Xiaomi just launched its new affordable flagships, the 13T and 13T Pro last night. While both phones have Leica branding, impressive cameras, and fairly affordable price tags, the Xiaomi 13T Pro caught our eye as it’s the best value for money right now, especially VS leading Android flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S23.

Spec-for-spec, the Xiaomi 13T Pro is leagues better in terms of value VS the Samsung Galaxy S23. Let’s start with price: the Xiaomi 13T Pro starts at Php 37,999 VS the Php 53,990 of the Galaxy S23. Not only is the Xiaomi 13T Pro cheaper by around 35%, you get 120% more storage and 40% more RAM.

And just for Php 2K more, you’ll be able to get the top-end variant of the Xiaomi 13T Pro, which gives you even more storage and RAM. With that much storage, I pretty much guarantee that you won’t ever run out of space.

Even if we take a look at the other metrics, the Xiaomi 13T Pro wins, handily. Screen size? The 13T Pro is bigger at 6.67 inches versus the S23’s smaller 6.1-inch panel. Refresh rate? The 13T Pro has a higher 144Hz refresh rate versus the S23’s 120Hz. Probably the only leg up of Samsung’s offering here is display quality because for obvious reasons, and even then it takes a trained eye to see the difference between the two provided both are side-by-side. The display quality of both is nearly identical to the untrained eye.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro has more battery than the Samsung S23 – 5000mAh VS 3900mAh, and comes with a faster 120W HyperCharge VS the dinky 25W fast charge (that you can’t enjoy right away since Samsung doesn’t include a charger with your purchase) that’s on the Korean giant’s phone.

There are a few things that the Samsung S23 has an advantage over VS the Xiaomi 13T Pro. First is the processor – sure the MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ is a flagship-grade processor, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that’s on Samsung’s offering. Qualcomm’s flagship chipset still reigns supreme over its main rival MediaTek, though the latter is rapidly closing the gap.

Second is the cameras. Xiaomi might have the power of Leica on their side, but Samsung’s snappers for the Galaxy S23 are still really, really good. We haven’t taken out the two phones for a proper head-to-head test for the cameras, but based on some of our shots with the Xiaomi 13T Pro, it seems like Samsung has a small edge for now. We’ll update this part when we get our snaps in.

The third is software. As much as Xiaomi has improved on MIUI, it’s still not at the level of Samsung’s One UI interface. There’s still a lot of pre-installed bloat on Xiaomi’s phones including flagships like the 13T Pro, which is annoying considering the price you pay for it.

But the annoyances on the Xiaomi 13T Pro are relatively minor especially when you consider what you get in return for 35% less money than the cheapest variant of the Galaxy S23 – you get quadruple the storage, more RAM than you’ll ever need, a bigger display that’s as good as what the competition offers and cameras that can take photos with the best of them. The Xiaomi 13T Pro should be the flagship standard that companies follow, and I hope I see more devices that have this much value in it in the future.