Don’t buy iPhone 13…
I’ve been a long-time customer of Apple’s “Pro” lineup, starting in 2011 with the first Unibody MacBook Pro. I’ve also used my phone’s camera to take images and plop in pickup audio and shots. So when Apple announced their most “Pro iPhone Ever” this year at their September “California Streaming” event, with better cameras, display, and battery life, I was intrigued to see what I could get out of it. And more importantly, how it defeated or failed against Samsung and Google’s best. This phone is… well, it’s frankly meh. It’s another iPhone. Though I’d argue that it’s a considerable jump from last year’s major design enhancement, it’s arguably the same phone. The critics have a point. But I won’t back down to the Android Police comment section, oh no. So I’ve put this phone to it’s paces and shot it to the moon and back for this past week, and here are my thoughts on Apple’s latest flagship; the iPhone 13 Pro.
I judge phones based off 5 major categories. Design, screen, battery, performance, and cameras. So let’s start with that design. iPhone 13 Pro’s design remains largely the same, sporting the flat edges and display. It’s made from polished stainless steel, and a wonderful textured matte back that hides fingerprints with ease. I have the all-new Sierra Blue finish and let me tell you — this phone is friggin’ sharp looking. It shines in the light differently from all angles — sometimes looking grey, and blueberry — and compliments the stainless steel side rails perfectly. One thing I’ve noticed with my pro is that it seems to leave considerably less fingerprints on those glossy flat side-rails. Now, maybe it’s just the color or a special oleophobic coating applied to the finish, but it’s a nice touch nonetheless. Speaking of nice touch, let’s talk camera bump. Arguably the most headlining feature of this entire phone. The stovetop design is still in full effect, and the entire thing is absolutely massive. You really just have to see it in person. Each lens protrudes from the already protruding glass piece (Apple’s promotional material looks like the bump is recessed, that’s not true), and then the actual black part protrudes even more from the steel. These cameras are ginormous. And because of the insane cameras, this phone rocks a lot when put down on a flat surface. In fact, I’m pretty sure you could use this thing as a surf board for ants. It’s insane. But you know what the camera does help with? The weight. To my surprise, the phone isn’t as top heavy as I expected. Instead, you’re actually able to use your right index finger as a bench almost for the camera. It’s really weird, but makes holding the phone much easier and more comfortable for people like me who don’t support their phone with their pinky like a normal human. Size is pretty standard; Apple is still sticking with their new 6.1” screen size (why Apple, just go back to 5.8”). Unfortunate for small iPhone lovers like myself. I like the design of this phone. It’s industrial, and Apple seems to be taking the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
Alright, alright, let’s talk about this screen. Oh, the screen. The most beautiful yet the most controversial part of this phone. Nah, just kidding. That would be the lack of a charger in this year’s box. First of all, they reduced the notch! iPhone fans since the X can finally relax. It’s not as much shorter as it is narrower, but regardless, it’s smaller. They did it by pushing the earpiece to the top of the phone and then shifting everything inwards. Finally. Unfortunately, you can’t actually do anything with this added space. Myself and others were wishing for a way to add the battery percentage back, but I guess Apple just isn’t doing that anymore? Well, you win some you lose some. Okay, boring stuff out of the way; the screen maxes out as 1000 nits typical brightness over last year’s 800, supports HDR at 1200 nits, and a 2532x1170 resolution with 460 ppi. Another more interesting development this year is that the bezels on the outside of the screen are noticeably larger. It’s not just the metal trim; as John Siracusa points out, it’s because of the LTPO display. Most will attest to this being “minor” and “insignificant,” but it actually makes a considerable difference when comparing this phone to the competition. In fact, this is apparent in Apple’s own Support Material, where the 13 Pro lacks significantly in screen-to-body ration compared to Samsung’s S21U. But speaking of LTPO, yes, Apple put an LTPO OLED in iPhone 13 Pro. This allows for… you guessed it! A variable refresh rate display. Apple is finally competing with the flagship phones of 2018 and bringing in a feature that they should have for years. They call this “ProMotion” and it now maxes out at 120hz compared to last year’s 60. Believe it or not, this makes a huge difference in a smaller display. There’s a reason Apple hasn’t put this on Macs yet. I’m one of those who don’t notice it on an iPad at all, but it is a game-changer on iOS. It feels like going from 30fps to 60fps. It’s so much smoother. I will never buy a 60hz phone ever again. The display goes down to 10hz, which surprisingly, doesn’t allow for an Always-on-Display like many enthusiasts were hoping for. Sucks. You can turn this off in Accessibility settings, but I really wouldn’t. It’s… stunning.
