- All right, welcome to the iPhone 13 unboxing.
Or wait, hold that thought.
We've got an iPhone 13 and the 13 mini
and 13 Pro and the 13 Pro Max.
I'm sure the stuff inside of the box is very similar,
but let's get into it.
(upbeat electronic music)
So we're gonna unbox every phone in the new lineup
and I'm gonna start with the standard iPhone 13
in this new blue color
that I think is actually my favorite of the new phones.
And it's this thin box again, as you can see,
because there's no power brick included in the box.
But as you may have noticed,
there's also no plastic shrink wrap this year.
And so I guess it's time
to give Apple a little bit of credit
for their use of recycled materials
to offset their environmental impact.
So recycled box cardboard, recycled aluminum,
recycled phone design. (clears throat)
But here we can see the phone in all its glory.
And I can just fire it up real quick
before looking at the accessories,
but the rest of the stuff in the box
is pretty much the same.
You get a Lightning to USB-C cable
and you get some paperwork, a SIM card tool,
and an Apple sticker that is not colored,
just a white Apple sticker.
But yeah, that's the iPhone 13
in the hand for the first time.
Let's grab the 13 mini next.
So this is actually a new darker color.
It's called Midnight.
It's not quite black
but it is a very, very, very dark blue.
But I think the camera bump
might actually also be close to black
on this Midnight iPhone.
Then the Pro iPhones here.
The Pro iPhones come in black boxes again.
So this is the Gold 13 Pro.
A lot of the same stuff.
Again, white Apple sticker, normal accessories.
And then the Sierra Blue 13 Pro Max.
Big phone.
Big camera bump, which I'll get to in a second.
And just had to make sure,
but yes, they do in fact all come with white Apple stickers.
But that is the unboxing
and that is your iPhone 13 lineup.
(upbeat electronic music)
So by the time you're watching this,
I have been testing these new iPhones
for the better part of five days now,
which, not quite enough time for a full review
but definitely enough for some solid first impressions.
So that's what I'm gonna give you today.
Also, make sure to subscribe to be among the first
to see the full reviews when they drop
and also let me know which one you wanna see reviewed first.
But yeah, from the outside,
it looks almost identical to last year's phone,
and in the hand, it feels almost the same too.
Although, it is a quarter of a millimeter thicker,
which I don't notice at all,
but then also about 20 grams heavier,
which I do notice,
not by much,
but I did notice because I'm so calibrated to the 12.
Now, most of this extra heft
is from a slightly larger battery capacity.
And the more I use these phones,
this is starting to be interesting,
the more I'm starting to think
that this may be the most underrated new change
on these iPhones.
I have been very impressed with the battery here,
especially on the larger phones.
So I had a day with the 13 Pro
where I had nearly five hours of screen on time
with half battery left,
which is crazy good.
And that's not even the Pro Max.
So we'll see if this continues to hold up,
but that's definitely something to keep an eye on this year
that I wasn't expecting as much.
You know, obviously it's a pretty minor update,
but in the grand scheme of things,
even if Apple didn't add crazy fast charging
or ultra-fast wireless charging,
the fact that they did make the phone
a little thicker and a little heavier
for a little bit of a bigger battery,
all right, yeah, thumbs up.
But really the only other two updates to evaluate
are the cameras and the screen.
So for these cameras,
I already have a bunch of sample photos here
and I encourage you to follow me on Twitter or Instagram
because I'm gonna keep posting new sample photos and videos
as I keep testing these.
But overall, my impression so far
is still a great set of cameras,
especially in broad daylight, of course.
And the bigger improvements
will be seen in more edge cases,
like low light, fast moving subjects, et cetera.
Definitely gonna shoot some more of that type of stuff.
But the star of the show really
is all the sensors are bigger and better
and there's still 12 megapixels each
but that ultra wide in particular looks much better
with the sharpness across the whole frame.
And I'm pumped that the new telephoto on the Pro is 3x,
slightly better than the 2.5x on the Pro Max last year,
and, again, a larger sensor.
But that's why all these cameras are so massive
on the back of the phones too.
It's of course an aesthetic change
between this year's phone and last year.
The cameras are also now diagonal on the 13 and 13 mini,
not just to look different, but to fit that new hardware.
And it's just an overall bigger camera bump
that's super-duper thick.
- [Man] Damn, boy, he thick.
- I do already have a couple quirks,
things that I've noticed about these cameras, though.
One, ProRes.
So these Pro cameras, the 13 Pro, 13 Pro Max,
were supposed to have ProRes video.
Super high quality codec
that's used all the time in the video world.
It's not here.
It's not here yet, anyway.
This is a coming soon feature
that will apparently be pushed sometime
with a software update.
Again, I can't evaluate it.
It's supposed to be here but it's not
and Apple's usually pretty good
about eventually delivering things they promise,
especially in software.
But it's not here yet.
But then number two,
the new macro capability on the iPhone Pro's ultra wides.
So when you get close enough to an object,
within about 14 centimeters or something,
the cameras automatically switch to the ultra wide
and that's because it has the super close-up capability.
So you can keep going in
and get as close as two centimeters from something
and it'll still be in focus,
which is great.
