iPhone 13 Pro Long Term Review – Still Worth it 3 Months Later?
this is the iphone 13 pro and unless
you’ve been living under a rock for the
past few months you’ve almost certainly
heard about this phone and you might
even know a lot about it already it
launched on the 24th of september 2021
which is the day that i got mine and as
i make this review that’s almost three
months ago i’ve been using this phone as
we do with our phones nowadays every
single day ever since and so i feel like
i’m in a pretty good position to talk
about it so in this video i’m gonna give
you my three month review of the iphone
13 pro what i’m enjoying about it what
i’m not so keen on and what i’m totally
indifferent about that way if you’ve not
already bought one you can start to
decide whether this new iphone is right
for you whether you should opt for the
regular iphone 13 whether you should
wait until next year to see what apple
do next or whether you should consider a
different phone altogether i’m not going
to list every single feature of the
phone there are plenty of videos out
instead just try and focus on the areas
that i care the most about
the design of the iphone 13 pro is
distinctly iphone very little has
changed since the 12. and i think it’s
only going to be if you’re someone like
me who upgraded from an older model that
you’re going to notice a big difference
i upgraded from the 10s which was the
last of apple’s more rounded iphone
designs this one is very square and
almost industrial looking in comparison
it’s very much in keeping with apple’s
overall design language right now and it
matches my other apple devices really
nicely i’ve actually got a case on this
right now this is the mag easy case 2 by
petaka a case i reviewed a month or two
ago i’ll include a link to it in the
description i’ll be honest i’m
indifferent about the design not in a
bad way it’s just all very familiar at
this point my fiance who has just
upgraded from an iphone 11 pro did
comment on how heavy she felt the 13 pro
was and that’s how i felt too when
upgrading from the 10s it’s a noticeably
bigger and bulkier device but like any
lifestyle tech these days i think you
get used to it and pretty quickly the
only thing that i’m really not keen on
with regard to the design is the size of
the buttons on the side they’re massive
the power button in particular it’s now
creeping down to almost the halfway
point of the phone which isn’t a massive
issue but you definitely notice it when
you try to put this in a clamp or a
holder of some description if you use
yours in a tripod or a holder for your
car for example you now need to grip the
phone lowered down to avoid pushing
those buttons
again it’s a very similar story with
regard to the display not much has
changed at least not in a hugely
noticeable way the screen this time
around is a super retina xdr display
apple managing to cram the term xdr into
pretty much every device they launch now
and it does make me wonder what’s going
to come next after super retina that
does sound about as good as it can
possibly get the screen is excellent
regardless of what it’s called it’s
extremely bright displays colors
beautifully and looks incredible when
you start to watch stuff like hdr
content on it i still tend to watch most
of my hdr content on tv or on my pro
display but when i’m on a train or a
plane and i want to watch something on
dolby vision or if i’m watching
something late at night in bed you
really do start to realize just how good
apple’s display game is right now
the notch somehow feels like more of a
talking point than it should this year
for me at least because i’ve now got a
notch on my macbook pro but the one on
the new iphone 13 pro this year is
smaller than last year’s again if you’ve
got an iphone with a notch already
you’ll notice the size difference for
all of five minutes before it just
becomes the norm
what is new is the inclusion of
promotion again a welcome addition that
apple is slowly but surely rolling out
to all of their more premium devices if
you’re not aware promotion is
essentially a variable refresh rate that
goes up to 120 hertz in other words your
display can refresh or show a different
image up to 120 times each second this
was previously capped at 60 hertz on the
previous iphones and a faster refresh
rate essentially means smoother
animations so for example when you’re
scrolling through safari or opening or
closing an app the animations for doing
this will look and feel smoother than on
previous phones the variable element of
the refresh rate is designed to reduce
power consumption the phone will
intelligently switch refresh rates from
very low to very high depending on what
you’re doing and honestly you’ll never
know this is happening everything just
works it’s all very clever and whilst
it’s the kind of technology that a lot
of people are i think going to shrug
