After months of endless rumors and reports, Apple has finally unveiled the iPhone 13. There are a few things that are certain in life. The sun rises every morning, water is wet, and Apple releases a new iPhone like clockwork every year. Whether the year-over-year upgrades are big or small, it's a safe bet Apple will have a new iPhone for folks to buy right ahead of the holiday shopping season.
2020's iPhone took the form of the iPhone 12 series — more specifically, the iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max. As an upgrade over the iPhone 11 lineup, the iPhone 12 had a lot to offer. The refreshed design brought flat edges back to the iPhone, MagSafe made a surprise appearance, and they marked the first iPhones with 5G connectivity.
Fast forward one year later, and it's time for the iPhone 13 family to take the spotlight as the latest and greatest iPhones on the market. Announced on September 14 during Apple's virtual 'California Streaming' event, the iPhone 13 series follows the same pattern as last year. There's the iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max. At first glance, they look virtually identical to their predecessors. They have the same display sizes, flat edges, and glass backs with square-ish camera bumps. Upon further inspection, however, there are a few notable tweaks. See the notch at the top of the iPhone 13? It's now smaller on every single model! Apple achieved this by reducing the size of its Face ID components and moving the earpiece speaker further up towards the top frame. There are rumors of the notch completely disappearing in 2022 with the iPhone 14, but until then, this is a welcome step in the right direction. The iPhone 13 and 13 mini also have a new placement for the dual rear cameras, with Apple now placing them in a diagonal array. Other design elements of the iPhone 13 are virtually the same. The 13 and 13 mini have an aluminum frame, the Pro models have a stainless steel one, there's no headphone jack, and Apple's still using the tried-and-true Lightning port.
iPhone 13 Introduces 120Hz Displays, Longer Battery, And More
While there may not be much to talk about from a design perspective, Apple has managed to cram in some exciting features for this generation — such as ProMotion displays on the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Similar to the iPad Pro, ProMotion on the higher-end iPhone 13 models increases the refresh rate from a standard 60Hz up to 120Hz. This means everything from scrolling through websites, browsing Twitter, and playing games will look noticeably smoother than on any previous iPhone.
Then there's the camera. The iPhone 13 and 13 mini see a few welcome upgrades. The 12MP primary camera is the largest sensor yet in a dual-camera iPhone — featuring 1.7-micron pixels and allowing for 47 percent more light. Apple also has a new 12MP ultra-wide camera with similar upgrades, in addition to Sensor Shift technology to improve focus and stability in all shooting environments. Then there's the iPhone 13 Pro camera setup. The 77mm telephoto allows for improved portrait photos and there's much better light sensitivity for the wide and ultra-wide cameras. Also new this year is a macro photography mode for the ultra-wide camera — a first for any iPhone.
Let's start to wrap things up. Powering all four phones is Apple's latest A15 Bionic chipset. Apple touts it as being 50 percent faster than the leading competition and 30 percent faster graphics than the competition. There are 6 CPU cores, 4 GPU cores, and Apple's improved its Neural Engine for even more capable machine learning tasks. Interestingly enough, the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max get a faster 5-core GPU not found on the regular 13 and 13 mini. There's also better battery life. The iPhone 13 mini and 13 Pro should get 1.5 hours extra battery life compared to their predecessors, along with 2.5 extra hours on the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro Max. The iPhone 13 and 13 mini start at $799 and $699, respectively, with 128GB of storage. The iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max start at $999 and $1099, respectively — with storage options that go up to 1TB for the Pros. Pre-orders begin on Friday, September 17 and regular sales begin on September 24.
Source: Apple