- [Jeff] In this video,
I go hands-on with my favorite iPhone 13
and iPhone 13 mini features.
But first, a brief word from our sponsor.
- [Man] Big thanks to Decluttr
for sponsoring 9to5Mac on YouTube.
With the new iPhones on the way,
the value of the current generation models
are going to drop.
And on average, iPhones lose about 12% of their value
after the launch of a new model.
So you definitely want to check out
channel sponsor, Decluttr.
Decluttr offers a really simple and safe way
for you to sell your tech, including iPhones.
Just tell Decluttr what you'd like to sell,
and then you can ship your devices out for free
to be traded in.
And instead of getting credit for your iPhone,
Decluttr pays in cash,
and up to 33% more than carrier buyback programs.
Phones sold to Decluttr are repaired, refurbished,
and then given a new home,
which helps in reducing a lot of e-waste.
So check the link in the description to get the most value
out of your current device, hassle-free.
Decluttr's offering a 28-day price lock guarantee
for your iPhone trade in right now.
And you can get an extra 10% when you trade in any device
with the code 9to5Mac.
And trust me,
you're going to want to do this as soon as possible.
Thanks to Decluttr for sponsoring 9to5Mac on YouTube.
- [Jeff] As a huge fan of the iPhone 12 mini,
I was super excited to try out the follow-up version,
the iPhone 13 mini.
I also tried out the iPhone 13 baseline edition.
And what I found here
was a significantly improved experience,
especially when it comes to things like battery life,
which plagued the iPhone 13 mini.
So right now, let's go ahead and unbox the iPhone 13
and 13 mini.
So here we go.
Notice, no cellophane this time around.
Got the little pull tabs.
Still the same small box that we acquired last year.
No charger in the box, as you can see.
You have your lightning to USB cable
and your Designed by Apple in California packet,
you have a SIM eject tool,
some regulatory and safety and handling information,
and of course, the real reason why I purchased this phone,
the Apple stickers.
And the first thing you see,
it smacks you in the face a little bit,
that brand new diagonal camera housing setup
with the improved cameras.
So let's go ahead and pull it out of the box.
You see the protector paper on top.
Let's go ahead and peel that back on the iPhone 13
and the iPhone 13 mini.
And you can see that camera housing definitely sticks out
more so than the previous version.
So on the side, you have your antenna band,
you have your mute switch,
and then you have the two volume buttons,
volume up and volume down.
And if we shimmy down a little bit,
you see your Nano SIM tray,
and you may not even use that this time around
'cause this thing comes with dual eSIM.
There's also an antenna band below that.
And on the other side,
you see an antenna band followed by the side button,
and then you have your millimeter wave antenna area
for 5G ultra wide band connectivity.
And this of course is what gives you access
to the fastest type of 5G,
which is still fairly elusive even now.
And then below that you get another antenna band,
on the bottom, another antenna band,
and then you get your lightning port and then your speaker
and microphones.
And on the top, a single antenna band.
On the rear, you get your apple logo with the glass back.
Now, let's see how the iPhone 13 mini
compares to the iPhone 12 mini on the left.
You can see the 13 mini,
the camera housing definitely protrude out more.
And of course you get the diagonal setup
with speaker and flash,
which brings much better camera features,
including sensor shift stabilization
from the iPhone 12 Pro Max, which is super impressive.
Here's the front of the iPhone 13.
You may have noticed the smaller notch area's not as wide,
and this contains the front facing true depth camera.
Above it you have the speaker housing,
but you can see right there side by side,
the sensor housing on the iPhone 13 mini
is noticeably narrower, but a little bit taller
as you can see there.
Now, let's get into the top features.
(gentle piano music)
The iPhone 13 and 13 mini enjoy virtually the same design
as their predecessors, which is actually a good thing
because I think this is the pinnacle of iPhone design
thus far.
Back are the flat anodized aluminum edges
sandwiched between those two pieces of glossy glass
on the front and rear of the phone.
It's a design that mixes some of the best parts
of the iPhone 4 era look
with the modern edge to edge display.
And one subtle difference between this year's iPhone 13
and last year's iPhone 12 is the notch area
that houses the true depth camera system.
On this year's iPhone models,
the notch is noticeably less wide,
but it's also slightly taller.
But in reality,
the changes really don't make much of a difference
in day-to-day usage.
The iPhone 13 comes with several new finishes,
but I opted for the starlight this time around
since it's the color that seemed to be the most unique.
And I don't think press photos on Apple's website
do starlight enough justice
because it is downright gorgeous in person.
Depending on the way that the light hits
the flat anodized aluminum edge, it can look like rose gold,
pearl, silver, and even a hint of violet.
And the back glass material
compliments the band with a slightly off white color
that makes the sides and the camera housing pop.
