It’s late in the year 2021 and Apple has only just decided that iPhone users should be able to have a high-refresh-rate screen and take macro photos – that too only if you buy one of the new iPhone 13 Pro models. If you glance through their spec sheets, these are the two key hardware specifications that set this year’s iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max apart from their predecessors, and neither one of them is pathbreaking. In fact, both these features have been common on sub-Rs. 20,000 Android phones for quite a while now. So what is it exactly that justifies spending well over Rs. 1,00,000 on either of these two new iPhones?

The answer to that is a bit abstract, and potentially frustrating – you pay for the overall experience that only Apple has so far managed to achieve. These aren’t necessarily things that get listed on spec sheets; they’re capabilities that arise from tight integration between the hardware, software, services, design, and manufacturing process. The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max in particular also have the best cameras of their generation, and some capabilities that will make amateur as well as pro filmmakers and photographers take notice.

In fact, the new Pro iPhones are being positioned as all-in-one moviemaking tools. While this might create a whole new market, it also shows how little there is left to improve in terms of top-tier smartphone features and performance. If you’re an iPhone user with no budget constraints and want the best of the best, you’ll be buying one of Apple’s latest Pro iPhones regardless of any other consideration. On the other hand if you aren’t sure whether to upgrade, or whether it’s worth choosing the iPhone 13 Pro over the iPhone 13, this review is for you.

iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max price in India

With the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, compared to the relatively more affordable iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini, you’re paying for a more premium stainless steel frame, more powerful graphics, better rear cameras plus an additional telephoto camera and LiDAR scanner, and a better screen. Only the Pro models can record ProRes video, ProRAW stills, and portrait stills in Night mode. All models have roughly the same core specifications, IP68 ratings, Ceramic Shield for display protection, and MagSafe wireless charging support. What’s interesting is that the actual headlining new features this year, Cinematic Mode for video recording and Photographic Styles for stills, are common across all four Pro and non-Pro iPhone 13 models.

While the 128GB iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini start at Rs. 79,900 and Rs. 69,900 respectively, the iPhone 13 Pro starts at Rs. 1,19,900 with the same amount of storage. If you want more storage space, you’ll pay Rs. 1,29,900 for 256GB, Rs. 1,49,900 for 512GB, or Rs. 1,69,900 for the new 1TB option, for the smaller iPhone 13 Pro. The iPhone 13 Pro Max costs Rs. 10,000 more for each tier, so it starts at Rs. 1,29,900 for 128GB, and that goes up to Rs. 1,39,900 for 256GB, Rs. 1,59,900 for 512GB, and Rs. 1,79,900 for 1TB.

It’s worth pointing out that Apple’s prices don’t scale evenly across the Pro and non-Pro lineups in India. For example, the 512GB iPhone 13 and 256GB iPhone Pro (or 128GB iPhone 13 Pro Max) are priced at $1,099 in the US but cost Rs. 1,09,900 and Rs. 1,29,900 here respectively. For that reason, it isn’t as tempting to consider spending “just a little more” to step up to a Pro model in India.

You don’t get anything in the box apart from the phone itself, a lightning to Type-C cable, a SIM eject pin and some paperwork. You’ll have to pay extra for an Apple official charger and headset – of course Apple would prefer that you spend even more on a pair of AirPods and some MagSafe accessories instead.

The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max feature a powerful new processor and improved cameras

iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro design

If you’ve seen the iPhone 12 Pro series, you’ve pretty much seen the iPhone 13 Pro siblings. It would be quite hard to tell them apart. The newer models have slightly larger camera modules on the rear (so cases and some accessories won’t be compatible), and there’s a new signature colour as with each generation. The Sierra Blue finish looks light and bright in Apple’s promotional photos, but in real life, it’s more of a muted blue-grey and looks quite sophisticated and fresh. Silver, Gold, and Graphite continue alongside as the other colour options.

It’s likely that next year’s iPhones will have a significant design overhaul. For now though, we still have the exact same body shape. The new Pro iPhones are 0.15mm thicker and up to 16g heavier than their predecessors – the thickness is inconsequential but the weight can certainly be felt.

The front and back are completely flat, as is the stainless steel frame that runs around the sides. This makes the iPhone 13 series slightly difficult to get a comfortable grip on, especially the larger and more unwieldy iPhone 13 Pro Max. A case such as one of Apple’s official leather and silicone options will help with this, and will also keep fingerprints off the frame.

The power and volume buttons are on the right and left respectively on both phones, and are placed within reach. The mute switch, which is above the volume buttons, is quite handy. There’s sadly no fingerprint sensor, only Apple’s unique 3D Face ID for biometric security, which doesn’t work if you’re wearing a mask.

The notches on the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max are less wide, but taller, than the ones on previous models

Speaking of Face ID, Apple has decided to make the notch on all iPhone 13 models less wide, but also taller. While many Android manufacturers copied the notch simply for the sake of copying Apple, it quickly became obvious that this is a terrible design “solution”, and they all went to narrow notches, then waterdrop-style indentations, and now embedded camera holes. Apple, meanwhile, is stuck with its large Face ID sensor assembly. The new notch shape doesn’t feel like an improvement – in fact it’s even more intrusive when watching full-screen video. It’s also annoying that iOS 15 doesn’t use the newly liberated lateral space to do things like show the battery percentage again.

