iPhone 13 Series – The Only Things New (Not Many)

iPhone 13 Series - Image Credit: Verge

iPhone 13 has arrived, and I was thinking about making a first impression or first look post, then thought oh well, it’s not exciting at all and finally made up my mind to concentrate only on new things in iPhone 13 series. Here is everything new with iPhone 13 and you can decide whether it's good to buy one or not. And hey, if you are new here, we talk about new tech products, reviews and help you to make an informed purchasing decision here on this blog. Leave a comment and share this with your friends. Okay, let’s dig in,

1.  New Packaging - I want this post to go like an unboxing experience for you, so first we have a new packaging situation in iPhone 13 series. In iPhone 12 series they ditched the chargers and made the box thinner, and this year same deal but the plastic wrap outside the box is missing on all iPhone 13 lineup. It’s better for the environment but you have to admit Apple made a very satisfying unboxing experience with that plastic wrap and it felt premium. But now it’s gone but it has a seal inside the box and apparently, it’s harder to make counterfeit boxes. 

iPhone 13 Box with no plastic wraps - Image Credit: PhoneArena

1.         New Displays – The new iPhone series have an overall incremental upgrade on screens but finally, finally iPhone 13 pro and pro max have a 120 Hz display which is about damn time now. But all jokes aside, it feels polished, and animations are very fluid, unlike some Android phones. Why you ask, here in iPhone 13 pros and all other premium Androids has variable refresh rate screens and it could refresh at 10 Hz, all the way up to 120 Hz. as an example, if the image shown in the display is static it can drop the frame rate to reduce battery usage but as soon as you start scrolling it should kick back into higher frame rates. That’s where some Android phones struggled with because when it kicks back to higher frame rates there is a lag or ghosting in the display. But in these iPhones, apparently, there is no such problem. And now the displays are even brighter than before with 800 nits for iPhone 13 and 1000 nits for 13 pro and the notch on all iPhone 13 series is 20% smaller which is better than last year. Other than that, no big upgrade in iPhone 13 and 13 mini displays from the previous year. 

120Hz ProMotion Display - Image Credit: Apple

1.          Look and Feel – In this part, I’m only stating the materials and my idea of how these look and feel based on other reviewers’ hands-on experience. The materials are Aluminum and glass for 13s, and for 13 pros it’s stainless steel and glass. The pros are having a matte back glass with shiny stainless-steel railings which is a fingerprint magnet and 13s have a glossy glass back with matte aluminum side rails. The matte looks better and is less likely to collect smudgy fingerprints. So, Apple should have gone for matte side rails for pros too. And thanks to larger camera sensors and bigger batteries phones are heavier with 13 pros at 204G and Pro max at 240G, last year 12 pro and 12 pro max were at 189G and 224G respectively. These phones will be heavy and according to daily users, the squared edge of 12s and 13s is somewhat uncomfortable to hold for a long period of time. Oh and camera modules are noticeably bigger than last year, even you can accidentally cover the lenses because of their large size. 

Image Credit : XDA Developers

1.           New cameras and features – Actually this year iPhone models are more focused on cameras in my opinion. So, we have new, improved and larger sensors in all models. But all cameras are 12 megapixels which is fine but cannot record 8K videos if you’re into that. To shoot 8K a camera should have at least 33.17 megapixels. Let’s talk about the key new features of the new camera system, you know iPhone photos are very realistic without any added saturation like Samsung cameras, sometimes it can feel a bit dull for some people. So, this year Apple has implemented photographic modes to the camera app, and these are not filters, they are actually photos taken with those different settings when we click and we can choose the best looking photo for us.

   The next feature is the macro mode. Yes, iPhone 13 can take macro shots by using the ultra-wide lens and it can get close to 2cm from the object and still focus. Macro shots are fun, but the early implementation has some issues like this mode works automatically, and it changes from the main sensor to ultra-wide and the user can’t change the lens. You don’t have to get close like 2cm to trigger the lens change, but if it detects you’re getting close to an object, it can change the lens suddenly.

   Okay, the cinematic mode in iPhone 13 series. This feature is very exciting because it has a lot of potentials to get better and maybe it will get better to a point where it gives the ability for normal people to shoot almost similar content like cinema cameras, using their smartphones, no bulky video cameras (maybe). Now for first-generation implementation it has some obvious issues like the edges of subjects are not smooth, it only shoots at 1080P at 30fps likewise. But as I mentioned before, this feature has a lot of potentials. Will see how this improve over time. And other features are the zoom lens is 3X now instead of 2.5X from last year, a minor upgrade. And Apple said 2.2 times better low light performance but in the actual scenario, it is not that much of a jump from 12 series. Because now reviewers have tested iPhone 13 cameras against other flagships, the conclusion is the main advantage of the iPhone camera system is they are reliable, but there are some other flagships like Galaxy S21 still shoots better photos in some scenarios. And also, since iPhone 13 still uses a 12 MP front camera, it kind of fall behind from having technically inferior hardware than the competition. Anyway, iPhone 13 series camera system is very capable. 

New Camera Hardware - Image Credit: GSM Arena

1.           New Performance – Performance is also having a huge leap in this years iPhone models. All models are equipped with an A15 Bionic chipset, performance is top tier as you would expect from an iPhone. But 13 mini and 13 is having the same chipset but 4 GPU core and 13 pros are having 5 core GPU. I think Apple should have been clear about this because after benchmark testing, 13 pros have really good GPU performance and it’s so good it seems like 13 pro is very different from 13s with a 4 core GPU. I’m pretty sure normal users won’t see any difference in performance at all, but Apple called both A15 and it’s very different in GPU performance. Does this mean the iPhone 13 will perform poorly in day-to-day tasks? Absolutely not. But compared to 13 pros it’s definitely inferior. As a company, Apple should’ve made this clear to the consumer. Anyway, these phones are the most powerful smartphones in the market right now, with or without cores, the performance is top tier in iPhone 13 series. And in iPhone 13 pro and 13 pro max coupled with 120Hz promotion displays those will feel really fast. 

New A15 Bionic Chipset - Image Credits: Cnet

1.       Battery Life – iPhone 13 lineup has physically larger batteries with bigger capacities than last year. In 12 series they actually reduced battery capacity than 11 series, but this year it’s impressively better than last year’s models. Because of the bigger batteries, iPhone 13 series are slightly thicker and heavier than last year. According to Apple, 13 mini lasts about 1.5 hrs. than 12 mini. iPhone 13 lasts about 2.5 hours than iPhone 12, 13 pro 1.5 than 12 pro. And 13 pro max 2.5 longer than 12 pro max. After evaluating the user experience and many battery tests that came out this week, I would say this 13 series actually have impressive battery life. In Mrwhosetheboss battery test video, 13 pro max lasted about 10 hours of intensive usage. That’s really refreshing to see from an iPhone because iPhones are not well reputed for battery life.

Battery Life is Really Good in iPhone 13 Series
 Image Credit: MrwhosetheBoss

1.       Final Thoughts on iPhone 13 series – Finally, Apple always provide incremental upgrades to iPhone users and there’s nothing wrong with it. Most of the companies do provide many experimental features but in the long run, they won’t hold on to those features, but Apple always sticks to their implementations with iPhones and will improve those over the years. That’s why I’m so glad they added cinematic mode for iPhone because we can expect them to improve it, like the portrait photos feature. It couldn’t perfectly focus the subject at first but look how far it has improved. Anyway, the iPhone 13 series, minor upgrades, lots of potentials. Okay, if you enjoyed the video leave a like and sub to the channel would be really appreciated. Thank you for watching, catch you in the next one.

Image Credits: Deccan Herald