their shoulders about if you’re like me
and you geek out about things like
refresh rate it’s a welcome addition it
also looks great
the performance of the iphone 13 pro is
fantastic but then the performance of
iphones has been very very good for a
long time now with even older iphones
still running well several years later i
made a video about my iphone 10s which
i’d had for three years when i finally
got rid of it in favor of this phone and
i said at the time that i still felt
like that phone ran really well
considering his age and i stand by that
even after using this
does the iphone 13 pro run faster yes
definitely but i’d expect that
but it’s testament to apple’s os
division that older phones can still run
very very well even after a few years
face id is fundamentally immediate on
this phone apps open mere split seconds
after you touch the icon the only
exception i’ve found is older apps where
they’re not being supported very well
anymore and that’s not really apple’s
fault to be fair it’s all powered by the
a15 bionic chip with a 6 core cpu a 5
core gpu and a 16 core neural engine
essentially it’s a very very fast phone
that can handle any app that you decide
to install on it along with more
advanced tasks like multitasking video
editing image processing all that good
stuff and in case you’re interested the
only difference between the processor on
the 13 pro and the 13 is a single gpu
core the 13 pro has five versus the four
of the 13 other than that they’re
identical
again i’m not ragging on apple by
playing down the phone here it’s just
these are all incremental quality of
life improvements so far nothing that
really stands out it is a better phone
in the same way that this year’s ford
focus is probably a better car than last
year’s ford focus but you’re not likely
to notice a night and day difference
between the two
the same goes for battery life and i’m
not going to talk much about it other
than to say that i did notice a huge
difference coming from my 10s but that
was a three-year-old phone with a
battery at about 80 percent health i
charge this phone overnight i get up at
around seven each morning go to bed at
about 11 each night and at that time the
battery is running at 50 percent maybe
dropping to 30 percent if i’ve been
using it more than usual throughout the
day and during the day my phone is
always with me i check it frequently i
do some filming with it i control our
smart home with it i reply to emails
texts and comments with it i take photos
when i’m out all the usual
so yeah no complaints from me whatsoever
with regard to that battery
in terms of connectivity wi-fi is as
good as you’d expect and the addition of
5g is great although this is going to be
dependent on both your carrier and
region i’m with three here in the uk and
enjoy excellent 5g coverage when i’m in
a supported area i was in an ikea a
couple of months back and got 600
megabits download speed on cellular
which is not only insane it’s faster
than our home fiber internet so again no
connectivity complaints from me
okay so i finally feel like i’m getting
to the part of this review where i can
get excited about something the cameras
on the iphone 13 pro are exceptional and
for me in particular coming from a 10s
this is the most significant part of the
upgrade by a country mile for a start
you’ve got three cameras on the 13 pro
versus the two cameras i’ve been used to
you’ve got a wide camera which is the
standard camera that you’ll use most of
the time but then an ultra wide and a
telephoto
that ultra wide is phenomenal for things
like landscape photography with the
telephoto great for getting in on things
that are a bit further away or for more
personal framing of things like
portraits without using portrait mode
which i still find a bit ropey even
years after it was first introduced
but it’s not just about having more
cameras it’s about how incredibly good
these cameras are in a point-and-shoot
capacity because that’s what i think you
have to remember about iphone cameras
i’ve just made a huge investment in
photo and video for the channel in the
form of the sony a74 content coming on
that in the new year but that’s a really
expensive camera that’s also very large
and cumbersome and to get the most out
of it you have to really learn how to
use it i will commit to bringing that
camera with me on any kind of
significant occasion but there will be
times where i want to photo and that
camera is back at home in my studio my
iphone is always with me it’s as much a
part of my everyday carry gear as my
wallet and my keys and you don’t have to
learn the iphone’s cameras yes you can
be more creative than a lot of people
are but in general you just grab it
point it push the button and the iphone
takes care of the rest it literally is
the definition of a point-and-shoot
camera in bright sunny conditions the