Performance time! Apple threw their A15 Bionic SoC in iPhone 13 Pro. This adds an extra GPU core. Done. Just kidding. I put the A15 through it’s paces, and here are my results. The way I tested A15 is by opening up a bunch of apps, timing that, going through them again, and timing that to find how good the RAM management is. I opened 68 apps; Home, Settings, Clock, Fantastical, Photos, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Uber Eats, CARROT, Weather, Reminders, Notes, App Store, Camera (taking a pic), Craft, Phone, Messages, Safari, Spark, Calculator, Files, Measure, Reeder, Chipotle, Apple Store, Support, Google, Doordash, Instacart, OpenTable, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, YouTube, YouTube Music, Nest, Hue, Eve, iRobot, LG, UniFi Network, Best Buy, Home Depot, Amazon, FedEx, UPS, Aftership, Overcast, Music, Todoist, Google Drive, Google Translate, Apollo, SoundCloud, NightSky, TickTick, Zoom, Quizlet, Microsoft Office, Slides, Docs, Word, Khan Academy, Notability, Google Calendar, Photomath, and Tweetbot. Phew. The time it took to open them all? 5 minutes and 15 seconds. That’s faster than it took me to write all of that down. While testing, I noticed no excess warmth or frame drops. That’s pretty amazing. I generally think that if a phone can open 10 apps in a minute, it’s performance is amazing. It flew through that. In terms of RAM, I repeated the test without force closing, and the phone did pretty well. 3 minutes 13 seconds. I generally think that if the phone can do it in half the time, it’s RAM management is pretty good. There’s basically nothing you can do to kill this phone.
Now that we’ve got the easy stuff out of the way, let’s talk about Battery. Apple claims that they’ve put a bigger battery in this thing, and that coupled with the A15 should result in much better battery life. I can attest to that. Battery life on iPhone 13 Pro is absolutely exceptional. While I’m doing my testing, I’m constantly hammering the cameras and the performance. This usually takes a hit on battery life, and I have to stop to charge for an hour to get through the rest of my day. That was not the case with iPhone 13 Pro. On my first official day of testing, I watched a ton of 4K YouTube, tested Cinematic mode, took a bunch of photos, and scrolled a ton to test ProMotion. All pretty heavy, resource intensive tasks. I ended the day with 1% and 7.5 hours of SoT. That is just absolutely absurd. I have never gotten the 13 Pro to die once in my 6 days of testing. My gut says this is because of the variable refresh rate screen. Because I watched a ton of YouTube, the phone was able to throttle the refresh rate down to 30hz. I also recorded 24fps video, so the phone didn’t have to push the pixels too far. Good! LTPO in action. On day 2 of my testing, I didn’t use the camera as much, but still consumed a bunch of content, did some FaceTime calls, the usual. I ended the day with 7.5 hours again, but this time with 12% remaining. Keep in mind that I’m not using low-power-mode here. I still could have probably went another hour. Anything over 7 hours is what I would consider flagship level battery life. This phone exceeds that by a ton. Too much, in fact. I’m impressed. The next two days were a bit on the low side of SoT. 5.5 hours SoT and 29% left. Insanity for a 6.1” phone. That’s almost a 1/3 left after an insane day. And on the last day, I got 6.5 hours and just under 1/4 remaining. If you’re buying this phone, regardless of what you do with it, it will never die on you. And that is something I’ve never been able to say with any phone I’ve ever tested. Hats off Apple, you fixed your abominable battery life from last year. Take that, 5G. That’s a first, and I’m happy to see it!
Alright, it’s time for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. It’s the reason the iPhone exists. It’s the prime focus of Apple’s marketing material. It’s…. the camera! That’s right. Let’s talk about this giant hump. I’m going to divide the camera portion of this review into 8 parts; images with the wide lens, images with the ultra wide, images with the telephoto, night mode, macro, cinematic video, regular video, and finally, a comparison with the 12. Let’s get… err… you know what, let’s forget what I just said.
