iPhone 13 Is Out, But There Are Still Reasons Aplenty To Consider The iPhone 12

The dust has settled on the iPhone 13 launch, and a lot of the excitement has been tempered a bit. We thought now would be a good time to look at how the iPhone 13 series stacks up to last year’s iPhone 12 series.

We’ve reviewed much of the phones in this line already, so be sure to check out our reviews on the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini, and the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max. Did Apple do enough to warrant a year-over-year upgrade? Or should the iPhone 13 have been called the iPhone 12S? Let’s dig into the particulars.

iPhone 13 Mini vs iPhone 12 mini: Battery is king

Many of us in the techie circles marveled at the iPhone 12 Mini’s introduction as it harkened us back to the good ole’ days. With its 5.4-inch display, the new iPhone Mini gave us flagship specs in a compact, lightweight and familiar package. But that “mini” package left us with one enormous frustration—battery life.

There were quite a few (myself included) that bemoaned the fact that the iPhone 12 Mini couldn’t last through the entire day on a single charge. With the iPhone 13 Mini, and all of the other iPhone 13 models, that has been remedied. Apple states that you’ll get an additional hour and a half of juice on a single charge. And considering that the bar wasn’t set all that high to begin with, it’s a definite win for the 13 Mini.

Outside of that, you get the normal upgrades in the camera department, matching the same wide and ultra-wide sensors from the standard iPhone 13. Neither of these phones include the new ProMotion display with its 120Hz refresh rate, as Apple is reserving that for its 2021 “Pro” models. What you will get compared to last year’s model is a slightly faster device with better cameras, and greatly improved battery life.

iPhone 13 vs iPhone 12

If it weren’t for the changes in the colors and the shift in the camera sensors, you would have a tough time separating the iPhone 13 vs iPhone 12. Both offer the same 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display, along with the same resolution and almost the exact dimensions. Instead, the differences again are found under the hood with the camera, processor, and battery.

Much of this is the same story when you look at the Mini iPhone models from the last two generations. But along with the improved camera hardware, the iPhone 13 also allows you to take advantage of Apple’s new Cinematic Mode. This makes it so you can record movie-like videos, straight from your iPhone. Even without the additional telephoto lens found in the Pro models, it’s still pretty nifty to get a feature like this on the lower-end models.

If you plan on recording more videos, then you’ll also enjoy the surprising bump up in the storage department. The base model iPhone 12 shipped with just 64GB of RAM, which is almost a crime, even for 2020. But Apple shaped up and shipped out the iPhone 13 with a base storage option of 128GB. Plus, the price remains the same as the iPhone 12’s was at release, coming in at $799 and going up depending on how much storage you want to add.

iPhone 13 Pro vs iPhone 12 Pro (including Pro Max)

Battery life and the upgrade to the A15 Bionic—those are the obvious improvements that we need to get out of the way. The biggest difference between the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro is evident as soon as you turn the new iPhone on for the first time. ProMotion is an incredible bit of technology that isn’t new to Apple (or Android for that matter). The iPad Pro line has been using this technology for years, but it’s finally arrived on the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max.

With ProMotion, your display automatically adjusts its refresh rate between 10Hz and 120Hz. This is what’s known as an Adaptive Refresh Rate and something that we’ve seen on the best Android phones for a little while now. Until now, the iPhone was limited to just 60Hz, including the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max. Thanks to ProMotion, interacting with your iPhone will feel more fluid than ever, and because the refresh rate is adaptive, it will help with battery life even more than the increased capacity.

Both the iPhone 12 Pro and 13 Pro offer a triple camera array comprised of a wide-angle, ultra-wide, and telephoto sensors, but Apple has worked a bit of magic into the 13 Pro. All three sensors on the iPhone 13 Pro are physically larger, meaning that this equates to much improved low-light photography.

The telephoto camera offers 3x optical zoom, compared to the 2x zoom found on last year’s model. And the ultra-wide sensor not only takes fantastic shots with little distortion, but it also enabled Macro Mode on the iPhone 13 Pro. Now, you can get up close to pretty much anything and take a crystal clear photo without wishing you had a DSLR with a macro lens attached.

Apple ProRAW images are available across the board, along with Night mode portraits, Deep Fusion, and 4K video recording at up to 60fps. Where the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max pull away is in ProRes video recording and the aforementioned Cinematic Mode. With ProRes, you can record 4K video at 30fps, which offers professional-level quality video, shot right from your iPhone.

This last little bit may make a lot of people happy. Unlike the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, the iPhone 13 Pro models offer feature and spec parity. The only differences are in screen and battery size. So this means that you don’t need to get the Pro Max just to enjoy the best of the best that Apple has to offer.