Apple iPhone 13
- Same flat-edge design as iPhone 12
- Smaller notch
- Marginally thicker and heavier to accommodate a larger battery
- Faster A15 chip
- The base storage is now 128GB
Apple unveiled their 2022 lineup and introduced two base models of different sizes: The iPhone 14 and the 14 Plus.
This Feels Familiar
It's yet another year and yet another iPhone is now in our hands. Today, the 2021 models are here for us to judge and the first thing we notice is that it's more or less identical to the iPhone 12. The same flat-edge design is here - looking stylish as ever. The camera lenses are now positioned diagonally rather than vertically. The infamous notch is smaller now as the TrueDepth camera housing has a reduced size, so the call speaker was able to be moved closer to the top edge. Still fully compatible with your AirPods 2, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max too, of course. In short, it's very similar to its predecessor. Although, this time around, it's around 0.2 mm thicker and 10g heavier to improve the battery life, which we'll shed a light on in a bit.
Bigger Battery For All
As humans, we may have lots of differences, yet what we all have in common is that we all appreciate some good old battery life improvements for our phones - it simply sucks to run out of juice on a Friday night outside. To make it possible, Apple have simply made the battery larger and made further optimisations to their new A15 Bionic chip. Apple claim that the new iPhone 13 now lasts up to 2.5 hours more than its predecessor. Speaking of, they topped themselves yet again with a superfast chip that is also highly energy-efficient. Every single action is just buttery smooth on it with no performance hiccups whatsoever.
Diagonal Camera Setup
Yeah, you heard that right. The most noticeable design change of the iPhone 13 is its camera setup on the back - it's positioned diagonally now. How do they perform though, you ask? Excellently, as expected. All your favourites are here: On the video front, 4K recording at 60 FPS with Dolby Vision HDR, slow-mo recording at 240 FPS and timelapse are all better than ever. The photos also look beautifully crisp and vibrant thanks to the improved image processing and bigger lenses that can capture 47% more light. This, of course, means an enhanced night mode performance as well
Cinema-grade Videos
Probably the most exciting camera feature of the iPhone 13 is the Cinematic Mode where Apple flex their processing and camera muscles with a feature that allows you to record the foreground and background simultaneously to enable smooth bokeh transitions between different objects and persons. Some may find its "only 1080p at 30 FPS" limitation a bit underwhelming, the results are seriously impressive as you can even go back to your recorded Cinematic videos and change its depth-of-field as if it's a mere Instagram filter.
Bigger Storage and Brighter Display
In 2020, Apple have ignored the expectations and rleased their base model with only 64GB of internal storage and stunned a sizeable chunk of their critics. With the iPhone 13, they have finally listened to the community and finally boosted the base storage option to 128GB for the entry-level price point. So don't be afraid to record 4K videos now as you should now have plenty of space even with the most affordable option. And finally, the display of the iPhone 13 is now maxing out at 800 nits of brightness. This makes it 175 nits brighter than the previous iPhone.
iPhone 13: Price UK
The Apple iPhone 13 starts at under £785 with the 128GB storage option. They are additionally offering 256GB and 512GB options for an extra price. As for the colour options, the black and white ones are called "Midnight" and "Starlight" this year. If you would enjoy having a more vibrant finish, you could also go with the classic Project Red one as well as the gorgeous new Pink and Blue ones. To compare prices online for similarly high-end smartphones, you could also take a look at its superior siblings Apple iPhone 13 Pro and the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max or the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G if you'd prefer to spice things up.
