iPhone 13 Pro announcement major disappointment

Another battery test suggests Apple was underselling the iPhone 13 line's battery life improvements.



The iPhone 13 Pro Max managed nearly 10 hours of screen-on time running numerous intensive tasks. That's not completely surprising given the larger battery, but... damn.

More importantly to me, the regular iPhone 13 and 13 Pro models managed around eight hours. You don't need to get Apple's biggest phone to get very, very good battery life. Even the 13 mini outlasted the regular iPhone 12 by half an hour. This is a sea change in battery life expectations for iPhones, from all indications. I still wouldn't update if I had an iPhone 12, but I would be very tempted to upgrade from an 11 if I wasn't happy with the battery life.
 
I’ve been using my 13 pro for less than a day and already miss the always on display greatly. The pixel on the charge stand was a great alarm clock replacement, now I have nothing to glance at if I wake up at night.

Other than that the phone is solid, no regrets about switching back yet.
 
I’ve been using my 13 pro for less than a day and already miss the always on display greatly. The pixel on the charge stand was a great alarm clock replacement, now I have nothing to glance at if I wake up at night.

Other than that the phone is solid, no regrets about switching back yet.
I’ve been burned enough times over the years on both phones types not working as alarms that I still keep a normal clock next to my bed.
 
No AoD ( Always on Display ) is a head scratcher. I thought for sure the iPhone 13 Pros would've had it. Actually was hoping iOS 15 was gonna add AoD, so all AMOLED screen iPhone's could have it.

I absolutely love AoD on my Pixel phones. Have had it for years was a hard adjustment not having it when I picked up my 12 Pro Max last Winter.
 
I don’t quite see the utility of it if you have a smartwatch TBH. If I have my phone I’m using it. The watch has the AOD and is sending me notifications. An AOD on a phone won’t change the fact that you have to take it out of your pocket.
 
Mine showed up yesterday and I am far from disappointed with the 13 pro max coming from an XR. It’s nice waiting this many generations and getting what feels like a really serious upgrade -- and going from mid-range with a degraded battery and hazy camera lens to the top end one at that. 120Hz is so nice and smooth to use as I knew it would be coming from high refresh rate gaming displays, and I really appreciate the extra display area despite the phone being a similar width. It certainly feels like a more substantial product when using it, but it's not noticeably larger or heavier in my pocket. Should get a lot of useful life out of this one.
 
Yeah, seems like a solid upgrade from XS and older for sure. Mostly because XS -> 11 was massive in of itself.
 
I'm not a smart watch guy whatsoever. Would never buy or wear one. iWatch or Gwatch wouldn't matter. AoD to me is a must have on any modern smartphone.

But other than that, the 13 Pro Max is a sweet phone no doubt. Especially if your coming from something like the XS. But for me with a 12 Pro Max I can't justify it, as I'm also holding out to buy the Pixel 6 Pro.

Current phones I'm using;. iPhone 12 Pro Max, Pixel 5a, and Pixel 4 XL. I just put my SIM back in my 4 XL for fun. And man Android 12 beta rocks on this phone. But I'm super tempted in trading in my 12 PM for a 13 Pro Max @ T-Mobile. Think the trade-in deals are so good would be rather inexpensive upgrade through my carrier.
 
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As much of a stock Android nerd I am, and typically diss the iPhone and not an iOS fan, I will admit I keep putting my SIM back in my 12 Pro Max for some reason. I do like this large beautiful screen,m and the dark theme being typically Black AMOLED apps look great on it. Using Safari for web surfing is a beautiful experience, and easy to read and see sites clearly. And the dark mode in apps like Twitter, Reddit, Telegram look amazing, and pretty much hide the notch, making it look like the screen goes off to the edge.

I'm now more torn than ever, I LOVE the Pixel phones, and a big stock Android fan, but for some reason the 12 Pro Max has me going back and forth, and I'd imagine the 13 Pro Max with the 120hz display and brighter screen would be even nicer. Because at the end of the day, you stare at the phone itself, and the smartphone with the best screen and edge to edge display is great, and having a smooth lag free experience is a big deal to me.

