Xiaomi announces 13T Pro with promise of four major Android updates

From The Verge: Xiaomi is launching the 13T and 13T Pro today, two smartphones that will benefit from more Android upgrades than what it’s offered previously. Both are due to receive four major Android updates as well as five years of security patches, Xiaomi’s communications director, Daniel Desjarlais, announced earlier this month.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro will start at £649 (€799, or around $790), while the 13T will start at £549 (€649, or around $669), and both will be available starting today in the UK. The phones will primarily be sold in European markets, but based on Xiaomi’s previous smartphone releases, they’re unlikely to be officially available in the US.

A support commitment of four major Android updates and five years of security patches brings Xiaomi more or less in line with what Samsung promises for its latest Galaxy S23 phones and is technically better than the three major Android upgrades Google offers with its latest Pixels. But there’s an important caveat with Xiaomi’s 13T series: they’re shipping with last year’s Android 13 out of the box. So at least one of these Android upgrades is going to be used on updating the phones to this year’s Android 14.

Caveat aside, it’s great to see more Android manufacturers offer longer software support for their phones, even if few are matching the length of software support Fairphone is promising for its most recent sustainability-focused smartphone.

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