In 2020, across four iPhone models, most people’s decision making came between the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro. With this year’s seemingly incremental improvements, do overdue iPhone upgraders face the same conundrum or is the standard iPhone 13 the smartest pick of the bunch?
On the surface, little appears to have changed compared to last year’s iPhone – there’s a new palette of colours to choose between (including the new ‘green’ which is available from 18 March 2022), the rear cameras are now positioned at a diagonal and there’s a fresh piece of silicon running the show – but beyond that, the 13 almost looks almost like a carbon copy of its predecessor.
As ever with the iPhone formula, reviewing this year’s model is an exercise in understanding whether Apple has managed to pack its new standard model with enough new features to feel like a worthwhile upgrade, while also striking a price/performance balance that truly competes against the wider smartphone market.
Design and build
- Beautiful design
- Great colour options (including new green)
- Top-notch water resistance
Last year, long-time iPhone fans had their sense of nostalgia tickled, when Apple moved from the 11 series’ rounded geometry to a more slab-sided look, as first seen on 2010’s iPhone 4, albeit with all the precision you’d expect from a subsequent decade of practice refining the iPhone’s form.
Visually, the changes from last year’s to this year’s vanilla iPhone are far less dramatic and, as odd as it may sound, this aesthetic standstill is actually appreciated. Although the iPhone 11’s design language wasn’t crying out for an overhaul and was arguably more comfortable in the hand, the strong lines and straight sides employed by the iPhone 12 and 13 help the iPhone stand out against the many round-edged rivals on the Android side of the fence; not to mention there’s the practical benefit of great grip – even if it is at the expense of some elegance.
The Pro line goes for flashier material finishes – like its mirror-polished stainless steel frame – while the standard 13 and 13 Mini are offered up in a wider assortment of colours. White, black, green and red entries have appeared across the last two generations of the iPhone, but last year Apple also introduced a dark blue finish, which has been warmed up for this year’s collection.
Then there’s the 13 line’s signature colour (pictured) – a new pale pastel pink that (after a quick search online) most closely resembles what Pantone describes as ‘Sheer Pink’. Set against a darker pink aluminium frame, there’s a surprisingly understated elegance to this finish that not all colourways benefit from. In my opinion, it might just be the colour of choice across the entirety of this year’s iPhone 13/13 Pro line-up.
The official Silicone Case with MagSafe in Pink Pomelo – which Apple supplied with our review sample – also serves up a pleasingly punchy contrast; if you sometimes want to rock the finish with a little more flair while also protecting that hard-edged frame from the nicks and scrapes that it’ll otherwise undoubtedly pick up in day-to-day use.
At 174g, the 13 is a tad heavier than its predecessor but it’s still well below the 200g threshold where the weight of most phones starts to become noticeable. That new camera module adds a touch more thickness too – worth being aware of for those irritated by the characteristic wobble that placing a phone with a protruding camera like this on a flat surface can result in.
The signature physical alert slider is always a welcome inclusion, positioned alongside tactile volume and sleep/wake/Siri/Apple Pay keys on either side. Apple still refuses to move away from Lighting to USB-C (and it’s unlikely to ever do so), but while your Mac and your iPad might use a more universally accepted port nowadays, holding onto Lightning means those with an existing accessory ecosystem won’t have it immediately rendered useless by the 13.
For the accident-prone, there’s also the phone’s water resistance to consider, which far surpasses the industry-standard interpretation of IP68-certification; having been tested to withstand being submerged in up to six metres of fresh water for up to 30 minutes (for comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is only IP68-certified in up to 1.5 metres and most other rivals are only tested in 1m of water).
Display and audio
- Superb colours and contrast
- 60Hz lags behind the competition
- Smaller notch doesn’t really add anything
At first blush, the 13 sports what looks like the same great 6.1in 19.5:9 Super Retina XDR AMOLED panel used on the iPhone 12. It’s just as crisp, beautifully vibrant and doles out superb viewing angles, as well as improved brightness of up to 800 nits in bright sunlight (the 12 topped out at 625 nits under the same conditions) and up to 1200 nits when viewing HDR content – according to Apple.
Side by side, keen-eyed iPhone users might also notice a key physical difference, in the notch. While Apple still hasn’t managed to eliminate it completely, it has shrunk the area it occupies down by about 20%. As before, it plays host to the front camera and TrueDepth system (used for Face ID and Memoji), but the earpiece has been shifted upwards, towards the edge of the frame, without impacting audio quality.
While a smaller notch may seem like progress, iOS doesn’t appear to capitalise on the extra pixels freed up on either side, with the same icons and indicators present as always. If anything, this is perhaps the one upgrade this year that feels like a box-ticking exercise to imply progress more than anything else. We’re all still holding out hope for the iPhone 14’s rumoured notch-less display, as a result.
One of the other big talking points for this year’s crop of iPhones is the adoption of ProMotion – Apple’s brand name for the high refresh rate display tech that’s already found on its iPad Pros, serving up super-smooth visuals that add to a device’s sense of responsiveness and fluidity.
Despite finding its way onto both Pro models, as the name suggests, ProMotion remains out of the vanilla iPhone 13’s reach. While it fits Apple’s marketing framework – helping better differentiate the Pro from its standard sibling – it’s arguably the most disappointing omission from the 13’s otherwise excellent screen and renders it hugely behind the curve as a result; with most rival phone makers offering high refresh rate displays across not only their flagship devices but their mid-rangers too.
