iPhone 13 Pro Max vs iPhone 13 Pro
We get upgrades to all four of last year's models with a new iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 pro max. In this article, we'll be focusing on the 2 pro phones where the upgrades improve the 3 key aspects of a smartphone the display. The battery life, and the cameras.
We'll be going through everything that's new with the pro phones. How are these compared to last year's models? The differences between the iPhone pro and iPhone pro max and of course whether these are worth buying or upgrading to.
- Unboxing
- Design
- Build Quality/Ergonomics
- Displays
- Performance
- iOS 15
- Battery/Charging
- Anker Nano Pro
- Cameras
- Photographic Styles
- Telephoto Lens
- Macro Mode
- Low Light/Night Mode
- Video/Cinematic Mode
- TrueDepth Selfie Camera
- Should You Buy/Upgrade To a 13 Pro
- Conclusion
Unboxing
First off Apple has removed the plastic wrapping from the boxes to make another environment positive move this year. No one's forgetting that this is still the same company that makes their phones incredibly difficult to repair or upgrade yourself.
So they're not as green as they pretend to be but this is still a really good chance to see. Just like last year, we get the paperwork sim ejector tool and the charging cable inside the box.
Design
The phone design is also very similar to last year with apple sticking to that flat design with a polished stainless steel frame and the frosted back glass. There are slight variations to the gold graphite and silver colors but the sierra blue is the standout new finish this year. I'm not sure this is necessarily nicer than last year's pacific blue.
Which this replaces but it's still a really lovely color that I expect will be quite popular the camera bump is a little bit bigger and thicker to accommodate the new lenses. But we otherwise have the same button layout just slightly lower. This year mag safe returns too as does the lightning port for charging.
Apple proudly boasted about introducing USB-c to another iPad in their keynote event hammering home. The benefits of universal compatibility and faster data transfer and yet somehow managed to keep a straight face discussing the new iPhones. Which inexplicably still use a lightning connector as impressive as these phones are there's really no excuse for the pro iPhones.
At least not having USB-c. The biggest design change really is the smaller notch finally improving a design we've had since 2017 albeit only slightly. We have exactly the same sensors for face id apple has just moved the speaker grille up to the very top which has let them shrink the notch down by around 20%. Now but ultimately it's still a notch that you'll likely forget about over time and it's welcome if not a drastic improvement.
Build Quality/Ergonomics
Build quality is still exceptional. There's the ceramic shield glass on the front which apple claim is the toughest in any smartphone and the industry-leading ip68 water resistance. So no changes here from last year but apple maintains its lead for durability and build quality. The phones keep the same height and width as last year but are now ever so slightly thicker and heavier.
There's no huge difference from the 12 series. But ergonomics is perhaps the most important factor separating the 13 Pro from the pro max. The smaller pro is definitely the easier phone to hold and use you can reach across the display into the corners more easily. And the pro max is noticeably heavier on the flip side of that.
Is that the max with its bigger keys is easier to type and game on two-handed text is easier to read. And your content looks better on the bigger screen that .6 of an inch doesn't just enhance the movie experience but all of your content looks better. Whether you're reading a web article or just browsing social media.
So this comfort versus aesthetics factor is something that affects everyday use I personally find the pro much easier to use. And it's definitely one of the most important factors separating the two phones.
Displays
The pro displays are the same and both of these receive some really nice. If not overdue upgrades first of all the brightness have increased by 25 to reach 1000 nits outdoors. And there's a noticeable improvement from last year. This is pretty significant because often the focus is given to the peak brightness which pertains only to hdr content but this upgrade affects normal everyday use.
So the phones are super easy to view in even the brightest conditions. And in fact, these are the brightest smartphone displays I've used. So far the upgrade that the tech enthusiast wanted though is the new promotion display. So finally we have a high refresh rate on the iPhone animations and scrolling is incredibly smooth.
And although, This might only be something the enthusiasts care about I think even an average user. Once they've tried this will struggle to go back to 60 Hz promotion. Just feels amazingly fluid to use the display will intelligently ramp up and down from 10 to 120 Hz depending on your graphics. Needs dropping down to say 10 hertz set idle on a menu and then instantly ramping up to 120.
