Review: iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max are Apple's best
Phones
Speaker 1: This is the new iPhone 13 pro and this the new iPhone 13 pro max. They both have the same price as last year's 12 pro and 12 pro max, but have upgraded cameras, a bigger battery and a high refresh rate to display
Speaker 1: For the third year in a row. Apple released two pro models. And what's fantastic is whether you get the 13 pro or 13 pro max, you're getting the same phone, [00:00:30] same updated cameras, and same a 15 bionic processor. So really the choice is do you go pro or not pro? And if you want a bigger version of the 13 pro you get a 13 Promax. If you want a smaller form of the 13, you get the 13 mini. And by the way, I have a whole other review video for the 13 and 13 mini. Make sure you check that out. Now, the iPhone 13 pro starts at $999 and the 13 Promax at 10 99 [00:01:00] and that's for 120, we ate gigabytes of storage. And for the first time you have the option to get one terabyte of storage on an iPhone. And that extra storage pushes the price of a 13 pro to 1499 and the 13 pro max to $1,599.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lot of storage and lot of money design wise, the 13 pro and 13 Promax have the same squared off. Look as the 12 pro and 12 Promax. The [00:01:30] back has a matte finish and the stainless steel sides are still glossy. Both phones come in, four finishes, graphite, gold, silver and Sierra blue. And I really like the Sierra blue finish in some lighting. It reads light gray and other lighting. It looks Carolina, blue, ALA the UNC tar heels. The notch is 20% smaller and maybe a better way to describe it is that it's not as wide, but yet there is still a notch. And I think it's fair to say that it annoys me [00:02:00] 20% less. Both phones are thicker and way more. The iPhone 13 pro adds 15 grams and the 13 pro max packs and additional 12 grams in use. I noticed the extra weight on the 13 pro a little more, both phones feel solid and robust.
Speaker 1: They have what apple call ceramic yield, covering the display and an IP 68 rating for dust and water resistance. The 13 pro has a 6.1 inch screen and the 13 pro max, [00:02:30] a 6.7 inch screen in everyday use of the displays are brighter and has what apple calls promo meaning the iPhone for the first time ever supports a high refresh rate. And this high refresh rate goes up to 120 Hertz. Now, depending on what's being shown on the screen of your phone, the 13 pro and 13 pro max will switch the refresh rate between 10 and 120 Hertz. This helps save on battery as well [00:03:00] as do we really need to see our like email at 120 Hertz? Eh, probably not, but this is a similar approach. Stamps took with the galaxy S 21 ultra and use the screen looks stellar. I mean, animations look, smooth graphics, look crisp, even mundane things like scroll look better.
Speaker 1: The camera bumps on both phones are bigger and stick out a bit more. And that's because of what's underneath the main camera has a new sensor, which is the largest sensor ever [00:03:30] put into an iPhone that combined with a faster F 1.5 aperture lens equates to improved light gathering. Then ultra wide has a new auto focus, sensor and lens that also improves light gathering. And last the lens on the telephoto camera is longer with a three times optical zoom. When we talk about the ability for these cameras to gather more light, where I noticed the difference, the most wasn't in a radically brighter photo necessarily, [00:04:00] but in a faster shutter speed, which results in freezing action a little bit better, like people riding bikes or this car also taking night mode, photos is faster and something interesting. So night mode photos from the iPhone 11 series and 12 series had a bad source reflection problem on the 13 and 13. Promax, it's still there a little bit, especially if you have like a shot of string lights or video, especially, [00:04:30] and it's a little bit darker, but overall it's drastically better. Now do all of these improvements mean the cameras are much better. Yes and no. To test out the cameras. I took the iPhone 13 pro max and the iPhone 13 to floor field, which hosted the feast of the field part of Greenville south Carolina's yearly euphoria food event.
Speaker 1: And if you're into food photography, the 13 [00:05:00] pro and Promax have a new macro mode, which triggers automatically when you get within a few centimeters of your subject, now that the ultra wide has auto focus, you can get some pretty solid closeups of food, coffee, or even this video nightmare of ants crawling all over a discarded, grapefruit Ew, in good lighting. And even in medium lighting, I found macro photography pretty solid. Now it's not on the same level as [00:05:30] a mirrorless camera and a dedicated macro lens, but it's one of the better implementations of a macro mode that I've seen on a phone. And yeah, there are a lot, but when I was at the Michelin dinner or for the food event, I learned two things. The first is that gooseberries are delicious. The next is that in low lighting, macro mode is a little problematic.