Luckily, iOS has long handled motion with more aplomb than Android, meaning – even at 60Hz – content has always been rendered more deftly on iPhone anyway. However, a bump to 90Hz for this year’s standard and Mini iPhones would have been nice, Apple.
Like the back glass and as on last year’s model, Apple’s Ceramic Shield protects the display too and independent reports suggest that it’s no less (or more) resilient this time around, compared to that of the 12 Series.
The stereo speakers deliver a well-balanced sound, not quite as crisp as the likes of Google’s Pixel 5 but offering up richer mids as a result. With only a Lightning port to hand, you’ll have to buy compatible earphones or a 3.5mm adapter if you want wired audio, while Bluetooth 5.0 and understandably tight AirPods integration will make wireless listening the preferred choice for most, helped by the likes of spatial audio and voice isolation during calls onboard as well.
Software and features
- iOS as approachable and easy to use as ever
- iOS 15 adds meaningful features like Focus Modes
- FaceTime finally supports Android and Windows users
If you’re on any iPhone from the 6S range or newer, you may well have already upgraded to iOS 15 but the 13 series are the first set of iPhones to launch running this latest incarnation of Apple’s mobile operating system.
While our dedicated iOS 15 feature offers a deep-dive on all of the new functionality it brings to the table, highlights include improved FaceTime calling, with the ability to now directly connect with Android and Windows users, reworked content presentation in Messages, richer Apple Maps and more.
Notification Summary is a particular highlight, as it lets you group non-essential notifications (you can decide what is and isn’t important) into a summary that pops up at chosen intervals (up to eight times) throughout the day, reducing the number of times trivial tweets or Instagram posts might otherwise distract you.
Speaking of distractions, Do Not Disturb has been expanded upon, with Focus Modes: dedicated profiles that you can tailor to block notifications from certain apps, hide chosen home screens filled with select apps and schedule to turn on and off automatically. It better helps compartmentalise how your iPhone functions for you throughout the day, with default Focus Modes titled Personal, Work and Sleep.
You can also whitelist which contacts are allowed to break through your Focus Modes’ Do Not Disturb behaviour and the feature can even automatically notify non-whitelisted contacts trying to get ahold of you that you’re unavailable, via iMessage.
While perhaps not the sexiest upgrades in iOS history, these are still considered and meaningful improvements that help rein in some of the less savoury aspects of smartphone ownership (mainly notification overload and distractions) and are abilities that Android should (and likely will) crib from.
The underlying iOS experience should feel immediately familiar to those already using an iPhone, while those either making the move from Android or new to smartphones altogether shouldn’t find the learning curve too intimidating, with Apple’s often overlooked Tips app serving as a great resource to familiarise yourself with the operating system’s quirks, sensibilities and standout features.
NFC enables Apple Pay contactless payments (which are widely accepted nowadays), the company’s iconic Siri voice assistant (which works hands-free via the “Hey Siri” wake command) is present, and relatively new additions to iOS, like widgets, make your home screens more useful at a glance too.
Performance
- Outperforms even the most powerful Android flagships
- A15 Bionic should deliver great performance long-term
- Great for gaming and other demanding apps
While comparing benchmarking scores against Android rivals is an imperfect way to evaluate the relative power of Apple’s latest iPhones, it does align with the expected top-notch performance that the company’s handsets have come to be known for.
The entirety of the iPhone 13 family showcases Apple’s refined 5nm A15 Bionic chip, with the key differentiation being their GPUs: packing four cores on the 13 and 13 Mini, but five on the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max.
This small divergence likely won’t have any tangible effect in day-to-day use and will only come into play for those considering an iPhone in order to get some serious mobile gaming or video rendering done; in which case, the beefier version of the A15 and ProMotion support on the Pro/Pro Max make the decision for you.
Those looking to develop 3D or AR experiences powered by iPhone would likely be better served by the additional graphical power of the Pros too but these edge cases should highlight just how capable the standard model is.
In terms of performance, the iPhone 13 proves to be one of the most formidable smartphones on the market, deftly outpacing last year’s top-tier iPhone 12 Pro Max and a handful of this year’s most capable (and pricier) Android flagships too.
On-screen graphical benchmarks plateau at 60fps due to the limitation of the 60Hz refresh rate display but it’s clear the A15 has a substantial amount of headroom which should prove worthwhile for heavy users, gamers or simply those who hold onto the same iPhone for more than a couple of years between upgrades.
Battery and charging
- Charging speeds are still relatively slow
- Superb battery longevity
- No charger in box
Excluding the Pro Max lineage, the iPhone 13 features the largest battery of any other iPhone to date (even larger than the iPhone 13 Pro’s) and Apple touts improved longevity as one of the phone’s biggest enhancements over last year’s model.
Officially speaking, the 13 has been designed to last 2.5 hours longer than the 12 and that’s exactly what the results of our battery benchmark reflected. Despite Apple promising “all-day battery life”, in practice, the iPhone 13 could probably see users through two days of use without trouble, also standing it in good stead in the long-term, with regards to battery degradation.
In real-world use, the phone also managed an outstanding 8.5 hours of…