Welcome to my iPhone 13 Review… With the exception of a smaller notch, the iPhone 13 doesn’t seem very new at first glance, but when you start using this flagship you start to appreciate a bunch of welcome upgrades. The new iPhone display is brighter than before, the battery life is longer and Apple has improved an already great camera system. It now has better sensors and features like cinematic mode that make you feel like a pro, even on a non pro phone.
However there are some flaws…
iPhone 13 review – Pros & Cons
There are really two notable design changes for the iPhone 13. Firstly, the rear cameras are now arranged diagonally instead of vertically, secondly the notch is now 20% smaller. I appreciated the mini notch when using apps with a white background such as Safari and Gmail, however, it still swoops down.
The button placement is slightly different on the iPhone 13 versus iPhone 12, such as the power button being lower. Otherwise you get the same thing as before, ceramic shield display up front, durable glass back and flat edges. Unfortunately the iPhone 13 doesn’t offer Touch ID, an upgrade many of us would have appreciated. Since Face ID doesn’t work well with masks, a sensor embedded in the power button like the iPad mini 6 would have been just fine. The bad news is that the iPhone 13 doesn’t offer the 120 Hertz refresh rate of the iPhone 13 Pro, and this would have been nice for smoother scrolling and overall performance. You do however get a brighter display than the iPhone 12, which helps alot when you’re outdoors. We measured 795 nits of brightness compared to 569 for last year’s iPhone and 856 nits for the Galaxy S21. The overall display quality continues to be stellar, with great colours, contrast and viewing angles. When watching the trailer for The Matrix Resurrections, I could make out individual hairs on Neo’s beard as he stared up into the sun, and I could almost feel the punch he delivered to the new Morpheus.
iPhone 13 Review Camera Upgrades
The iPhone 13 review of the camera key upgrades. This includes a main camera that lets in more light, an ultra wide camera that captures more scene and an improved night mode.
The overall image quality was top notch and my testing complete with compelling portrait shots, plenty of detail and colourful, ultra wide landscapes.
If you want more control, you’ll appreciate the photographic styles feature. You can switch between multiple options in the camera including Standard, Vibrant, Rich, Contrast, Warm and Cool.
I put the iPhone 13’s cameras up against Samsung’s best and the iPhone 12 and the new iPhone fared quite well. In this photo taken out of Reservoir, you can see how superior the iPhone 13 camera is compared to the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Water looks more translucent and the iPhone 13 does a better job rendering the shadows around wood. The iPhone 13 also delivered a better looking shot of my Halloween decorations. The signs looks more vibrant, as do the surrounding real life pumpkins. The S 21 Ultras pick is pretty sharp, but looks kind of flat in many shooting situations. The iPhone 13 was on a par with the iPhone 12, but I did notice a marked improvement in Night mode. The iPhone 13 captures a brighter pink in the hydrangea flowers in the dark, and my candle shot looks crisper in very low light. With the selfie, the iPhone 13 delivers colours that are a bit too saturated, while the S 21 shot looks a bit hazy and washed out, so it’s kind of a drop for me.
Video & Sound Quality – iPhone 13
My iPhone 13 review of the video concludes that it is a rare smartphone that can make you feel like a pro as you shoot videos, and that’s thanks to a new feature called Cinematic Mode. The effect brings depth of field to your footage and automatically changes the focus to various subjects. It’s almost like magic. When recording a couple of dogs, I was really impressed when the iPhone 13 placed the focus on the pup that was closest to me at first. You can also change the focus point manually by tapping the screen. The bokeh effect on the background is also pretty convincing and immersive, I took footage of me walking along a trail and another clip of me trying to sneak a cookie. The iPhone 13 did a fairly good job deciding when to focus on me versus the plate.
Cinematic mode isn’t perfect, as the iPhone 13 sometimes took a second to recognise faster moving subjects and you can’t do Cinematic Mode in 4K, but overall it’s a cool feature.
The video quality from the iPhone 13 is the best I’ve seen from a phone, with improved noise reduction and better dynamic range. This Dolby Vision HDR footage of waves lapping up against the sand is almost mesmerising, and this sweeping landscape of the Battle of Monmouth site delivers a crystal clear blue sky and lots of details in the clouds and surrounding trees.
The A15 Bionic inside the iPhone 13 review doesn’t offer a dramatic performance gain over the iPhone 12, but it’s still the fastest chip in any phone. In a game like Genshin Impact, the animations and effects felt console quality as I climb mountains, swim through water and tried to battle enemies. I was equally impressed by the sea gap, which instantly identified plants when I pointed the camera around a nearby park. The iPhone 13 blows away Android phones on benchmarks like Geekbench 5 and in graphics tests on 3rd mark wildlife, the new iPhone hit 55.9 frames per second. That’s a bit higher than the iPhone 12 at 51 FPS, but the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra mustered only 33. One of the best iPhone 13 upgrades is longer battery life thanks to a bigger battery, more efficient display and the A-15 bionic chip. Ince the iPhone 12, Apple upgraded their batteries to fast charge. This means that the iPhone 13 charges quicker, but the batteries no longer last 3 – 4 years, they only last 2 years max and then you need a iPhone 13 Battery Replacement. On the Time Sky battery test, which involves continuous 5G web surfing, the iPhone 13 endured for 10 hours and 33 minutes. That’s more than two hours longer than the 8 hours and 25 mins from the iPhone 12. The best result we saw from the Galaxy S21 was 9 hours and 53 minutes. Unfortunately the iPhone 13 offers the same lame charging speeds as before. The new iPhone got to 51% in 30 minutes with Apple’s optional 20 Watt charger, other phones are much speedier. The iPhone 15 Watt Magsafe charger is even slower, but some may find it more convenient because you don’t have to deal with Lightning. From my iPhone 13 review, you can see that it doesn’t fare quite as well as the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, which offer 120 Hertz display, telephoto zoom, and macro photography, But at £799 this is the best new iPhone for the money. The cameras are simply the best you’ll find in this class, and I especially like the longer battery life. I wouldn’t recommend that iPhone 12 owners upgrade to the new iPhone, but the iPhone 13 could be worth it if you own an iPhone 11 or older device. I’d like to see Apple offer faster charging next time around, and the lack of Touch ID is a bummer. Overall the iPhone 13 is a fantastic phone and is very repairable. Although Apple will not tackle most of the repairs we do, you can read through the Apple iPhone 13 Manual if you like. Most issues can be repaired but DrFixit though such as the iPhone 13 Screen Repair or if your iPhone 13 Charging Port Replacement needs doing, none of these are too difficult to accomplish