Speaker 1: So for example, here's a photo I took of a piece of espresso. Rubb tuna. Now I don't think the results in [00:06:00] this photo to be that close to that appetizer was worth it, but I took the same photo with the iPhone 13 using its main camera. I was a couple more inches away and the photo looks so much better and macro photography. Isn't great. And you probably stick to the wide angle camera, which is gonna take better photos in that kind of situation. Overall, the improvements to the ultra wide camera are definitely noticeable. And macro photography [00:06:30] is decent. The 13 pro and 13 pro max also get a new feature called cinematic mode, which is a blast to use an experiment with. It uses the cameras on the back of the phone to create a 10 80 P video at 30 frames per second. But what makes the video so compelling is it has, it has a gorgeous out of focus quality.
Speaker 1: The foreground or background can be out of focus. And it's all because of doing a focus pull. So in this video, I focus on chef Eugene [00:07:00] tally owner of the herbal farmer C and then it focuses away from her and onto the very beautiful and very tasty vegan, sloppy Joe, that she was showing me the effect is impressive. And what's great is you can let the phone do its thing. Choose when to change the focus from one person to another. You can tap on the screen and manually change it yourself during the recording or even better after the recording. Now here's the first video I shot of you, Gina, [00:07:30] where the phone prioritizes the people in the scene. And, and rightly so, and here is the same video after I edited the focus points to move from Gina to the sloppy show. And then back to Gina, I also increased the depth of field being able to edit who's in and out of focus after the fact is pretty brilliant.
Speaker 1: Also the main rear camera, isn't the only camera capable of cinematic mode. You can use the front camera to films, cinematic selfies [00:08:00] like this one. When I sampled a lamb croquette with a micro based filled with pomegranate guest streak, it was delicious. Our cinematic video is perfect no way, but they are fun. And they're a great way to express your creativity. Cinematic mode needs a good amount of light to use it. In fact, when conditions are too dark, you'll get a popup prompting you to turn on your flash. Also, I noticed that fast moving non-human subjects like water being poured out of a spout or a shot [00:08:30] of espresso being brewed were hard for cinematic mode to keep and focus. Uh, then there's that Teleo lens I mentioned earlier. And what's nice about this is it gets you closer to your subject out needing to move your feet.
Speaker 1: It has a three times optical zoom last year's was this 2.5 times, and it has a 15 times digital zoom. Now this doesn't compete with the Periscope zoom lenses that we see on Android phones, like the galaxy S 21 ultra or the Sony Experior one, mark three. I welcome [00:09:00] the longer focal link, but when it comes to image quality, it's still about the same as it was with a 2.5 times telephoto camera on last year's 12 pro max processing. All of this is Apple's new eighth, 15 bionic chip. The GPU on the pro models has five cores and set up the four cores on the 13 and 13 mini in my time with the phones, it didn't have any trouble handling gaming, cinematic mode editing, or just having a bunch of apps open at the same time. [00:09:30] I've had all four models of the iPhone 13 for about five days, which means there are still some features I need more time with to test before I can go in depth and give it a critique.
Speaker 1: But let's wrap up by talking about a few of those first, the iPhone 13 pro and 13 pro max both have a larger battery. I didn't have any trouble getting through a day, even a hot and humid day where I captured a bunch of photos and videos right now, I'm running the phone through C that's arsenal of battery test and will update my written review with all of the [00:10:00] results. Next iOS 15 on the iPhone, 13 and 13 Promax is pretty wonderful. It adds a bunch of features, but doesn't mess with the status quo you already have on your phone. I really like focus mode. And if you want a more in depth, look at I 15, check out my video, showcasing the best features and biggest changes next, all of the iPhones 13, get a new feature called photography styles, which lets you choose between standard AKA, [00:10:30] the default iPhone look, and four styles, vibrant, rich contrast, warm and cool apple says that these are more than just filters because your phone analyzes the different parts of your subject to add the look you want.
Speaker 1: Without for example, making someone's skin look overly orange. Also all of this happens during the act of taking a photo and is baked into your file. And last, these will be the first phone to support the apple ProRes video Kodak ProRes optimizes [00:11:00] video files, and is especially useful for people who color grade or use editing software like funnel cut pro 10 or Adobe premier pro ProRes video files have a lower amount of compression, but take up a lot of room. Hence why that one terabyte storage tier is going to be very important. Sadly, ProRes isn't available yet to test and should be out later this year. So that's all I've got. If you wanna learn more about the [00:11:30] iPhone 13 pro and 13 Promax or buy one, check out the links in the description. But now I wanna hear from you. What do you think about the new pro phones from apple? Are you getting one? If so, what are you upgrading from? Throw your thoughts in the comments.