Images taken with the main lens of iPhone 13 Pro are absolutely amazing. First off, Sensor Shift (which is Apple’s fancy name for IBIS) makes images look a lot clearer due to the lack of shakiness. Also, the sensor is physically larger, which adds for better bokeh. These physical enhancements coupled with Smart HDR 4 and Apple’s “special” ISP make for superior, more natural images. Yes, the images do look more natural this year. Less “vibrant.” To compensate for this, Apple has added a new feature called “Photographic Styles,” which are basically glorified filters that don’t affect skin-tones. I didn’t use these in my testing though, since they basically emulate the images of the Pixel and Samsung Galaxy. Photographic Styles aside, I took some pictures of a sunset on my first day of testing, and they turned out pretty well (images are below). Color reproduction is accurate — which is something you can’t say about most smartphone pictures. They usually look a bit warmer or cooler than the actual scene. The new and improved Smart HDR 4 made sure to keep the detail in trees and animals while not overexposing the sunset behind. It seemed like the phone recognized each individual part of the image and then manually dialed back the exposure. You can see the image change slightly right after taking it. The purples, the oranges, and the greens of the grass all seemed pretty accurate — nothing out of the ordinary for an iPhone. Though the images aren’t sharper due to the still dull 12MP sensor, noise has been significantly reduced due to the lower aperture. Nice improvement to an already good camera.
On to the ultra wide. The Ultra Wide gets some pretty big enhancements this year. It was always absolutely amazing for landscapes, but it’s now gotten really good — even beating OnePlus’ 9 Pro UW from earlier this year. The Ultra Wide gains the same overall image processing as the regular wide, but lacks IBIS or OIS for that matter. But what it doesn’t lack is Autofocus. Finally, the ultra wide now gains pretty fast autofocus. This dramatically improves image quality when something’s close by but you want a wider angle. But the biggest improvement comes in low-light. The ultra wide now has a lower aperture which makes it much better for silhouettes and other landscape images. It’s also much less grainy, and reproduces colors in a more accurate manner. You can even see these effects when cropping in, which is nice. The physically larger sensor also lets more light in, which adds to the overall effect and decreases the dependency on Night Mode, which I’ll cover in a bit. Also, and maybe this is just a me thing, but I’ve found that distortion is slightly reduced. It’s not by much, but the clarity in distorted areas doesn’t feel stretched as much as it used to. In my images, the colors are pretty accurate (not as much as the main lens) and the overall detail still remains. Very impressive, to say the least. The Ultra Wide on iPhone 13 Pro alone may make the upgrade worth it for many.
Telephoto time. I’m just going to be honest — the Telephoto lens on this phone is worthless compared to the competition. I mean, it’s not even close. I was a fair critic of the iPhone 12 Pro last year for it’s lack of real features, and one feature that absolutely everyone said “this is what makes the Pro worth it” was the telephoto. But I’m sorry, this telephoto is absolute garbage! First of all, Apple literally made the sensor so that it had a HIGHER aperture. Like, who in the hell at Apple thought that was a good idea? Additionally, they literally made the lens zoom in more. Why is this worthless? Because there is NO WAY to get a good 2x picture anymore. And I don’t know about you, but 3x is too much zoom. Want to take a portrait in a narrow space? Too bad, you’re going into macro mode! Want to take a picture of a plant? Too bad, you’re too close! This is the most elementary choice Apple has EVER made to their camera system, and they should be ashamed. But I can even excuse Apple’s poor hardware choices if the images look good. Well too bad, because these images look horrid. I mean, the image quality is just abysmal. They’re grainy, they’re dark, and they’re too noisy. They make this 12MP sensor look like it’s straight out of 2007. This is horrible. And to add even more insult to injury, this camera has no way of periscope zoom, or space zoom, or literally anything useful. Oh, and the phone knows this. In low light, even with Night Mode, the phone literally decides to crop in from the main lens instead of using the telephoto, because it’s that bad. The telephoto get an F- from me. I’m not even going to show you my images from it because they are horrible. Horrible. Okay, end rant.
We need to talk about Night Mode. Night Mode on iPhone has always been my favorite Night Mode because of how it preserves the night feel. And this year is no exception. First of all, night mode needs less time to take a good image now because of the larger sensors (with the exception of the stupid telephoto). This is amazing. No more motion-smoothed Night Mode shots. But if you do want to let more light in, Night Mode now extends to 30 seconds. Unfortunately, this didn’t yield much difference in my testing. You’re much better off sticking to 10 seconds. Regardless, it’s a nice feature in case you do want to try it out. It could be exceptionally handy on a tripod. You can also completely turn off Night Mode if you wish, though that’s counterintuitive. Night Mode portraits also work good, but it’s still better if you use the flash and do some quick editing. That’s it for Night Mode. Reliable. Easy. I like it!
