ID which effectively just means they can start browsing the internet already logged in as if they were you so using surfsharkvpn it's not a one-click solution that instantly solves all internet security problems but it does make it a lot harder for Bad actors like this to mess with you it serves as basically a middleman to receive your internet traffic and scramble it to keep you Anonymous to whoever's hosting the network plus it comes with a proper antivirus a private ad-free internet search and surfshark alert which will let you know if your data has been compromised it's a very simple quite inexpensive way to strengthen your security using the code boss it ends up as less than three dollars a month with an extra three months for free for unlimited accounts and a money back guarantee\n"