Not sure what to do? Upgrade my 12 Pro Max to the 13 Pro Max? Or wait for the Pixel 6 Pro? But I do have two Pixel's now, the 4 XL and 5a, and yes of course the 6 Pro will blow both those out of the water, but then I also kinda like my 12 Pro Max a lot too, and a 13 Pro Max would be even smoother with the new display tech.
 
As much of a stock Android nerd I am, and typically diss the iPhone and not an iOS fan, I will admit I keep putting my SIM back in my 12 Pro Max for some reason. I do like this large beautiful screen,m and the dark theme being typically Black AMOLED apps look great on it. Using Safari for web surfing is a beautiful experience, and easy to read and see sites clearly. And the dark mode in apps like Twitter, Reddit, Telegram look amazing, and pretty much hide the notch, making it look like the screen goes off to the edge.

I'm now more torn than ever, I LOVE the Pixel phones, and a big stock Android fan, but for some reason the 12 Pro Max has me going back and forth, and I'd imagine the 13 Pro Max with the 120hz display and brighter screen would be even nicer. Because at the end of the day, you stare at the phone itself, and the smartphone with the best screen and edge to edge display is great, and having a smooth lag free experience is a big deal to me.

Not sure what to do? Upgrade my 12 Pro Max to the 13 Pro Max? Or wait for the Pixel 6 Pro? But I do have two Pixel's now, the 4 XL and 5a, and yes of course the 6 Pro will blow both those out of the water, but then I also kinda like my 12 Pro Max a lot too, and a 13 Pro Max would be even smoother with the new display tech.

Thanks for pointing out that dark mode exists, this is even better. I use it on my desktop so not sure why I didn’t think to look for it on a smartphone.
 
Dark mode is a big time feature. It saves your eye balls from being burned out from the bright whites LOL

Seriously though, the iPhone does dark mode way better than the Pixel phones do.
 
I wish iOS would feature a "force dark mode" on all apps! There are many apps that just won't run dark mode and look bloody awful in comparison!
 
I wish iOS would feature a "force dark mode" on all apps! There are many apps that just won't run dark mode and look bloody awful in comparison!
That wouldn't make any sense unless Apple mandated for App Store approval that you implement dark mode functionality in the apps. If you forced it, it would likely jack stuff up.
 
Ended up getting my wife a 13 Pro coming from an XR. It should be a huge upgrade for her. She didn’t want the bigger Max Pro. Verizon’s made it worthwhile as she’s getting $800 credit for her XR.

I wasn’t going to upgrade, but I ended up doing so in the fact they were goi to give me $800 also. It won’t be a huge upgrade, but I got a 13 Pro Max. I’m on my phone a lot at work, so the bigger screen and battery life will be welcomed.
This is the biggest reason and feature of an iPhone. You’re able to get $800 for a 3 year old phone that cost $799 brand new in 2018. Like why wouldn’t you upgrade to another iPhone? I like to see any android phone capable of doing this!
 
Got my 13 ProbMax and battery life is insane. I got 8 hours of screen time all on cell service. That might not seem as great as the video posted, but I’m talking about 3 hours worth of waze being on (30 min background), 1 hr TikTok (not much to do at work), 2 hrs Spotify in background (podcast), lots of speed test lol, and a bunch of other stuff. I didn’t do much YouTube, but my screen was mainly at max brightness. I was almost on 5G all day. I would say some 5G speeds felt like LTE. My XS Max would have had to been charged by around noon with my usage. The screen is definitely crispier. I have zero regrets on upgrading.


Honestly the last time I was this impressed with battery life was when I was rooted and had an extended battery installed on my phone. For someone in an office, at home, or on WiFi, this is EASILY an all day phone. I work outside and always on cell service, so for me to get 7 hrs 46 minutes of on screen time and 1 hr 26 mins off screen is pretty impressive. I didn’t need to charge my phone until about 5:30pm. I think I was on about 8% at this point.

