New & Refurbished Apple iPhone 13

Why buy an Apple iPhone 13?

Mozillion Apple iPhone 13 review

One of the fastest phones you can buy
Beautiful photos on a beautiful screen
Incredibly stylish and surprisingly strong

Not convinced? Try one of these alternatives to an Apple iPhone 13:

iPhone 13 Pro - same phone, better camera, more storage
iPhone 13 mini - same phone, smaller size & screen
iPhone 12 - last year’s model, but you’d hardly know it

Introduction

Despite speculation that Apple would skip unlucky 13, the new iPhone is here - and predictably it’s better than ever. The iPhone 13 is more evolution than revolution, improving on the excellent iPhone 12 with a faster processor, better battery life and much enhanced cameras. There are new colours, and more storage - even the base model now gets 128GB. With super-strong screen glass, decent waterproofing and 5G support, the iPhone 13 is as practical as it is stylish, too.

Design

There’s precious little difference between the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 12, but that’s no bad thing. It’s a beautiful phone, with a 6.1” Super Retina XDR screen that extends very nearly to the edges. The display is protected by an incredibly narrow aluminium border, and by Ceramic Shield glass that’s extremely resistant to drop damage. The phone has straight edges, just like on the iPhone 12 - some users prefer the curves found on the iPhone 11 and earlier.

Spotters might notice that the iPhone 13 has a jaunty camera arrangement: instead of stacking the two lenses above each other like the iPhone 12, they’re diagonally opposite on the camera hump. The notorious screen ‘notch’ housing the TrueDepth front camera has also shrunk in the wash, but the phone itself is slightly larger - the iPhone 13 has gained a fraction of a millimetre in depth, and 11 grams’ weight. It still has a Lightning port, and it supports MagSafe accessories.

Camera

The iPhone 13 sticks with Apple’s dual 12-megapixel camera system at the rear, and a single front-facing 12MP camera. It’s a good system, helped by hardware features such as optical image stabilisation. With abundant computing power, the iPhone 13 has a raft of smart image processing effects, enabling brilliant features such as the portrait and night imaging modes. Behind the scenes, an upgrade to the Wide camera’s sensor helps it capture 47% more light in a scene, further improving results in low-light conditions.

The iPhone 13 debuts Apple’s new Photographic Styles: essentially a set of smart filters capable of selectively improving areas of a photo, without ruining other bits. There’s also a move to sensor-shift image stabilisation - it was previously only found on iPhone Pro models.

Video

The iPhone 13 has some of the best video features you’ll find on a phone. You can use its front or rear cameras to record 4K video at up to 60 frames per second. There’s also 4K HDR Dolby Vision video - now up to 60fps, rather than the 30fps limit on the iPhone 12. A new Cinematic Mode lets you record videos with a shallow depth of field (where only a limited range of distances are in focus). You can even adjust this focus later to get the effect just so.

If slo-mo is more your thing, the iPhone 13’s main camera can go as slow as 240fps. In dim light, the combination of image processing, sensor-shift image stabilisation, a larger sensor and ƒ/1.6 aperture on the wide lens promises stunningly steady and noise-free videos.

Display

The iPhone 13 features a bright and brilliant, 6.1” OLED screen that’s almost entirely without a border. It crams in 2,532x1,170 pixels, giving it a depth of 460 pixels per inch for exceptional sharpness and clarity. There’s been a slight boost in typical brightness over the iPhone 12, but more noticeably, the notch housing the front camera has shrunk, leaving more usable space.

While rivals including the iPhone 13 Pro Max offer bigger screens with even greater resolutions, the iPhone 13’s display remains superb for gaming, entertainment and everyday use. However, it’s worth noting that it still doesn’t get a 120Hz refresh rate - you’ll need the iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 13 Pro Max for that.

Processor

Apple has been leading the processor arms race for some time, and the iPhone 13 gets its latest A15 Bionic chip. It’s a blistering processor, which ought to keep the iPhone range well ahead of even the fastest Android competitors.

One subtle change over previous iPhones is that the processor isn’t completely identical across the range. While the iPhone 13 Pro models get a new 5-core graphics processing unit (GPU), the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini have four cores. This gives Pro models an edge for demanding games and benchmarks, but the ‘standard’ models are still ridiculously fast.

Battery

Faster processor, brighter screen - you’d expect the iPhone 13’s battery life to suffer, but in fact it’s got power in spades. Apple says the iPhone 13 can playback video for up to 19 hours - that’s two hours more than the iPhone 12! We can’t wait to test the claim, but it’s certain that most users will get more than a day between charges.

The iPhone 13 supports Qi wireless charging and MagSafe charging docks. It also supports rapid charging with the 20W adaptor. Apple says the phone can charge to 50% in less than half an hour - our tests on earlier iPhones back this up.

Colours & Options

The iPhone 13 is available in five colours: blue, pink, red, starlight and midnight. The latter two are essentially white and black with a gentle makeover. In a big improvement over previous iPhones, the standard iPhone now starts at 128GB. If you want more space, there are 256GB and 512GB options, but Apple’s launch price for the latter was a hefty £1,079.

You can snazz up the iPhone 13 with a full range of MagSafe accessories, all of which attach quickly and securely. However, because the new phone is marginally deeper, iPhone 12 cases generally won’t fit. To reduce electrical waste you won’t find earbuds or a charger in the box - there’s just a USB-C to Lightning cable. As with previous iPhones, there’s no 3.5mm audio port, and no memory card slot.