Why buy an Apple iPhone 13 Pro?
Mozillion Apple iPhone 13 Pro review
The fastest phone you can buy
Incredible battery life, camera, screen, and processing power
Strong and stylish
Not convinced? Try one of these alternatives to an Apple iPhone 13 Pro:
iPhone 13 - almost as good, but cheaper
iPhone 13 Pro Max - bigger, and even better
iPhone 12 Pro Max - last year’s model, still worth having
Introduction
While the iPhone 13 is generally an evolution of the iPhone 12, the iPhone 13 Pro offers some major upgrades. iPhone 13 Pro models get a more powerful version of Apple’s new A15 Bionic chip, making them the fastest phones you can buy. There’s a new screen offering up to 120Hz refresh rates, and an entirely new triple camera setup promising major improvements. Throw in the battery life upgrades seen across the whole iPhone 13 range, and the iPhone 13 Pro looks like much more of a step ahead.
Design
From most angles the iPhone 13 Pro looks a lot like the iPhone 12 Pro. With straight, stainless steel edges and a 6.1” OLED screen that runs almost to the very edge of the phone, it’s every bit as classy as you’d expect from an iPhone - and a high-end one at that.
Arguably, the back is less successful. While the iPhone 13 Pro’s frosted glass panel looks as impressive as ever, it’s now dominated by a large camera mound with three huge black lenses, a flash, and the LiDAR sensor. We’d choose a dark colour and dark case to help disguise them.
Camera
The iPhone 13 Pro contains an entirely new camera system with some astonishing features. The Wide camera has a larger sensor with bigger 1.9µm pixels, coupled with a wider ƒ/1.5 aperture, so it captures more light and gets great results even in very low light. Apple says the changes amount to a 2.2X improvement over the iPhone 12 Pro. As with the outgoing model, a LiDAR scanner helps accelerate autofocus in dim conditions and improve night mode portraits.
Similar improvements to the Ultra Wide camera deliver a claimed 92% improvement in low-light performance. The new lens can now focus objects just 2cm away, enabling a brilliant new macro photography mode.
Other cool photography features include sensor-shift image stabilisation, to reduce blur with big zooms and long exposures. There’s also Photographic Styles, a new set of smart filters that apply targeted effects to parts of the image, rather than to the whole scene. Finally, the iPhone 13 Pro can shoot in Apple ProRAW, preserving more image detail and allowing greater editing control.
Video
With such a major camera upgrade, the iPhone 13 Pro is a sensational video platform. It’s full of powerful iPhone features, such as shooting 4k video at up to 60 frames per second (fps). Sensor-shift image stabilisation helps to keep things shake-free, even while exploiting the 3x optical zoom in, 2x zoom out, and up to 9x digital zoom. There’s also the new Cinematic Mode, allowing you to film with a shallow depth of field - and even edit the focus and blur later.
The iPhone 13 Pro is the first iPhone to support ProRes, a video codec offering less compression and higher colour fidelity. With this, the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max become the only smart phones that can capture, edit and share video content in either Dolby Vision or ProRes. They’re serious filmmaking tools.
Display
The iPhone 13 Pro has a 6.1” organic LED (OLED) display offering a 2,532x1,170 resolution. On the face of it that’s identical to the iPhone 12 Pro, but Apple says it’s an all-new screen. There’s a small increase in its typical maximum brightness, and the notch housing the TrueDepth camera is smaller than on earlier iPhones.
More significantly, the iPhone 13 Pro screen now supports adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz. The change makes the iPhone more competitive with top-end Android rivals, and will satisfy people who’ve been craving improved fluidity and responsiveness.
Processor
The iPhone 13 range is built around a new, A15 Bionic processor that promises to remain well ahead of the competition for some time. In a departure from previous generations, the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max get a more powerful version than the ‘everyday’ iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini. The difference is an extra, fifth graphics core, which Apple says makes the iPhone 13 Pro up to 50% faster than its leading competitors.
That extra speed might be noticeable if you’ll be playing high-end games, and it may help accelerate the iPhone 13 Pro’s many powerful photo and video features. Meanwhile, the chip’s 16-core Neural Engine provides the brute force to power even faster machine-learning applications.
Battery
Stunningly, given the huge power on offer, the iPhone 13 Pro has made a leap forward in battery performance. It offers up to 22 hours of video playback - up from 17 hours in the iPhone 12 Pro. Apple says it will stream video for up to 20 hours, almost double the 11 hours previously possible.
As with other iPhones, the iPhone 13 Pro will charge to 50% in under 30 minutes using a 20W adaptor. It also supports Qi and MagSafe wireless charging pads, cutting the hassle when you need to grab a top up.
Colours & Options
Typically for Pro level iPhones, the iPhone 13 Pro is available in fewer colours - you can choose from silver, graphite, gold and Sierra Blue. The cheapest version offers 128GB, but you can choose 256GB, 512GB or even a new 1TB capacity. At Apple’s official launch prices, the range costs from £949 to a mighty £1,449 - it’s a good job you can buy an iPhone 13 Pro for less at Mozillion!
No matter how much you pay, you won’t get headphones or a charger. If you’re buying the former, you’ll either need to go wireless, or buy a pair of EarPods with Lightning connector - iPhones don’t have a 3.5mm audio port.
The iPhone 13 Pro does support Apple’s magnetic MagSafe accessories, which include cases and charge points designed to make wireless charging even more convenient. Despite similar dimensions, iPhone 12 Pro cases won’t fit the new phone’s bigger camera bump.
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