This is only the first day with the phone, so my reaction could change some, but even if I lose an hour with being on YouTube more at work, then I’ll still be impressed. My XS Max had to be on charge throughout the day for it to last. I actually had about an extra hour of waze in today bc of the interstate being shut down, so maybe me getting on YouTube at work won’t hurt battery life as much.

I hated wireless charging because it was would only charge at 7.5w. My XS Max would only charge in the morning on wireless maybe 10% bc the brightness would be at about 20% while using waze, but on the way home it’s at max brightness and I actually lose a few % of battery life. I believe the 13 Pro Max can charge at 15w. If that is the case then I think I’ll be perfectly fine with wireless charging now. That’ll be great because I won’t have to cord charge it as much and will no longer damage cords or the port. When you pretty much live in your truck at work and have a 2 hr round trip drive to work/home, then it’ll take it’s toll on those two things. This will free up some clutter in my truck.

I charged my phone tonight with a 20w charger and it didn’t take long to get to 100%. Maybe a little over an hour? I honestly didn’t time it, but it wasn’t that bad. Wayyyyyy faster than my XS Max on the small block they provided in the past. I'm sure my XS Max would have charged faster on the 20w charger also. I’m going to get 30w chargers to make it even faster.

My wife has the 13 Pro and said it’s been a HUGE improvement over her XR. She said she went a whole day without charging her phone at the office, but around 7-8pm it was maybe 18% left. I can't guarantee she didn't charge it, but I told her for the past few days to not charge it as often to see if the battery is better. If the video provided earlier shows how well a 13 Pro does, then I would tend to believe that she didn't charge her phone. I did tell her today to charge it maybe once or twice if she has time, just so the battery doesn't get so low, but not not keep it on charge like her XR. I'm going to get a wireless car charger for her vehicle so she doesn't have to deal with cords either. Maybe even one for her office if she doesn't have one.


Tomorrow I'll get another real test, as I'm going to work at my old job. I won't be able to be on my phone as much since this is a manual labor job, so I'm curiuos to see how much battery life will be left at the end of the day.
 
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Jumping onboard the iPhone ship...

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Trading in my Pixel 4 XL 64GB and switching back to AT&T. $800 in credits for the Pixel 4XL trade in, 25% discount on my wireless bill for having AT&T internet at home (bundling). Getting the iPhone 13 Pro Max 512GB for $600 out the door.

Went with the 512GB model because the cost per month was $5 more than the 256GB model and I plan on keeping this phone for a while, I do not want storage to be an issue. When I've been on vacation with spotty cell service, I've ran out of storage on the Pixel 4 XL after taking pictures/videos. Usually circumvent this with uploading to Google Photos; but when you don't have a fast enough connection to do so - kinda stuck.

Phone plan is now AT&T Unlimited Elite for $78 a month (Phone payment and wireless). Unlimited Elite gives 4K video streaming
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Reasons for the upgrade
  • Taking videos on the Pixel 4XL with any kind of zoom results in terrible video quality, especially in low light. Went to a Star Trek convention earlier this year and most of my pictures with any kind of zoom and all of my videos (with zoom) are terrible quality
  • Ultrawide camera
  • Battery life is starting to become a problem on my Pixel 4XL, barely getting thru the day, with charging in the car.
  • Ability to use 5G
  • Ability to use WiFi 6 (UniFi WiFi 6 at home and at work)
  • Android 12 is absolutely trash in terms of user interface, no idea what google was thinking
  • Last iPhone I used was a iPhone 6 for work years ago, it's time to try out Apple again. Do not care for the look of the Pixel 6/6 Pro at all.
 
I went to the 13 pro from the 12 pro and am VERY happy with the display, so fast and smooth. The 3x optical zoom isn't bad either.
 
