I used Android devices for most of the evolution of the smartphone. For a while, I switched to the Apple ecosystem, but dropped the iPhones (iPhone 4s, 6s and 7) for good in 2017 because I felt that Apple handsets were limited. Apple played very safely and in many ways and began to lose the battle with Android rivals. Android devices continue to improve over time and add more value to your investment.
Take any value-flagship or premium Android device you have launched in the last couple of years and compare it with the latest generation iPhone 13, you will notice the difference.
However, things have changed or are starting to change with the latest generation of iPhones. What we are reviewing today- the iPhone 13 is not very thin in features as a whole package. It gets some coveted camera features, bigger storage, smaller notch and better battery life at the launch price of its predecessor iPhone 12.
Now, most of these features are not much different for the iPhone 12 user; However, if you are using an older generation iPhone and are planning to switch from every iPhone XR, iPhone 11 or Android, you will experience some surprises and some disappointments. So, should you switch? I will try to answer such questions in the following review.
Apple iPhone 13 Design
I will mainly focus on ergonomics and usability as Apple does not give us any complaints in terms of quality. You would think that the iPhone 13 is very sleek (7.7mm) and lightweight (174g). It has the right amount of display size and ratios that provide excellent for most smartphone-related tasks. Unlike most Android devices, the iPhone 13’s 6.1-inch screen is slightly wider.
The flat display comes with a few extra millimeters of width, reminiscent of the front fascia of the Google Pixel 3XL. Both Google and Apple seem to have somewhat similar aesthetics when it comes to designing handsets.
To be honest, this particular display size is much more convenient and handy than those long aspect ratio handsets. You will need to make less effort to reach the extreme corners of the screen to reduce hand fatigue in daily use.
Easy to use with one hand
The iPhone 13 is comfortable in the palm of the hand and offers excellent grip. Works flat and compatible with flat front handset. Buttons are also thoughtfully placed for extra convenience. If you still find the 6.1-inch large screen of your choice, the 13 Mini will serve you better.
iPhone 12 Vs iPhone 13 Design- Cosmetic Changes
If you are wondering what’s new in the iPhone 13 design, the notch is now smaller and the phone is slightly heavier (10g) than its predecessor. The camera placement is also slightly adjusted with the new and larger sensors placed diagonally.
And there is a new color- pink has to be reviewed to present a very elegant pink shade. The aluminum frame is also available in pink, but with a premium matte finish. The overall design is minimal and beautiful.
While I like the flat and wider display form factor, Apple has something to do with thick black bezels. They are very recognizable and give a dated feel to the beautiful front fascia of new iPhones.
Durability Standards
When it comes to durability, the iPhone 13 is IP68 dust/water resistant. According to Apple, the handset can live for 30 minutes at a depth of 6 meters. The phone has a Corning Gorilla Glass layer on both the front (ceramic shield) and rear and the frame is made of aluminum, which gives the frame the strength it needs. Overall, the phone feels sturdy and long lasting.
Apple iPhone 13 Display
The flat front fascia features a 6.1-inch Full HD (1,170 x 2,532 pixels) Super Retina XDR OLED display with 460ppi. It is a very nice OLED panel that can produce amazing colors and amazing resolution. Text and symbols look very crisp indoors and outdoors when OLED touches ~800 nits of normal maximum brightness and reaches maximum brightness of 1,200 nits when transmitting HDR content.
Importantly, the screen is also dimmed (1.7 nits) so you can use multimedia content comfortably without straining your eyes in a dark room. I watched the ‘See’ season on Apple TV on the iPhone 13 and enjoyed the immersive visuals. The colors pop well and the panel produces a deep black. The bright OLED screen also supports popular viewing formats such as HDR 10 and Dolby Vision.
Good color tuning & Adequately bright
overall, which is a very pleasant overall screen user experience, thanks to the appropriate brightness, fine color tuning and True tone adjustments. It is the most color-accurate OLED at its respective price point and you can notice the difference when you compare the screen to any other device side by side.
Dated 60Hz Refresh Rate But Fine-Tuning Makes All The Difference
I was very disappointed to see that the 120Hz promotion was reserved for Pro models only. The iPhone 13 and 13 Mini are still getting a 60Hz refresh rate and you can do little about it. Since I use the most premium Android devices with 120Hz refresh rate panels, I was able to notice the difference in fluidity when navigating across the UI and scrolling my Twitter / Instagram timelines.
However, I can confidently say that the standard 60Hz refresh rate on the iPhone 13 is not a deal breaker by any margin. It’s just like a 90Hz panel, thanks to Apple’s mind blowing animations and fine – tuned adjustments. The only thing that bothered me was the line at the top. For those of you like me who come from an Android ecosystem full of bezel-less screens, that ugly notch is a bummer.
