IN PICS | Redmi Note 13 Pro+ World Champions Edition First Impressions: Mid-Segment Nod To Everything Argentina

Make No Mistake, This IS A Special Edition: The Redmi Note 13 Pro World Champions Edition comes in a special gift box that pretty much tells you what the phone is about. The box features three members of Argentina's World Cup winning squad - Ángel Di María, Rodrigo De Paul, and one of the stars of the final, goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez - with the famous blue and white striped pattern of Argentina's football jersey in the background, the words Argentina Campeon Mundial (Argentina World Champions) in the centre and the Argentina Football Association (AFA) logo. The phone's name is on the lower part in bright gold lettering. Not very stylish or subtle, but the football special edition phone message gets across.

Those World Cup Touches In The Box - The interior of the package is more classy. Opening the box reveals a large blue card with Redmi and the number 10, which is a clever touch. The number 10 reflects 10 years of Xiaomi in India but is also the number worn by Argentina superstar and football legend Lionel Messi, who we suspect cannot be mentioned directly due to contractual reasons. Flip the card and you get a photograph of the team members celebrating the World Cup win, along with team member names, and Argentina's notable victories. Below this card are the phone, the charger and the charging cable, all of them in Argentina's colours. There's even a sim extractor pin with an AFA logo on one side and a football on the other. Cool!

Redmi Note 13 Pro+ Is A 10 - The phone is a Redmi Note 13 Pro+ which has been given a thorough Argentina football makeover. The front has the curved 6.67-inch AMOLED display but now comes with a lock screen that features the three Argentine players on the box and the AFA logo as the in-display fingerprint scanner. Flip the phone around and you get a glass back with the blue and white stripes of the Argentina jersey with a glittering 10 in the middle (no Messi mention, though), with the upper part of the back a plain blue with the Argentina logo next to the metal-rimmed cameras! Very very Argentina football. And it is IP68 dust and water resistant too - so will survive a dunk in the water.

Cover Is An Own Goal - The charger in Argentina colours and the SIM extractor tool are stars in their own right, very solidly built and in our book actually making a slightly greater visual impact than the phone itself, which is a bit predictable. Rather surprisingly, the case provided in the package is a black one, which is a huge miss in our book. A special edition phone could have got a special edition case - perhaps one in Argentina colours or even plain light blue. Even a transparent case that showed off the phone's distinct back would have been better.

Android 13 Commits A foul - The phone also comes with a slightly football-themed interface. As we pointed out, the lockscreen features Argentina players, and the UI within has the AFA logo on a football field as the default wallpaper and all the app icons are circular in shape, to give a football-like impression, we suspect. There are some pre-installed apps, but we could not see anything that was uniquely football-themed there. The football touch here is a little underwhelming and seems a bit token. The phone also comes with MIUI 14 out of the box on top of Android 13, which is disappointing given the fact that the other version of the phone has already been updated to HyperOS and Android 14.

Beneath The Paint, This Is A Redmi Note 13 Pro+ - Beneath the football exterior, the phone itself is a top RAM and storage variant (12 GB/ 512 GB) of Redmi Note 13 Pro+. You get a brilliant, curved 6.67 inch 1.5K AMOLED display with 120 Hz refresh rate, powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Ultra processor. The cameras on the back are spearheaded by a 200-megapixel main sensor with OIS, an 8-megapixel ultrawide and a 2-megapixel macro (which should have been shown a red card), with a 16-megapixel selfie camera in front. That Argentina-coloured charger is a 120W one and can charge the phone's 5,000mAh battery in about 20-25 minutes. You also get very good stereo speakers on board. This is a rock-solid premium mid-segment device.

Priced At Rs 37,999 - The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G World Champions Edition is available in a single RAM/storage variant of 12 GB/ 512 GB at Rs 37,999 - which is only Rs 3000 above a 'normal' Redmi Note 13 Pro+ of the same configuration. So you are getting a special version of the phone with a very distinct design and football feels and packaging for a slightly higher price (special editions generally cost much more!). Sure, we would have liked a better cover and Android 14 and perhaps more football in the box and in the phone, but even so, this is THE mid-segment phone for every football fan. Unless they hate Argentina (Brazil and England fan alert)! A special edition phone at a relatively normal price? Now, that's a goal Messi would be proud of. So very Xiaomi too.