Obviously, it has a lot of football and Argentina about it. This is evident right from the special package that has three members of the Argentina football World Cup winning squad -Angel di Maria, Emilio Martinez and Rodrigo de Paul - right on the top of it with the famous Argentina light blue and whitestripes in the background. You might not realise that this is a phone package, but will definitely know that it has something to do with Argentina and football.

Open the box and you get more Argentina football feels,. but this time mixed with plenty of tech. You get to see the phone, which has those blue and white stripes and a big, gold ten on its back. It is not just the phone that has those stripes - the 120W charger in the box has them too and even the USB Type-A to Type-C cable is in the light blue that is identified with Argentina. There is a tiny SIM card ejection tool with a football on it as well. All very neat and football-y, although we could not understand why the back cover case for the phone is a plain black one - the Argentina blue or stripes would have been far more appropriate.

Of course, the centre of attraction is the phone itself. Now, this is pretty much a standard Redmi Note 13 Pro+, but unlike the vegan leather finish that was seen on a special variant of that device, this one goes with a glass back. And it has those iconic Argentina stripes on the lower part with the Argentina blue on the upper part, along with a shiny Argentina Football Association (AFA) logo in the top right corner. The gold, shiny "10" on the back represents 10 years of Xiaomi in India and by some happy coincidence, also is the jersey number of Argentina's most famous player, Lionel Messi, whose absence from the phone is a little odd (commercial or political compulsions? We wonder).

The players on top of the box are also present on the default lockscreen of the phone - di Maria, Martinez and de Paul - and the interface has also been given a bit of a footy touch with spherical icons, but in software terms, that is about it as far as football goes. We were a little disappointed to see the phone come on Android 13 with MIUI 14 on top of it, rather than HyperOS (perhaps the footy flavour was difficult to get quickly on it), but we expect the phone to get an update soon.

That apart, this is a pretty solid phone. The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ is one of our favourite mid-segment devices, and this is a 12 GB/ 512 GB variant of it. You get the same large 6.67 inch 1.5K AMOLED curved display with 120 Hz refresh rate, the same Dimensity 7200 Ultra processor, a big 5000 mAh battery with that Argentina-themed 120W charger, stereo speakers. and last but not least that crazy 200 megapixel main camera with OIS on the back (although the other cameras are frankly forgettable). Like the OG Redmi Note 13 Pro+, this one too comes with Gorilla Glass Victus on the display and has IP68 dust and water resistance - you can take it swimming!