That wouldn't make any sense unless Apple mandated for App Store approval that you implement dark mode functionality in the apps. If you forced it, it would likely jack stuff up.
Whatever they need to do to fix it. I'm done with having the equivalent of a car headlight shining in my dark adapted eyes when using some apps in total darkness. With AMOLED devices it just makes sense to leave the un needed pixels OFF.

That said, I sold my 12 Pro Max and kept the 13 Pro Max. Prores video is incredible especially indoors with low light. It needs a BEAST of a machine to edit of course. 1TB storage was money well spent. 120Hz is nice too and it's amazing when I went back to the 12 Pro Max I could notice the difference immediately.

Speaking of 3X optical, it's nice now that we (finally) can use the actual 3X (2.5X on 12 Pro) indoors instead of it just using the normal lens and cropping. Looks so much better.
 
Gonna finally weigh in with my thoughts on the iPhone 13 Pro after about a month of use.

I'm coming from an iPhone XS, so take that into account — it's a significant upgrade for me. I'd be more hesitant to upgrade if I was coming from a newer phone.

With that said... the iPhone 13 Pro definitely isn't a "major disappointment." To start, the performance is top-tier. While Apple was late to 120Hz displays, this is a particularly good implementation given that iOS devices already felt speedy and fluid. It just improves the perceived speed and touch response that much more. I wouldn't have bought the Pro just for this (the regular 13 is more than fine). It is, however, icing on the cake when the A15 already makes this an extremely quick device.

Battery life is ridiculous. While I haven't yet torture-tested the 13 Pro, I've had outings that barely touched the battery where they would have significantly dented the XS' capacity even when new. The combo of the bigger battery, A15 and 120Hz adaptive screen goes a long way. I'm looking forward to hikes and other long excursions.

For me, the main event is the camera system. Mostly, it's a significant upgrade. I'm admittedly catching up on a few things, like LiDAR and the ultra-wide cam, but it's still a great overall package. The f/1.5 main camera is probably the biggest upgrade. It's not only wonderful for low-light shots, it has a depth of field shallow enough that you might pass on portrait mode for some photos (but it isn't too shallow, like the S21 Ultra's 108MP sensor). I've included an example below. The macro mode is occasionally crucial for close-ups and well-implemented. I'm mostly positive on the 3X telephoto. It's much better than 2X or 2.5X for distant shots, but it could stand a brighter aperture; f/2.8 is a step down in low light. All the same, I greatly appreciate the consistencies in output and interfaces, along with the color science. Some say it's a bit too vivid, but you can thankfully choose different style defaults that more closely match what you're used to from other phones.

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Taken with iPhone 13 Pro main camera, f/1.5 in JPEG, edited only to resize/reduce file size

The notch? Of course it'd be great to do away with it, but the significantly smaller cut-out is still welcome. It doesn't intrude as much as before. It is slightly irksome that the notch barely juts in on certain video aspect ratios, but I'd happily take this instead. Rumor has it that the iPhone 14 drops the notch entirely, if you're really concerned. I'd say the weight is more of a factor — the 13 Pro is a beefy phone at 7.2oz, and you feel that heft. Although it's not so heavy as to be unwieldy, I would be careful about 'casually' holding the phone. There's always the regular iPhone 13 or 13 mini if you want the core experience but lighter.

Some things remain true: if you don't like iOS, the 13 Pro and iOS 15 probably won't change your mind. You won't get a super-zoom lens or an always-on display (one or both might arrive with the iPhone 14). And Face ID is a bit of a hassle if you're wearing a mask (an Apple Watch will save you the trouble in some situations). But if I had to choose between this and a Pixel 6 Pro... I'd choose the iPhone 13 Pro, easily. It's faster, may last longer and has fewer biometric security headaches. I'd also say it takes better photos overall — both because it's more consistent (particularly in low light) and because its portrait modes are more natural. There's a cut-out look to Pixel portraits. Add to that Apple's still-better video recording and I'm not in a rush to use a Pixel, even if it'd probably be my pick for going Android-only.
 
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