iPhone 13 - My Verdict

Apple's iPhone 13 (starting at $799) is a battery life beast, with a far longer lifespan than previous midrange smartphones. While we appreciate the iPhone 13 mini's greater pocketability, the iPhone 12 mini's unimpressive sales have taught us that most people prefer a long battery life to a handsome form factor. So even though the other upgrades from the previous generation aren't nearly as noticeable here, the battery boost is deep enough that it's definitely worth the $100 premium over a standard-sized iPhone 12. And if you're upgrading from an earlier iPhone, you'll find the power and camera quality very welcome. This makes the iPhone 13 the best bet for most buyers.

Design: Subtle Improvements

The iPhone 13 looks a lot like the iPhone 12. At 5.8 by 2.8 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and 6.1 ounces, it's the same size as the iPhone 12, but a third of an ounce heavier. Due to the slightly different position of the side buttons, some cases designed for the previous model work, and others do not.

There is a noticeable difference at the front, and one at the back. According to Apple, the "notch" at the top is a bit small — 20% smaller for Face ID. On the back, the two camera lenses are a bit bigger and are stacked diagonally rather than stacked vertically.

There are five color options, including blue, pink, red, "midnight" (a blue so dark it can read as black), and "starlight" (a subtle off-white, like an eggshell).

Like the iPhone 12, the iPhone 13 features a 6.1-inch, 2,532-by-1,170-pixel OLED display with a wide color gamut and Apple's True Tone color management. Apple says the typical brightness is now 800cd/m2, compared to 625cd/m2 on the iPhone 12. We'll rely on DisplayMate Labs' testing to double-check that number when their results are out.

The difference between the standard iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models is that the 13 has a 60Hz display, while the Pros has a 120Hz display. If you've never experienced a 120Hz display, it won't be that big a deal. 60Hz displays have been the standard for many years, and the iPhone 13's display is fluid and smooth.

Performance: iPhone is what the iPhone does

Apple's A15 CPU is built on the same 5nm process as the previous A14. Apple says the performance of its 6-core CPU and 4-core GPU is the fastest ever.

On the Geekbench benchmark, I only saw an 8% improvement in single-core CPU performance and a 13% improvement in GPU performance compared to the iPhone 12. However, I saw a huge improvement in the real-world Basemark web browser benchmark, which jumped from 766.86 to 1042.93 as the phone's speed through web page loads.

The fact is, Apple's tight integration between hardware and software has always led to an impeccable performance in new iPhones, at least initially. It's down the road when they can get into trouble.

The performance of the iPhone 13 and 13 Mini is similar. The 13 Pro and Pro Max both add a fifth GPU core, which led to disproportionately better test performance. But if apps run fine with four GPU cores, why do you need a fifth core? This stands for 120Hz screen, which is one of the difference-making features offered by the pricier Pro series.

Battery: That's Why You Are Here

Apple made a huge leap forward in battery management and capacity with the iPhone 12 series, but much was lost in real-world use with the transition to power-hungry 5G. The iPhone 13 series ships right, offering all-day battery life with the iPhone 13 base model, and two days of battery life with the 13 Pro.

In this case, it's not about the size of the battery. We don't have technical details on the iPhone 13's battery capacity, but it's not much bigger than the 12's. But the new A15 processor and X60 modem appear to be much more efficient than the A14 and X55 in the iPhone 12 series, making video playback times much longer, and much longer in real-world use.

Now, even the iPhone 13 mini is better than the standard iPhone 12. But there's still a huge delta between the 13 Mini and the standard 13, and I think that's the main reason you'll want to buy the standard 13.

Software: iOS 15 Is Smooth As Butter

The iPhone 13 runs iOS 15 as of this writing, although by the time you read to get it, it might be running iOS 16, 17, or 18. That's one of the iPhone's strengths: It's going to be supported in software for at least five years. So iOS 15 isn't a differentiator for the iPhone 13—you'll get the same OS features on an iPhone 12, 11, or XR.

We'll have a full iOS 15 review soon, but it isn't a huge change from iOS 14—here are some of its top new features. The most aggressive change I found is Apple's constant attempts to destroy third-party apps' reliance on targeted advertising.

Compared with Android, I'm struck by how smooth the iOS interface continues to be, especially in scrolling and task switching. But it's more difficult to use than Android when it comes to sorting and dealing with notifications, sharing information between third-party apps such as multiple photo/video editors, and arranging useful information on your home screen.

As always, the more deeply you bake yourself into Apple's ecosystem, the better. iPhones very badly want to back up your photos and data on iCloud, have you play games on Apple Arcade, and listen to Apple Music—all for a $14.95/month Apple One subscription. You can certainly populate an iPhone primarily with Google or Microsoft services, but you may have fewer options to easily share your content and will find your cloud services less closely plumbed into the OS.

Camera: Difficult to see a big difference

Apple has improved a lot of specs in the iPhone 13's camera, but I had real trouble seeing those specs translate into better images. The new hardware consists of a larger sensor that captures 47% more light than the iPhone 12, as well as improved sensor-shift optical image stabilization for video.

Like the iPhone 12, the iPhone 13 has two 12-megapixel cameras on the back: a main f/1.6 camera and a 120-degree ultra-wide f/2.4 lens. On the front, there is a 12-megapixel camera with LiDAR depth mapping for Face ID and augmented reality. Video recording goes up to 4K at 60fps both front and back.

Flagship smartphones a few years back have reached a level of basic perfection when it comes to outdoor photography in good light.

Most of the action in phone cameras lately has been in three areas: night mode, zoom, and video.

Low-light performance is very important to many people. Here's the good news: Apple has made at least subtle improvements to low-light performance every year. The big leap was between the iPhone XR and 11 when Apple introduced its computational Night Mode, which makes out the light from the dark. Between the iPhone 12 and 13, the low-light differences are very subtle. Mostly, it is that there is less noise on the iPhone 13. That's cool, but the "run out and get this" kind of feature isn't.

In the case of Zoom, the iPhone 13 (like the iPhone 12) falls to the job. The 13 has two lenses, one standard wide and one ultrawide, which most of the competition has outpaced so far. To get the 3x zoom that's common on Android competitors, you'll have to step up to the $999 iPhone 13 Pro.

With the Ultrawide lens in good lighting, colors are truer than on the iPhone 12—sometimes, not all the time—and edge distortion is nearly the same. There is no cool edge distortion correction than in the OnePlus 9 Pro.

In terms of video, the big new feature is "cinematic focus", which supposedly shifts the focus between different subjects in the video. Like "photographic styles" which are amped-up filters

In terms of video, the big new feature is "cinematic focus", which allegedly shifts the focus between different subjects in the video. Like "photographic styles", which are amped-up filters

As with zoom lenses, other things you give up when not going pro are ProRes video—an arcane format used by professionals—and macro photography.