As you start swiping with ios 15 the phone will even start to anticipate swipes. So the adaptive refresh rate is seamless and of course, the promotion also opens up the possibility of high refresh rate gaming that is powered by the new a15 bionic chip.
Performance
You guessed it the 13 pros are ridiculously fast. Once again the latest iPhones are the fastest smartphones on the market. But then the 13s are the second fastest and last year's pros are now the third fastest. So it really comes as no surprise apple will give you numbers up to 50 faster than the leading competition. When talking about the new 6 core CPU and 5 core GPU but it's really hard to contextualize this.
If you look at the performance test numbers though there are some considerable gains here especially with the graphics performance. So this might give you an idea of the power increase. But honestly, you might struggle to see the difference from last year's phones. What I mean by that is there's probably no game or video editing task that last year's.
12 pros couldn't already handle you could then perhaps look at things like multitasking but you'll be limited by what ios allows you to do long before you hit any performance limitations. But all you really need to know is that the phones are super powerful and blow the rest of the competition away.
iOS 15
Speaking of ios though the latest version is ios 15 which brings new features like the redesign, notifications, custom focus, modes, and a ton of new content sharing options with iMessage and facetime. But there's nothing new that's exclusive to the 13 series. Only some new camera features.
So with compatibility all the way back to the iPhone 6s. You'll be able to experience most of the new features with your current iPhone.
Battery/Charging
The best part of the new software is the efficiency it brings combined with the new hardware. The 13 pros get both a new chipset as well as bigger batteries and battery life as a result has taken a massive leap forwards.
I don't think the numbers apple gave us quite do the phones justice they're saying up to one and a half hours longer battery for the 13 Pro and up to two and a half hours for the pro max compared to last year's models.
The 13 pro max has increased from 20 hours to 20 a's or more than double for streaming video which is just insane. I can comfortably pass over 10 hours of screen on time with pretty heavy use and have plenty of battery life to spare. Last year's 12 pro max had awesome battery life and now even the smaller 13 pro beats this whilst.
The 13 pro max annihilates it these are both easily two-day use phones. And the 13 pro max actually has the best battery life from any smartphone I've ever used beating Samsung's s21 ultra. This just goes to show how well-optimized apple has made their phones.
It also proves that adding the promotion display hasn't taken a huge hit on the battery life and that these both last noticeably longer than last year's models. There are really three key aspects that separate the 13 Pro from the pro max we've covered ergonomics the display size and the final point is the battery life.
So yes the pro max will last considerably longer and that's the one you should go for if you want the very best battery life. But I think the 13 pro battery life is so good the battery life no longer needs to be a concern if you prefer that smaller form factor.
The charging experience hasn't changed though so we've got 15-watt fast wireless charging with MagSafe which is still super convenient 7.5 watts with normal wireless charging and then 20 watts fast charging with a lightning cable which can give you around 50 charges in 30 minutes.
Anker Nano Pro
Apple is done with giving us a charger in the box though so if you do need a fast charger for your new iPhone then Anka has the perfect solution. This is the new nano pro an ultra-compact 20-watt charger that is perfect for fast charging your new iPhone and this is how small it is it is ridiculously tiny and yet has the power to charge your iPhone at the maximum speed.
Here it is next to an original 20-watt charger and in fact, this is 45 smaller than apple's stock charger. Nanopro features an all-new safety system with Anka's active shield technology. This tech combines a dynamic temperature sensor that actively monitors temperature and a power tuner chip that adjusts the current for the fastest but safest charge.
It also features Anker's power iq3 tech. So this USB charger doesn't just work with your iPhone but with most smartphones tablets and other devices and that's why I think these offer such good value for money. It comes in four new finishes called lavender arctic white glacier blue and black ice. My personal favorite is the glacier blue which pairs up perfectly with the sierra blue iPhone 13 Pro.
Cameras
The cameras are all new this year and also different from the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini. Thankfully the cameras are exactly the same on the 13 Pro as the pro max which wasn't the case last year and this just makes things so much easier when it comes to choosing between them. As you'd expect the camera quality is fantastic. And I was surprised by just how much detail the 13s are able to capture. The dynamic range is a great color.
Accuracy is first class and with those new larger sensors you're going to see more of that nice natural background blur on your photos. You might not see a huge difference compared to last year's phones under good lighting conditions. The 13 pros really pull ahead with low light and the telephoto lens which I'll tell you.
