iPhone 13 Pro Review

7.6
Expert Score

Was there a need for an iPhone 13 Pro?

The Good
  • Display
  • Cameras
  • Powerful GPU
The Bad
  • Battery
  • Slightly heavier

Is the iPhone 13 Pro as ambitious as expected? Certainly not. While we did expect this newer generation of iPhones to be better & bolder, it doesn’t seem to settle well within our expectations.

This device has almost the same design as the previous models. It comes with a massive update for its display (smoother, with a 120Hz refresh rate) in addition to an additional camera over the vanilla iPhone 13 and a slightly smaller battery 3095 mAh as compared to the 3240 mAh of the vanilla iPhone 13. We’ll be discussing each of these in detail. 

So, is this newer version better and worth investing your money in? Let’s find out. 

Design & Display

Visually the iPhone 13 Pro is very similar to the vanilla iPhone 13. The display, however, is incredibly bright, getting to 1000 nits at maximum brightness as compared to 800 nits on the iPhone 13. This is probably brighter than you’ll need. The iPhone 13 Pro comes with one of the most colour-accurate OLED panels out there. This version, just like the iPhone 13, comes with a smaller notch, but we still can’t see our battery percentage at the top of the display, which is a bummer!

Apple’s latest tech comes with a 6.1 inch Super Retina XDR OLED display protected by a scratch-resistant ceramic shield. Do keep in mind that the “ceramic shield” is just marketing, it’s not any tougher than before. It features  Full HD+ resolution (1170 x 2532). The panel features rich colours with Dolby Vision support. 

It provides an additional 30 minutes of screen time when compared to the iPhone 12 Pro thanks to the upgraded power-efficient chip inside it.

The device weighs 204g, which makes it slightly heavier than the average phone. The phone does, however, come with Apple’s premium build. Gorilla Glass on the front & back with a stainless steel frame. 

Finally, with this model, Apple has blessed its users with the much-awaited 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate, which makes it a lot smoother than the regular 60Hz display found on the iPhone 13. You can immediately tell the difference when using the two phones side by side.

The iPhone 13 Pro just like the iPhone 13 offers IP68 water and dust resistance and can survive for up to  30 minutes in 6 feet of water. 

Performance & Hardware

The new iPhone 13 Pro houses the latest Apple A15 Bionic chipset based on the 5 nm architecture. 

When compared with the vanilla model, the graphic scores of the iPhone 13 Pro are pretty high. The iPhone 13 Pro is equipped with an even more powerful GPU than the regular iPhone 13 that has five cores instead of its usual four. Hence, the iPhone 13 Pro tops the charts among other iPhones both CPU & GPU wise. It provides the user with reliably smooth performance and a lag-free gaming experience.

iPhone 13 Pro comes with iOS 15 out of the box, with even more features than before and improvements to apps like FaceTime. The device packs 6 GB of RAM & gives four storage variations to choose from a128 GB option, a 256 GB option, a 512 GB & a 1TB option. If storage is an issue for you, you should consider buying the 256GB+ options.

Cameras 

The biggest design change we could spot after the smaller notch were the bigger cameras on the new iPhones. The iPhone 13 Pro features an additional camera compared to the regular iPhone 13. It comes with a 12 MP main camera, paired with a 12 MP telephoto that allows a 3X zoom & a 12 MP ultra-wide camera that comes with autofocus. 

The cameras here provide you with almost the same experience as the rest of the iPhones with the only upgrade being the addition of optical zoom, which makes sure that zooming in on your camera doesn’t ruin the quality, unlike digital zoom.

Whether you take portraits in broad daylight or make a 4k video in low light, it’ll deliver good results. The new photographic style feature that comes paired with the cameras lets you change the tone of the pictures a bit, so you can add a little warmth to the otherwise neutral looking photos that iPhones are known for.

Battery

The phone packs a 3095 mAh battery with a fast-charging system paired with a wireless charging feature. The battery isn’t really massive but it offers a small improvement over iPhone 12 Pro. Overall it doesn’t really compete with the top of the line flagship phones in terms of battery life like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra or Xiaomi Mi 11. That said, it can last through an entire day of use. 

There is one caveat though, you don’t get a charger inside the box you get with the phone, meaning you’ll have to purchase one separately.

Final Verdict

While it’s not a huge upgrade from the iPhone 13 in terms of design, the iPhone 13 Pro certainly comes with a more powerful GPU, a higher refresh rate and better cameras. If you have an older iPhone (not counting the iPhone 12 series) or are willing to switch to iOS from Android, the Apple iPhone 13 Pro will be a great switch.