Notch Still Hunts
Do not like watching videos of Notch looking at you at all and take you to the past. Apple iPhone 11 or previous generation iPhone users will find it a little less obscure. However the audio performance is awesome. The speaker setup is impressive and enhances the overall multimedia viewing and gaming experience.
A15 Bionic Performance
My performance analysis of the iPhone 13 is based on the use of the iPhone 11 and current flagship Android devices. The list includes Vivo X70 Pro + (SD888 Plus), Galaxy Fold 3 devices (SD 888), Realme GT (SD 888), Realme GT Neo 2 (SD870) and most top-tier Android flagships launched last year. . On the other hand, the iPhone 13 works with the 5nm A15 bionic chip.
Using 15 billion transistors, it is said to be the fastest mobile chip in the world. The A15 Bionic is a hexa-core SoC with a clock speed of 3,230 MHz. The SoC has a 4-core GPU (5-core for Pro models), two performance cores and four power-efficiency cores. This Tech Mumbo Jumbo translates everything to log-free performance in real life. The handset seems to be burning fast in all aspects of mobile usage and computing.
Runs games without overheating
Multi-tasking, camera usage, video calling, running the heaviest games, or even performing a function as simple as opening a web page in Safari all shine smoothly. And remember, the iPhone 13 only has 4GB of RAM and it still runs faster (even better) than Android rivals boast of up to 12GB of RAM.
Games like NFS No Limits, BGMI, Marvel Revolution run without glitch and most importantly, unlike most Android devices, the iPhone 13 does not heat up. The main contributing factor to the smooth overall performance of the iPhone 13 is the well-optimized iOS 15. Here is what you need to know about iOS 15.
iOS 15 User Experience
If you have never experienced iOS before, you may experience some surprises and some major disappointments. For starters, iOS feels very refined and fluid compared to Google’s Android. Only a handful of Android handsets, such as the Flagship OnePlus and Google Pixel handsets, came close. The App Store has a rich library of apps and the most useful apps are available for free.
Visual Art On OLED Display
Small and meaningful UI / UX differences between apps in the Android and iOS world will start to grow on you. Apple’s own utilities such as voice memos, measuring devices, reminders, and note apps are a treat to use. Apps fill home screens with the most left and right spots taken by the Todays page and the app library, respectively. You can’t disable these two fixed home screens, why Apple?
Good Set Of Widgets But Lacks Customizability
Viewable widgets can be added to home screens; However, their size is not freely customizable. You can stack and rotate different widgets, which is a lot of fun to use and allows you to better optimize real estate on different home screens. Android loses this useful feature.
Control Centre Offers Easy Access To Utilities
The control center is easily accessible from the right corner with a pull-down signal. It is customizable and also supports Haptic Touch to provide extended controls of the listed features and utilities. You can enable/disable system-wide dark mode with just one tap and access the most needed controls in the panel. Swiping down from the left corner shows the Notification Center.
Some Extremely Useful Features/Utilities In iOS 15 & Some Painpoints
I have found the following features / utilities to be very useful.
- FaceTime Link – You can make FaceTime with non-iPhone users by creating FaceTime links from the app. It works on Android and Windows devices. All you need is a web browser.
- Live Text in Photos – This is another useful feature in iOS that allows you to select, copy and search text in images. This feature also works in real time camera usage.
- Focus Modes – You can customize the modes according to your need. For example, you can create a mode for movie viewing and send notifications only to selected apps when launched. By default, you get DND, Personal, Sleep and Work mode.
- The keyboard still does not support haptics.
- Interacting with notifications in the Notification Center is still a very laborious task and I appreciate the way Android handles it.
- Free sized widgets are not supported.
Overall, iOS looks very refreshing, fun to use and feature-rich, but you still lose the flexibility of the Android ecosystem at times.
Apple iPhone 13 benchmark scores
Apple iPhone 13 benchmark scores Blazing-fast real-life performance-related benchmark results. The iPhone 13 scored 8,15,614 in the standings, while the Geekbench 5 scored 1,720 in the single-core and 4,642 in the multi-core test. The handset recorded 3,900 in the 3D Mark Slingshot Extreme and 2,494 in the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Test. These results outperform rival Android devices offered by the best Snapdragon 888 Plus SoC in the industry.
Apple iPhone 13 Camera Hardware
Apple has made some notable upgrades to the camera hardware. The iPhone 13 has a dual-lens rear camera featuring a new 12MP Sony sensor (26mm) with larger pixels using a seven-element lens (f/1.6 aperture) and a 12MP ultra-wide sensor (14mm, ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view) making use of a five-element lens. The setup offers 2x optical zoom and up to 5x digital zoom. It has Smart HDR4, advanced red-eye correction, and auto image stabilization.