It's better than some dinky two megapixel macro camera.
It's super high quality.
It's taking a crop from a higher quality sensor instead.
It's been fun to play with.
But, but this all happens automatically
with no manual override at all.
Not a huge deal to some people,
but, like, you can see the switch
when it happens in the viewfinder,
but there is no indication
that it has switched cameras at all.
So you walk in closer to something,
it switches to the crop of the ultra wide,
but it still says 1x on the right side
like it's still coming from the main camera when it isn't.
But now all the natural bokeh
from the primary camera's focal length is gone
and it doesn't let me switch back.
That's the thing.
I can hit the 1x all I want, nothing happens.
And that's the difference between getting this
and moving one inch closer, auto switching,
and getting this.
It just looks worse.
Now, maybe they do that automatically
to prevent some of the fringing
that can come up with close-up subjects
from these larger primary sensors.
But on a Pro phone,
I would like at least to be able to hit the 1x button
and switch back to the primary sensor.
Just give me the button for the control.
Small complaint, though.
But then, also, there is the new Cinematic mode,
which is on all of the phones,
and it is such a new,
it is a software feature,
but it is so processor intensive
that it's only going to be on iPhone 13 and later.
It's not coming to older iPhones.
But this was described on stage
as focus rocking and AI-based face tracking
for shooting more cinematic videos.
I think this is going to look like,
to regular people,
like video Portrait mode.
So first of all, in the camera modes,
it's got it's own dedicated swipe over panel.
So there's Portrait photos, then regular photos,
then regular videos,
then Cinematic mode,
which immediately applies the fake extra depth of field.
Now, there is way more manual controls,
so I'm thinking maybe I'll try
to shoot a whole video or something with this
to see if it's worth your time
for people trying to make videos on the iPhone.
But for now, for normal people getting this phone,
yeah, that background blur is gonna get the most attention.
It's like video Portrait mode.
So I've got a lot of camera testing to do.
But you know what didn't take me very long to evaluate
is the new screens.
So they're all the same size as last year
but they are brighter.
They've got a slightly, a 20% smaller notch
thanks to the movement of that earpiece up top
and the Pro versions now have 120 hertz ProMotion.
So the smaller notch, it's all right, I guess.
To my eye, honestly, it makes almost no difference
because you don't actually get much screen real estate back.
Apple didn't even the courtesy to add an option
to see the battery percentage up there in the status bar
or do anything with the extra screen real estate.
The 120 hertz ProMotion, though, it's legit.
It's amazing.
It's very nice looking.
And it's about damn time.
And I'm gonna probably say the same thing again
when it finally comes to the Pixel 6, also, this year.
But yeah, it's about time.
Now, to be fair, Apple's had, in my description,
some of the smoothest feeling 60 hertz phones of the past.
But the second I unlocked the 13 Pro
for the first time out of the box
and I could see that high refresh rate,
I loved it.
I mean, you can see my actual real-time reaction
in the BTS video that we just dropped on The Studio channel.
But it looks great.
Super smooth animations
and pretty much every single app
and every single animation,
even pre launch of the phone,
is moving at 120 hertz right off the bat.
Even the classics, like Instagram and TikTok,
that still need to get updated
to look correct on this barely released phone
are 120 hertz.
But yeah, high refresh rate for the win.
It won't translate here, of course, on camera
in this 30fps video.
But yeah, you'll have to trust my words.
It's really good.
Even now better than the iPad Pro
because it's OLED now.
It's 120 hertz, HDR, OLED.
It's beautiful.
Aside from that, here's some A15 Bionic Geekbench scores
just to sort of round out the initial impressions.
It's obviously a very fast chip.
It is a little bit of a bump over last year.
There you go.
But that sort of rounds up my initial thoughts
on the iPhone 13s.
A lot of friends are asking, "Should I update?
Is it worth it,
even though it's a small update over the 12?"
Maybe they have an older phone.
Should they get this phone?
First of all, friends, wait for the full review.
It's coming very soon.
That'll have all the details.
But yeah, it is such a minor set of changes
that I think if you were thinking
about getting the 13 specifically
then you might consider a freshly discounted 12
because the phone is so similar
and it just dropped now that the 13 came out.
With the mini, the battery life on the smaller one was bad,
so maybe you'll get the 13 mini instead
with the better battery life.
And with the Pros, of course,
there's 120 hertz to consider.
But overall, for people with older phones,
like iPhone Xs, iPhone 8s,
any older phone,
this represents a solid, now a good buy again.
And hey, if you do get the 13,
you might as well protect your investment.
I mean, that one terabyte iPhone 13 Pro Max
costs 1,600 bucks.
Wouldn't want that to crack on the first week, would you?
Shout-out to the dbrand Grip case.
No better way to protect your investment.
I'll link that below.
But let me know in the comments,
what stuff do you wanna see covered in detail
in the full review?
And also, which one should I review first?
I have a feeling it'll probably be the 13 standard,
but let me know anyway.
We'll check those out.
Either way, that's been it.
Thanks for watching.
Catch you guys soon. Peace.
(bright electronic music)