Consistency between all three lenses is excellent that's something the iPhone does really well and I've actually been really impressed with this new ultrawide lens. This is one of the best I've seen on a smartphone and again the difference from last year isn't immediately apparent in image quality. But you will notice the new faster sensor and autofocus makes taking the shot so much easier.
Photographic Syles
The 13s introduce photographic styles a new creative feature that gives the user some customization. So now you can choose a preset style fine-tune these by adjusting the tone and warmth and then save this style as your new image processing preset for future photos. This is different from a filter that applies a blanket adjustment to your entire image.
Photographic styles will selectively adjust the processing based on the subject. So if you like ios and the quality of the Iphone's camera but prefer say the higher contrast that the google pixel offers you can tweak the style to match this without needing to make any post-capture edits it's pretty cool.
Telephoto Lens
The telephoto lens gets a new focal length and aperture. But most importantly increases the optical zoom to 3x. Ever since the very first telephoto lens iPhone we've been stuck on two-times optical zoom until last year's pro max finally extended this to two and a half. Now both 13 pros have an optical zoom quality that's significantly different from the main lens.
So this year the telephoto lens is much more valuable side by side. Against the 12 Pro, you can see the quality improvements as we move through the levels of zoom. Which now maxes out at 15x on the 13 pros. Obviously, Apple is still playing catch up to the zoom range the best android flagships offer. The iPhones can't compete with Samsung's 5 times optical zoom on the s21 ultra.
Macro Mode
The iPhone 13 Pro also introduces macro mode for the first time on an iPhone. A feature as with many flagships that are baked into the new ultra-wide lens. Apple is once again late to the game with this feature but it is arguably worth the wait. The macro shots I've taken so far are pretty impressive. Macro mode works with video slo-mo and time-lapse too. So this is a nice extra feature for 13 pro owners.
Low Light/Night Mode
Where I expected to see a big improvement was with low light situations. The main lens has a wider aperture a larger sensor and larger pixels all for capturing more light the night mode on the 13 pros is really impressive. The ultra-wide lens gets a wider aperture and a faster sensor too though nighttime photos still don't compare to the main lens and you still need a fair amount of light for good quality photos.
Night mode is available on all lenses of the phone and even the telephoto lens fared reasonably well. I must admit though that I didn't see a significant difference from last year's models. The 12 Pro could often match the 13 Pro in terms of image quality. I typically saw a brighter exposure for the 12 Pro though whereas the 13 pro was happy to leave the image darker especially in the shadows and closer to the real-life scene.
If we zoom in here you can actually see that the 12 pro image is noisier and the text isn't as sharp. So you can expect to see this sort of difference in most low-light photos. But I would say that you normally need to zoom in to really tell the difference. The reason for this is that the 13 pros with their bigger sensors don't need to switch to night mode as often to compensate for the lack of light.
They can therefore snap images much more quickly leading to less motion blur which in turn creates sharper images and they also don't need to raise the iso as much for the shadows so you don't get as much noise. But objectively the 13 pro's image is better than the iPhone 12 pro. iPhone 13 image is more realistic and detailed and you can always manually switch on night mode or edit this later if you want a more stylized and punchy look.
So overall the 13 pros are much faster taking low photos which is the biggest improvement and typically they capture more true-to-life nighttime images. So the image of the iPhone 13 Pro is much much sharper but it's also so much smoother because of the center shift stabilization in the main lens.
If we switch to an area with more light you can see the difference is more pronounced here the 12 pro footage is unstable it's not as sharp and there's a lot more noise in the sky as well. So it's not just the 13 pro's largest sensor and pixels that help improve autofocus and image quality. sensor-shift stabilization massively helps with stability whether it's with still shots or video.
So low light video is really impressive on the 13 pros but as you can see apple still hasn't managed to get rid of those annoying green artifacts whenever you've got bright lights in the scene.
Video/Cinematic video
The daytime video is still fantastic. The iPhone has that gimbal-like stability Dolby vision hdr support and look there's a reason. The iPhone is the class leader for video by some margin. I can't say there's a huge difference from the 12 pros though. I think the hdr is perhaps slightly better. The signature new video featured with the 13 series though is the cinematic mode.