Macro mode; something new this year on iPhone 13 Pro. Macro mode ditches the 2MP Macro Cameras found on every mid-range Android phone and instead uses the superior Ultra Wide lens. When you get close to a subject, the phone “automatically” switches to the Ultra Wide, but keeps the framing. It’s kind of cool. But what annoys me is that there’s no way to manually revert this change from happening. If you move up too close to a subject, it basically ditches all the natural bokeh and color from the main lens. It’s annoying at times. Apple says they’ll be rolling out a way to manually go back to the 1x lens, but until then, it’s pretty stupid. What’s worse is sometimes you’ll take a picture thinking that you’re on the 1x lens because the phone doesn’t tell you you’re in macro mode, you frame the shot, only to realize it looks like hot garbage because the phone did a quick switch while you weren’t looking. Trust me, I’ve had it happen to myself before and it’s bad. Also, when you’re using the telephoto and there’s an obstruction (say a wall or a chair) partially blocking the frame, the phone tries to go into macro mode because it thinks you’re really close to something and then crops into the ultra wide substantially. It’s not good. But even with all of it’s shortcomings, macro mode is really cool and surprisingly high quality. I’ve been able to get some nice shots of towels, jeans, boxes and more. It’s really, really worth trying. I like macro mode, but it does need some pretty big software enhancements for it to “come out of beta.”
Speaking of beta, that’s what Cinematic Mode video should be in, because it sucks. From the second Apple showed their promo up on stage, I wasn’t a fan. This just doesn’t look good. Subjects (particularly inanimate subjects) have this haze around them that just make the video seem really artificial, and that’s a bummer. Additionally, Cinematic Mode doesn’t use the LiDAR scanner on iPhone 13 Pro, which is a shame, because that could really help with edge detection. Ah yes, edge detection. Hair is what trips iPhone 13 Pro up and kills the effect. Once you see a hair floating out of nowhere and an overall haziness surrounding someone, it doesn’t look very cinematic. Not great. Another complaint I have with cinematic mode is the lack of 4K recording and 24fps support. If Apple allowed you to record cinematic video at 4K, I would gladly buy the more expensive 256 GB version. But nope, everyone is locked at 1080p. Well okay, maybe it’s because of how much processing it takes? Well, I don’t buy that either. Why can’t we record “Cinematic Video” in a cinematic frame rate (24fps?) It’s less processing, everyone is a winner. I digress, but the point is that Cinematic mode is half-baked at it’s best. I want higher resolutions, lower frame rates, the ability to turn off HDR, use of the LiDAR sensor and “True Depth Camera System,” and that haziness to be removed in post. Here’s a suggestion Apple! Take the video and tell the user that it’s processing for 5 minutes or so. Use the Neural Engine to analyze each frame, add the depth information from LiDAR, and remove the haziness. Sure, it might not look how it looked in the viewfinder, but who cares? It’s a better video. Please and thank you. For now, I’m not going to be shooting in Cinematic.
Alright, rant time over. Time for the best part of the iPhone 13; regular video. iPhone 13 Pro’s video abilities are unmatched by any of the competition. I mean, it’s not even close. The larger sensors, Dolby Vision, Sensor Shift, better bokeh, and customizability in frame rates make iPhone 13 Pro the best video capturing device that can fit in your pocket bar none. The highlights and shadows are NEVER, and I mean NEVER blown out. HDR, or not. They look crystal clear in detail. The colors are extremely natural, there’s no distortion, there’s no noise, nothing. This is the best smartphone video to date. And later this year, ProRes will be coming to iPhone, and wow. I’m extremely excited for that. I’m a video editor and I use my phone a lot for pickups. ProRes has the flexibility to manipulate colors however I desire and for that this will be my primary shooter 24/7. If you shoot video at all, you need to get iPhone 13 Pro. It’s miles better than last year, and miles better than anything else on the market. It is truly transformative.