(soft ambient music)
Now, I often find myself struggling to see my iPhone screen
while outside so any improvement to brightness
is a welcome addition.
And the difference between the iPhone 12,
with 625 nits of max brightness versus the iPhone 13
with 800 nits max brightness, isn't massive,
but it is noticeable if only a little.
And I use my Sony FX3 mirrorless camera
to really determine the difference in brightness
and this camera's able to discern
those brightness differences better than I can.
(mellow hip hop music)
Apple didn't make any mention of this
in its press information,
but the MagSafe connection on the iPhone 13
does feel slightly stronger than it did on the iPhone 12.
And maybe that's just like a placebo thing
because I've heard other people say it,
but I did test out the MagSafe wallet,
the MagSafe charger and the MagSafe battery pack,
and all three products seem to be a bit more secure
when attached to the iPhone 13.
Let me know what you guys found
down below in the comments section.
(upbeat music)
Now, unsurprisingly,
Apple includes five new live wallpapers that animate
when pressed on the lock screen.
And in my opinion, these new live wallpapers
are much better than last year's additions.
And all five new wallpapers also get dark version
so you actually get 10 new wallpapers in total.
And I think these wallpapers especially compliment
the new starlight iPhone 13 finish.
I thought the iPhone 12 mini was the perfect phone
for those that desired a small and uber portable iPhone
with all the power of its bigger brother
in the same iPhone 4 inspired design.
In my review of the iPhone 12 mini,
I called it the best-looking and best-functioning smartphone
that I've experienced in years.
And the same thing goes for the iPhone 13 mini,
except it's even better
and it improves on the most glaring flaw
of the iPhone 12 mini, and that is of course battery life.
Now, Apple tried to address the battery life issues
with the iPhone 12 mini
by releasing the MagSafe battery pack.
It's an accessory that I believe was designed
first and foremost with the iPhone 12 mini in mind.
Now, I think that the MagSafe battery pack
remains a good fit for the iPhone 13 mini,
but if you were struggling to make it through a full day
on the previous iPhone,
the improvements in battery life may be good enough
for you to actually get by
without needing an external battery.
Apple has improved iPhone 13 battery life significantly
thanks to the larger battery
and more efficient system on a chip,
with the smallest version
gaining up to three extra hours of stream video playback.
Now, obviously your mileage may vary
depending on how you actually use your phone,
but I've been able to make it through a full day
on several different occasions
without having to charge throughout the day.
Rarely could I pull off a similar feat
with the iPhone 12 mini even when the device was brand new.
To be clear, if you're looking for the best battery life
in an iPhone, and battery life
is the most important feature to you,
get the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
I mean, it's downright ridiculous battery life.
But if the iPhone 13 mini is on your radar,
you'll be happy to know that battery life
is discernibly better,
so much so that you may not even have to top off
during the day.
(energetic electronic music)
Now, for the first time,
the iPhone gets a base level of 128 gigabytes of storage,
double the storage of last year's 64 gigabyte base model,
and without a year over year price increase.
128 gigabytes of storage is a significant amount of storage,
especially for the non-Pro iPhones
devoid of the storage-devouring ProRes video.
If this is the model that works best for your budget,
I think you'll be very happy with this storage level.
Dual SIM functionality has been available
on certain iPhone models for several generations now.
In fact, in China, mainland and a few other areas,
users have been able to utilize two physical Nano SIM cards
since the iPhone XR and XS Max days.
iPhone models in US territory
have been able to enjoy dual SIM connectivity
for several generations as well,
but such functionality was split between a physical Nano SIM
and a virtual eSIM.
For iPhone 13, however,
Apple is now including dual eSIM connectivity,
allowing users to enjoy two separate lines
without utilizing a physical Nano SIM card at all.
Thanks to dual eSIM functionality,
you can now easily move two lines between your iPhones
at will.
For a T-Mobile customer like myself,
it's as easy as going into settings, selecting cellular,
and then choosing add cellular plan.
(relaxing R&B music)
Now, on the surface,
the A15 bionic chip doesn't present
the same kind of massive year over year gains
that users might be used to,
but it definitely remains a noteworthy upgrade
over the A14 due to its increased efficiency
and its performance, which is still really good.
And this all translates to better performance
with longer battery life.
Now, the system on a chip
keeps the same six core configuration
with two performance cores and four efficiency cores.
Now, instead of comparing the A15 with previous generations,
like the A14, Apple vaguely pits the performance
of its newest chip against the competition.
For example, Apple says that the CPU
is up to 50% faster than the competition,
and the four core GPU is up to 30% faster.
It's safe to say that this year's chip
is more so focused on refinements and efficiency,
but it's still no slouch.
And this can be seen via simple GPU and CPU benchmarks.