This lets you shoot video with a shallow depth of field and on-device processing allows the camera to rack focus automatically between subjects. The phones can anticipate when a subject might need to be prominent in a frame. You have full control over this process both as you shoot and in the post so you can adjust the depth effect and the focus to suit your composition.
I do think vloggers especially could get some use out of this. Since the shallow depth of field creates this focus on you as opposed to your surroundings so I quite like it for this. This is seriously impressive computational power from a smartphone and I'm sure many people will have a lot of fun with this. But it also doesn't quite feel as polished or complete as apple usually likes to make its features.
The cinematic mode does look a lot better when viewed on the phone itself. So I'm sure we'll see this feature become more refined in the years to come. The pros are also getting the ability to shoot and edit in prores which could really change how professionals use the iPhone in their workflow. Sadly this feature is only coming soon right now but I'm sure we'll check this out in the future.
TrueDepth Selfie Camera
The true depth selfie camera hasn't changed in terms of hardware but the a15 bionic chip brings new software features like photographic styles and smart hdr4. The phones do a great job of capturing detail without over-sharpening and maintaining realistic skin tones. The portrait effect looks really good too though. Now I do think this creates a better-looking image but I must say the grass looks more true to life with the 12 pros.
And as for the portrait mode, the improvements are a bit more noticeable. The 12 pro portrait seems washed out by comparison and there's a bit more contrast with the 13 pros 2. So the 13 series brings some subtle image processing improvements to the front camera and of course you've also got photographic styles to personalize images to your liking. The selfie video differences are similar to what we saw with photos.
The colors are just a bit richer on the 13 series so a minor improvement from last year. Otherwise, there are no other obvious changes we still have Dolby vision hdr video at 4k60 prores support on the way and the stability remains very good on the front camera too. The additions of macro mode and an extended telephoto lens make the pro camera system much more versatile than in previous years.
The low light and image processing improvements are really nice too and the main lens especially is so good at capturing detail that it really doesn't matter that the megapixel count is still only 12. The iPhone 13 pro camera system is excellent the best I've used on a smartphone so far. But with the pixel 6 pros on the horizon, it will be interesting to see how long this will remain the case.
Should You Buy/Upgrade To a 13 Pro
So should you buy the iPhone 13 pro? Well first off they come in at the same prices as last year 9.99 for the iPhone 13 pro and 10.99 for the iPhone 13 pro max. This is good we thought that manufacturing difficulties would mean prices go up but they haven't and actually, they're even cheaper this year. There's also an option for a one-terabyte model this year too so if you're gonna be shooting a lot in Dolby vision or prores that might be worth considering.
Apple focused on the displays the battery life and the cameras this year exactly what many people care about the most. So the 13 pros offer some great improvements but of course, it depends on what phone you're coming from. If you have one of last year's phones an upgrade just isn't going to be worth it it never really is when you own last year's model. However, anyone with an older iPhone or even an android phone might want to skip the 12 series and go for one of the 13 pros.
The battery life improvements are so substantial that they outweigh most of the third-party discounts offered on the 12 pros plus Apple has stopped selling it themselves anyway. If you keep your phone for three or more years that extra battery life is going to serve you well in the long run so you'll get your money's worth. Battery life is also the reason I think the 13 pro is worth getting over the pro max.
I know some people love the bigger pro max it's the display and battery champ and I'm not going to change the minds of those people it's ultimately a personal preference thing anyway. But now that the cameras are identical and now that the 13 pro has such good battery life I think the smaller more comfortable form factor makes it the better choice at 100$ cheaper.
Conclusion
And that is the comparison of the iPhone 13 Pro max vs the iPhone 13 pro. Now, in my opinion, both of these are wonderful inventions. I really use both of those as my daily drivers, because I love them so much. The iPhone 13 pro does have, I would say, an overall better display. It's a little bit more comfortable to use overall, However, the 13 Pro Max shoots overall better video, in my experience. It has all the optimizations with iOS, which also gives it excellent battery life. Yet most importantly, I think it is going to come down to which operating system you prefer.
Do y'all prefer iOS or do you prefer Android? That's what I think, anyway. What do you guys think? Which one of these devices will you be choosing? Do leave me a comment below and let me know your opinions. And as mentioned earlier.