camera takes effortlessly good photos
but even at night in handheld mode this
camera can take amazing photos which is
remarkable if you know anything about
how photography works
and the good news continues with video
this camera is an extremely adept video
shooter capable of shooting 4k 60 frames
per second video in both regular color
and dolby vision hdr that dolby vision
hdr looks really good and if you’d like
to see an example of it my dyson v15
review and lg g1 review videos were shot
in this mode i now tend to shoot using
filmic which allows me to shoot in 10
bit log v3
cinematic mode is the major new addition
here which is essentially portrait mode
for video i mentioned earlier that i
felt like portrait mode was still a bit
gimmicky years later and i have a
feeling i’m gonna be feeling the same
way about cinematic mode although i
really do like the concept the idea here
is that your iphone will use software to
create a shallow depth of field effect
in video that you can even edit later on
in post-production so for example
switching focus from one person at the
front of the frame to a person at the
rear of the frame and it can even do
this automatically by identifying who’s
looking at the camera and switch to them
or switch back away from them at the
right time it’s known in cinema as rack
focus and on cinematic cameras a second
person operates the focus manually at
exactly the right moment so the fact
that your iphone can now do this at all
is mighty impressive but it does come
with the same halo effect that portrait
mode comes with and it’s limited to
1080p and honestly beyond trying it out
once and saying oh that’s kind of cool i
don’t know if i’d ever actually use this
feature in real life
another really excellent addition to the
13 pro is lens stabilization on all
three of the cameras which is huge
trying to hold your iphone steady when
taking photos or videos can be extremely
difficult and whilst we’re not talking
gimbal smooth here it is a noticeable
improvement and helps in the creation of
smooth photos and videos
what this all results in is a camera and
a video camera that you can literally
pull out of your pocket point and shoot
we were out with friends a couple of
weeks ago at heaven castle and they took
their 18 month old baby on the carousel
there i’m not going to share the photo
i’ll share a couple of more generic
pictures i took on the day but we got
this amazing picture of the three of
them mid carousel while it was moving
really fast in poor light conditions and
it’s brilliant it captures all three of
them perfectly and all i did was take
the phone out of my pocket point and hit
the button at the right moment that’s
the beauty of a good smartphone camera
and the iphone 13 pro very definitely is
a good smartphone camera
so who should buy this phone because
let’s not forget this is still an
expensive phone the version i bought the
256 gigabyte phone cost
1049 pounds you can get a 128 gig
version for 949 pounds or you can spend
almost 1500 pounds and max out that
storage all the way up to one terabyte
i’ll be honest i still find the notion
of referring to a phone as pro a bit
silly this isn’t the business iphone or
the iphone that graphic designers need
to buy or anything like that it’s just a
bit more than the iphone 13.
the iphone 13 doesn’t have a telephoto
camera it doesn’t have lidar it has one
less gpu core it doesn’t have promotion
it has a slightly dimmer display and it
doesn’t come in a one terabyte model the
pro model over the 13 or the 13 mini at
least is for the person who wants the
best possible iphone available and is
willing to pay a premium to have it in
terms of whether you should wait until
next year or not that’s a trickier
question to answer in the absence of a
crystal ball next year’s iphone will
almost certainly be the iphone 14.
speculation is that it won’t have a
notch that it could have under screen
touch id as well as face id and yada
yada yada rumor and speculation is just
that rumor and speculation and if a
killer feature that you want on this
phone like a foldable display doesn’t
come in the next iphone you’re gonna
still be disappointed in a year’s time
if an android device offers you what you
want right now go and buy that but if
you’re invested in getting an iphone and
you’ve got the cash to buy one right now
the 13 pro is a phenomenal phone in
almost every way possible without a
doubt the best iphone apple has ever
made until september 2022.
if that sounds good to you then maybe
now is a good time to pick one up
so there you go my thoughts on the
iphone 13 pro at the three month point a
phone i’m really happy with what about
you have you bought one if you have how
are you getting on with it if not what
have you got instead drop me a comment
and let’s talk about it
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