So how does this camera stack up to last year’s iPhone 12 mini, 12, and Pro? That’s… a complicated question. I took 5 images of 5 different subjects in the same light, and from a distance, iPhone 12’s images look better. Why you might ask? My guess is as good as yours, but I think because Apple baked in Photographic Styles this year, they’re aiming to make iPhone pictures look more natural. I can attest to that. The images look less vibrant but more like how they’re supposed to look. Clarity still remains the same, but the phone lets more light in and I can see Smart HDR working (images below). It really depends on the type of image you like. Most wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the images, but it’s nice to see a slight change nonetheless. Phew, we’re done with the cameras.
Odds and ends. We all hate them, but someone out there is sweating their Apple panties waiting for someone to tell them to upgrade. Anyway, let’s talk durability. It’s good unless you chuck it across Disneyland. The front is covered in their “Ceramic Shield” and the phone is beyond IP68 water resistant. Your phone will probably be able to handle your weekly pool parties. Connectivity is pretty good on this phone. You’ve got more 5G bands and LTE of course. And if you’re in the US, you get mmWave support. In my testing, I’ve found no considerable difference in coverage and 5G speeds, but maybe that’s just me. LTE continues to be faster and with less ping. The phone also has WiFi 6, no WiFi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.0. Also, the phone has an NFC chip for Apple Pay among other things, and Apple’s UWB chip for quicker AirDropping. No differences here. This phone has speakers. They’re horrible. Use headphones or a Bluetooth speaker. No differences there either. Ehmm… ugh, fine. Lack of USB-C. This thing still has the old, ancient, horrible connector of hell. Why Apple, why must you be such an egotistic monopoly that wants to watch the world burn in the depths of hel- Oh, and this phone has some new colors. Grey, White, Gold, and Blue. Blue is the best and if you don’t think so you’re ending up in hell. Also, the phone now has a 1TB option for ProRes. If you’re rich enough to afford that, save your money and get a real camera.
Now for my favorite part! The buyers guide! Should you throw your money at Cupertino for iPhone 13 Pro? Let me tell you. If you’ve got anything older than an iPhone XS, upgrade. Do it. Thanks. If you’ve got a XS, Max, or R, you’re going to get a lot from this upgrade. Yeah sure, maybe your phone is working fine now, but next year, Apple’s probably going to axe a couple features. The 13 Pro is pretty solid. If you’ve got an 11 series phone, upgrading is going to be great. It’s certainly not necessary, but if you’re getting a free upgrade, do it. You’re not going to regret it. If you’ve got a 12 series phone, you don’t need to upgrade. The small notch and better display are nice. The cameras are really good. But if you’re not an enthusiast, wait until the big redesign next year, and save those dollars.
SO THEN WHY DID YOU TITLE THIS REVIEW DON’T BUY IPHONE 13 YOU TRAITOR?! Well… I didn’t say “Don’t buy iPhone 13 Pro.” I said “Don’t buy iPhone 13.” iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini are fantastic devices. But, they’re banking on brand loyalty for people to upgrade. Samsung’s S21 and Google’s upcoming Pixel 6 are much better value, and depending where you buy them, cheaper. But if you want a good phone that actually stacks up against the competition, get the Pro. For $200 you’re getting an upgrade in every single category. Screen, battery, performance, design, and cameras. This is the first year that a non-Mac Apple product with the word “Pro” in it actually feels Pro. I’m happy about that. Well, that’s it for this extremely long review of the iPhone 13 Pro. Disclaimers down below.
This review was produced following 6 days with a retail-version iPhone 13 Pro in 128 GB. Apple, or any of it’s affiliates did not compensate me for coverage in any way, shape, or form and they’re seeing this review for the first time you are. No part of this review is endorsed, or sponsored in any way by company, and nobody had any editorial rights or impact on this review.
Conditions were tested on AT&T’s Unlimited Extra mobile plan with 5G sub-6 in Orlando, FL. AT&T, or any of it’s affiliates did not compensate me for coverage, nor did they have any editorial input on this review. They’re seeing this review for the first time you are. No part of this review is endorsed, or sponsored in any way by company.
Any ads, sponsorships, cookies, or trackers found on this website are endorsed by me at all, and are not placed at my will.
All images were taken by me, and All Rights are Reserved. If you would like to use my images or material, including any part of this review, the answer is no.
Camera samples and other testing was performed safely and socially-distanced, following local health and safety guidelines. Please stay home, stay safe, and wear a mask wherever in the world you may be.