All iPhone 13 models are IP68 rated for protection against dust and liquid ingress. Apple says its Ceramic Shield material over the display is more resilient to scratches and shattering on impact than even reinforced glass.

iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max specifications

Every year, Apple introduces a new version of its A-series SoCs for each new iPhone generation, and we’re now up to the A15 Bionic. This time, there aren’t any headline-grabbing new capabilities or speed increases – Apple says even last year’s A14 Bionic is still in the lead compared to the best competitor (which we take to mean the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 or Snapdragon 888+). The “Neural Engine” for on-device machine learning gets a significant bump up from 11 trillion operations per second to 15.8 trillion, and the new image signal processor allows for camera features such as Cinematic Mode and Photographic Styles that won’t be coming to older iPhones through software updates.

The SoC has two high-performance CPU cores running at up to 3.23GHz, and four more efficiency cores for simple tasks. The integrated GPU is interesting, because for the first time Apple is giving its Pro iPhones more power than the non-Pro ones, in the form of five GPU cores versus four. The company says this is the best graphics performance of any smartphone ever. Much like we’ve seen with the M1 SoC in entry-level and high-end versions of the 2021 iMac and 2020 MacBook Air, this allows Apple to work with chips that might have miniscule defects. It’s exactly the same as how many other companies “bin” processors depending on the maximum speed they can hit, which is great for manufacturing efficiency.

All iPhone 13 models have IP68 ratings for protection against water and dust

Screen size is one of the key differences between the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. You get to choose between 6.1 inches (1170×2532 pixels) and 6.7 inches (1284×2778 pixels), respectively. Both models have the same type of OLED panel, which supports a 120Hz maximum refresh rate, DCI-P3 wide colour gamut, and 1000nit brightness (1200nit peak for HDR). The phone’s ambient light sensors let them adjust the panel colour temperature dynamically, which Apple calls True Tone.

Third-party teardowns have confirmed that the iPhone 13 Pro has a 3095mAh battery while the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s battery has a 4352mAh capacity. These are slightly larger than the ones in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max respectively. The numbers are quite low compared to what we usually see in the Android world, but Apple still claims competitive battery life thanks to its efficient SoC and display, plus software optimisations. It also seems as though the iPhone 13 Pro Max can charge more quickly, supporting up to 27W USB-PD adapters versus 23W for the iPhone 13 Pro – an unannounced difference between the siblings. You can charge both phones wirelessly at up to 15W using an Apple-certified MagSafe charger, or up to 7.5W with a standard Qi wireless pad.

All the new iPhones let you use two eSIMs together and ditch a physical SIM altogether. There’s support for more 5G bands in India than on previous iPhones, but still only sub-6GHz and not mmWave. There’s also support for Gigabit-class LTE, GPS, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5. Apple also uses Ultra Wideband and NFC to enable specific features such as directional awareness, AirDrop, and Apple Pay (not available in India yet).

You get iOS 15 out of the box, and many of its features will be common across iPhones going back as far as the iPhone 6s. The highlights are media syncing through FaceTime, tighter integration between iMessage and various first-party Apple apps, a more powerful DND mode called Focus, a major redesign for the Safari browser, and improved AI optical character recognition in photos.

The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max are both available with up to 1TB of storage

iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max performance

Let’s first talk about the 120Hz ‘ProMotion’ displays that Apple has finally brought to the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. This feature is on all the time – there’s no choice, unless you dive deep into the Accessibility settings to override it and reduce all motion. It’s typical Apple to force this, but in all honesty, you’d never want to turn it off even if that was possible. Comparing an iPhone 13 Pro side by side with an iPhone 13 with the same screen size, it’s obvious that motion is smoother and more responsive. Apple says it has optimised its hardware and software so that the refresh rate dynamically adjusts not just based on what app is active, but also what you’re doing – scrolling through a list will raise it, while an idle home screen can refresh at much lower than 60Hz to save power.

Beyond its refresh rate, this is a very crisp, bright display. HDR videos in compatible apps really pop. It’s a pity that there’s no ambient always-on display feature to take advantage of the OLED panel. The notch does cut into your usable screen space – it isn’t a major pain in games, which are all now designed to avoid placing controls in that area, but it’s still distracting in videos. The stereo speakers produce loud, spacious sound that works well for voices in movies and game sound effects.

That’s only one factor that contributes to the responsiveness of these new iPhones. The A15 Bionic SoC is obviously no slouch, handling everything including heavy 3D games with ease. I never saw either phone struggle with any app or workload. Both phones got slightly warm when running heavy apps, and noticeably toasty after benchmarking.

Speaking of benchmarks, the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max both posted excellent scores. AnTuTu reported 8,42,386 and 8,44,883 for the two respectively. An iPhone 12 based on the A14 Bionic SoC managed 6,94,580 points when tested again with the same version of the benchmark app. Geekbench 5 showed single-core and multicore scores of 1,716 and 4,635 respectively for the iPhone 13 Pro, and 1,725 and 4,709 respectively for the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

120Hz ‘ProMotion’ displays are exclusive to the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max

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