Feature-Packed Camera App
The sensor-shift taken from the iPhone 12 Pro Max is provided in the OIS primary sensor. Both sensors have sapphire crystal lenses. On the software side, the iPhone 13 is very feature-packed and offers a range of modes and filters. The camera app has a portrait mode with bokeh and depth control and six portrait lighting effects (Natural, Studio, Contour, Stage, Stage Mono, Hi-Key Mono). Night mode works on three sensors.
In particular, you can choose between different photographic styles to customize the image output. In the list- Standard, Rich Contrast, Vibrant, Worm and Cool. Interestingly, these modes are customizable, work on sensors and are easily accessible with just one tap. For selfies, the iPhone 13 has another 12MP camera (23mm) using a f/2.2 lens.
Excellent Video Recording Hardware
When it comes to video recording, the iPhone 13 offers 4K video recording at 24 fps, 25 fps, 30 fps, or 60 fps, 1080p HD video recording at 25 fps, 30 fps or 60 fps and 720p HD video recording at 30 fps. All three cameras can shoot in 4K at 60fps.
The most sought-after feature- cinematic mode works on primary and selfie cameras and records videos at 1080p at 30 fps. HDR video recording with Dolby Vision supports up to 4K at 60 fps.
Picture Quality- Aces The White Balance & Color Tones
- The iPhone 13’s camera strength lies in its consistency in providing naturally occurring shots with rich contrast and low noise levels. The large aperture on the primary sensor provides enough light and captures crisp images with fine detail.
- The iPhone 13 nails white balance with every shot and thanks to the smart HDR4, the Android handset comes nowhere close.
- Color accuracy, exposure value and mobility are maintained across sensors; It’s very hard to find in Android Flagships.
- Portraits look natural with stunning sharpness and realistic color tones. Subject isolation is very effective and you can experiment with a range of portrait modes.
Consistency & Level Of Control Is Unparalleled
- If you are switching from Android flagship to Samsung Galaxy S21, OnePlus 9 Pro, Vivo X-series etc., the dynamic range and color vibration may not impress you. However, I call it Balanced and are not very aggressive.
- At any time, you can set a new photographic style, vibrant or rich contrast and customize it if you like rich colors and contrast images. Stated that the level of stability and control over the output was unequal.
- The wide angle sensor captures a very wide frame and good details in plenty of lighting. Details are lost and noise creep in low-light but color accuracy and contrast are maintained.
- The same goes for the front camera. It also preserves all the features and performance aspects of the primary camera on the back.
Low-Light Camera Performance
- The iPhone 13 is impressive in low-light scenes. Night mode starts automatically and sets the exposure time depending on the lighting available.
- Images come clean and show rich color tones and good contrast levels. Images lose detail and make noise when there is no artificial lighting or when there is very little or when you shoot in wide angle mode.
Video Recording Performance
- Some Android devices can still outperform the iPhone 13 but none come close to video-taking capabilities. The video footage recorded on the iPhone 13 is excellent in terms of stability, white balance and skin color tones.
- Video footage, 4K 60fps also show impressive dynamic range.
- The iPhone 13 can shoot HDR videos in Dolby Vision and also allows editing on the device and uploading to YouTube. Dolby Vision videos look like any normal video on a device and display powerful colors and details on a convenient screen.
- The cinematic videos are impressive. I think Apple’s video bokeh implementation is better than the real-time portrait mode on Android devices’ cameras. It is more realistic and provides results that look natural. If you have a smart camera (rack focus technique) that can automatically change the focus, you can also do this by tapping on various subjects in the frame. Cinematic videos were shot in Dolby Vision HDR.
Apple iPhone 13 Battery Life & Connectivity
The iPhone 13 will last longer than the OnePlus 9 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S21 + 5G and its predecessors. I easily logged in 6 hours 30-35 minutes of screen-on time with a full charge. Standby time is also very impressive. Slow charging speed is not impressive. It took me almost 75 minutes to recharge the iPhone 13’s modest 3,240mAh battery cell from flat to 100%.
I used an AMX XP 60 PD charger that offers 45W fast charging speed on its USB-C port. It must be supplying current to the iPhone 13 at 23W. I did not experience any connectivity issues on the iPhone 13 with Vodafone-Idea in Delhi NCR. The handset also handles rock-solid Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections with attached devices.
Verdict
The iPhone 13 did not disappoint me at all. In fact, I would easily recommend it to anyone who wants to invest in a premium Android device for its consistent performance. Both the iPhone 13 and 13 Mini can act as gateways to Apple’s ecosystem of apps, services and associated gadgets.
If you buy an iPhone 13, you will need to get at least five years of software upgrades, which is not compatible with any Android phone. For iPhone users, if you are using an older generation iPhone, it may be worth upgrading the iPhone 13 but it makes less sense for Apple iPhone 12 users.
