iPhone 13: first look at Apple’s new phones – iGeneration

A little ahead of the usual schedule, Apple sent us a iPhone 13 mini adorned with the new pink color that should be all the rage, and a iPhone 13 Pro which is not far from resembling a gold bar. To keep you waiting until Friday, or maybe to make you redouble your impatience, let’s take a first look at the new iPhones.

As rumors of a range tightening swirl, Apple is sticking to four models for this year. The iPhone 13 mini has a 5.4 “screen, the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro have the same 6.1” diagonal, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s screen has spread over 6.7 “. From 809 € for the iPhone 13 mini with 128 GB of storage at € 1,839 for the iPhone 13 Pro Max with 1 TB of storage, the range has no less than 62 references.

It is all the easier to unpack the devices as their box is no longer wrapped with a film, a small detail that avoids the production of 600 tons of plastic. Apple wants to completely eliminate plastic from its packaging by 2025. In France, however, the box is surrounded by another box, which includes the hands-free kit required by law.

A few seconds are enough to remember that the steel edges of the iPhone 13 Pro are a real mirror, which catches the slightest ray of light, but also fingerprints. The sandblasted aluminum of the iPhone 13 will suit more careful people, but its polished glass on the back is infinitely messier than the textured glass of the iPhone 13 Pro.

The mauve disappears at the same time as the green, and gives way to the pink, much less saturated than the coral of the iPhone XR. The “not pro” models remain more colorful than the “pro” models, but only thanks to the “Product Red” color. Apple returns to cool, washed-out tones, applied in layers of metallic ceramic “At the nanoscale” on iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max.

All four models retain the dimensions of their predecessors, to within a quarter of a millimeter. Apple, however, measures its devices at the thinnest point: in terms of optical units, which have never been so imposing, the thickness of the iPhone 13 Pro Max blithely exceeds a centimeter. Covers designed for iPhone 12 cannot accommodate equivalent iPhone 13s.

Above all, the new devices are heavier. Seven more grams for the iPhone 13 mini and nine more grams for the iPhone 13, the weight of a large cube of sugar, doesn’t seem like a lot. But the difference reaches 12 grams for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and even 16 grams for the iPhone 13 Pro, an increase of almost 10%! Add a cover compatible with the MagSafe system, and therefore weighted with magnets, and you can use your phone as a dumbbell.

All four models use a brighter Super Retina XDR display while being more economical, but the Pro models benefit from ProMotion technology, which adapts the refresh rate according to use. It can drop to 10 Hz on static content, to preserve the battery, and go up to 120 Hz on the most dynamic content, to ensure perfect fluidity.

Rumors were waiting for a lock screen “Always on”, like the Apple Watch, but Apple obviously did not find large panels capable of running at 1 Hz for a long time without showing long-term afterglow. And then after all, the sarcastic minds will say, the Apple Watch is precisely the best screen “Always on” for the iPhone.

Finally, the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max stand out with their third camera and large sensors (read: A photogenic iPhone thirteen). The illustrations on the Apple site struggle to translate the place occupied by the photographic block, already imposing on the iPhone 13, but downright mastoc on the iPhone 13 Pro. For a little, that of the iPhone 12 Pro would seem discreet!

It is still too early to discuss the practical consequences of the fifth graphics core of the A15 Bionic chip reserved for Pro models, the relevance of Kinematic mode, the comfort provided by ProMotion, and even less autonomy. We will be spending the next few days taking hundreds of photos, shooting dozens of videos, performing multiple performance tests, and of course draining the batteries on these devices.

See you next week for our first conclusions. Do not hesitate, until then, to ask us questions.