Now, perhaps more importantly,
there's a new 16 core neural engine
that's capable of almost 16 trillion operations per second,
compared to the iPhone 12's 11 trillion.
And the neural engine works in tandem with new technologies
in iOS 15, such as live texts
and should yield faster performance
compared to previous hardware.
And considering how much iOS relies on machine learning,
this is a big improvement.
Now, there's also a new image signal processor
with improved computational photography
that's obviously going to come in handy
for some of the new camera features.
There's a new display engine,
wider lossy compression support,
a new video encoder, and video decoder,
and two times the system cache.
So this is definitely a major update,
although it doesn't have
the brute force hits you over the head type of improvements
that we've seen in the past.
(melancholy music)
Now, this year's camera updates are big.
The primary wide angle camera gathers 47% more light
for less noise, which is enabled by a bigger sensor
with larger 1.7 micron pixels to capture more light.
And this is combined with the same f/1.6 aperture
from last year.
Sensor shift optical image stabilization
is now on the wide angle camera,
which was a feature introduced
on last year's iPhone 12 Pro Max.
That's available on both the iPhone 13
and the smaller iPhone 13 mini.
And sensor stabilization
results in better low-light photography
and better stabilized video
shot with the primary wide angle camera.
Night mode also gains benefits from the new camera hardware
with shorter capture times and better performance.
In addition to the wide angle camera upgrades,
there's also a new ultra wide camera with faster sensor
for a better dynamic range in low light photos.
Other improvements include next generation Smart HDR 4
and HDR video recording in 4k for the first time
at up to 60 frames per second.
Last year's model, 30 frames per second.
And the true depth front facing camera,
although not any hardware upgrades, gets new features
including Smart HDR 4, HDR video recording
at up to 60 frames per second in Dolby Vision
and cinematic mode and the new Photographic Styles,
which we'll discuss up next.
Cinematic mode brings the power of portrait mode
to video for the very first time on the iPhone.
It allows users to record videos in Dolby Vision HDR
with adjustable shallow depth of field
and adjustable tracking point in real time.
Utilizing the improved neural engine and next generation ISP
for better computational elements,
cinematic mode will automatically recognize people in frame,
allowing you to quickly rack focus between human subjects
with just a tap.
Users can also manually select objects in frame
to quickly change focus and even double tap an object
or person to enable auto-focus tracking lock.
What's really cool about cinematic mode, however,
is the non-destructive editing nature.
Like portrait mode,
users have the ability to adjust depth of field in post,
but Apple takes it one step further,
allowing you to delete or add focus points during the edit,
essentially allowing you to recompose your video
and adjust your storytelling after the fact.
Now, cinematic mode is in its infancy
and as such is limited to 1080p video
at 30 frames per second.
And given that it's geared towards a cinematic experience,
I wish Apple would have provided the option
to film at 24 frames per second,
but here's hoping that that will come via an iOS update.
Even still, the groundwork is laid
and I'm confident that cinematic mode
will become even more impressive in the coming years.
Photographic Styles for the iPhone 13
helps you to personalize the look of your images.
Each preset, rich, contrast, vibrant, warm,
and cool is accessible via a swipe
after tapping the Photographic Styles button.
You can further customize the look
of each Photographic Style by adjusting tone
between rich and vibrant,
and temperature between warm and cool.
The last Photographic Style that you choose
will remain enabled until you switch a Style or disable it
and go back to the standard balanced Style.
Likewise, customizations made to each preset are saved
until you change them.
So it's basically a way to customize
the image capture experience and save those customization
so that they are immediately available.
So ladies and gentlemen,
those were my favorite top features.
What are your favorite iPhone 13 mini
and iPhone 13 features?
Let me know down below in the comment section
and thanks for watching.
This is Jeff with 9to5Mac.
- [Man] Thanks again to Decluttr
for sponsoring 9to5Mac on YouTube.
With the new iPhones on the way,
the value of the current generation models
are going to drop.
And on average iPhones lose about 12% of their value
after the launch of a new model.
So you definitely want to check out
channel sponsor, Decluttr.
Decluttr offers a really simple and safe way
for you to sell your tech, including iPhones.
Just tell Decluttr what you'd like to sell,
and then you can ship your devices out for free
to be traded in.
And instead of getting credit for your iPhone,
Decluttr pays in cash,
and up to 33% more than carrier buyback programs.
Phones sold to Decluttr are repaired, refurbished,
and then given a new home,
which helps in reducing lot of e-waste.
So check the link in the description to get the most value
out of your current device, hassle-free.
Decluttr's offering a 28-day price lock guarantee
for your iPhone trade in right now.
And you can get an extra 10% when you trade in any device
with the code 9to5Mac.
And trust me,
you're going to want to do this as soon as possible.
Thanks to Decluttr for sponsoring 9to5Mac on YouTube.