iPhone 13 vs 13 Pro: Real-World Differences after 1 Week

It's been over a week since we got our iPhone 13 and 13 pro, and after using both extensively and testing them side by side, I think everyone's wrong. I found many things that surprised me, and I have to be honest and say that, unlike last year when I told most people to just get the iPhone 12, this year is a much harder choice for 4 reasons that I’ll go over. In this content, I’ll tell you every real-world difference I noticed, both ways the Pro is much better and the multiple benefits of buying the non-pro 13, and that's not counting the $200 savings. If you read through this whole content I’m confident that you’ll have a much easier time choosing which one of these is best for you and I’ll tell you straight up which one you should buy!

Let's start with how these feel in the hand, and I have to say that I prefer the iPhone 13.  

Now sure the Pro is made with really nice stainless steel which is a bit more protective and  

I do love the high-end luxury look of it, and the matching larger camera bump with shiny stainless rings and matt glass back looks really nice, the 13 just feels much more comfortable in the hand.

The first reason is that even though the glossy back shows fingerprints more often, especially on colors darker than my starlight iPhone 13, that glass gives you a much better grip on the phone instead of the nice feeling but the slippery frosted glass of the Pro.

The second reason is the weight. Such heavy phones feel like they are more solid, but the 13 Pro weighs almost 20% more than the 13 Pro, and it's actually the same weight as the much larger Galaxy Note 9 with a much larger battery and screen. Speaking of batteries, the 13 actually has a larger battery but we’ll talk about that in just a bit, and neither of these comes with a charger so pick up our recommended charger that unlike Apple has folding prongs and costs less by using our link in the description.

This might seem silly, but every time I pick up the 13 this stands out and the weight difference is definitely noticeable. The much larger camera bump is easier to touch and get the lenses dirty, and if you're someone who hates phone wobble, well the 13 Pro now wobbles like crazy.

As far as exteriors and design there are many other differences other than more and different color options, and both have the same excellent IP68 waterproofing rating of 6 meters for 30min which is way better than the competition, and both have the same antenna bands and speeds so you’re not going to get worse reception or download speeds with the cheaper iPhone like we used to get. And now let's get into probably the biggest spec sheet difference and that’s the display and 120hz promotion,  but before I tell you if that really matters and I think I’ll surprise you, first let's cover brightness and heat.

Both iPhone screens have gotten brighter this year and the 13 Pro can reach 1000 Nits which is really nice for some people.  The 13 now reaches 800 nits, up from 625, which is basically the same as the 12 Pro was last year.

This screen is basically the same as last year without the software limitation to get you to spend more money.  The 13 Pro on the other hand has a brand LTPO screen which not only gets 28 perfect brighter but it's actually more power efficient as well so it uses less battery and puts out less heat.

Did I notice a difference? Yea, definitely. If you're someone who uses their phone in direct sunlight that 1000 nits of brightness are really nice and if you connect it to a drone or play games outside screen dimming is less of an issue with the Pro, but keep in mind you have to use auto brightness and it has to be really bright for the pro to reach 1000 nits, so if you use manual or you’re indoors they’ll look the same.

Now about that dimming, under heavy loads yes the  13 Pro can still dim, but when it does it usually just drops to 80% which is the same as last year's 12 Pro at full brightness, compared to down to 35%  which caused me to crash my drone since I  couldn’t see the screen once it suddenly dimmed.

With that, we found that the 13 Pro’s more efficient screen cools and recovers really quickly. Now if you’re someone that watches a lot of movies or videos, both phones hit the same max 1200 NITS for HDR so there's no difference there at all, and the same thing goes for speakers.

Unlike last year where the Pro had better bass, the speaker modules seem the be identible and are quite a bit louder thanks to a much-improved earpiece speaker so I’m really glad about Apple’s improvements in this area.

And now for that beautiful smooth promotion 120hz screen. First off, I instantly noticed the difference when I booted up the 13 pro and even now, a week later I still notice it every time I use it. This is a feature that I’ve been waiting on for years and apple has pulled it off even better than I could have hoped for with some very clever design, but with that said, there is one major downside and no, that isn’t battery life.

Instead of being stuck at 60hz like most screen, the 13 Pro’s display constantly adjusts from 120hz all the way down to 10hz, and not only that but it not only matches the frame rate of say the video you’re watching or game you’re playing, but it can adjust to the frame rate of your game which makes it feel smoother even if its lower than 60fps just like sync.

With that, when you scroll the screen's refresh rate matches how fast you scroll, so it’s not wasting any extra power just jumping to 120hz like most high-end android phones, and when you’re not doing anything it refreshes at 10hz saving a ton of power.

This makes a big impact on battery life. Now I want to tell you my problem with the iPhone 13 Pro’s display, and that is the fact that it's so good that makes anything else you use feel slow and stutter.

Once I got used to the Promotion screen every time I picked up my new iPad Mini. It was annoyingly choppy to use, and the same thing for the iPhone 13.

The screen on the 13 Pro will make you want to upgrade your iPad if you don’t already own an iPad Pro. Now sure not everyone will care about this, but if you’re someone like me and this bugs you. You can go into accessibility settings and limit the frame rate to 60hz.

As a plus, it will still adjust down to 10hz so with that you’ll get a lot of battery life savings. So, now let's talk about that. The 13 has a battery that is larger, but because of these differences in the display that I mentioned, in the real world, the 13 Pro actually gets slightly better battery life.

So, even though Apple said the iPhone 13 gains 2.5 hours of battery compared to a 1.5 hour gain with the 13 Pro, you don’t have to worry about the poor battery.

Apple themselves shows that the 13 Pro is rated at 20 hours of streamed video playback instead of 15 hours on the regular 13, and that's thanks to the display and faster graphics, and it’s also the case if you do a lot of simple tasks where the display can slow down, but there is one exception to this, let's get into the performance.

Both phones have the same A15 processor white isn’t that big of a difference compared to last year. Sure it's a little bit more powerful and can also be more efficient, and it's mated to a new X60 Snapdragon modem which also uses less power, we have big differences in graphics which we’ve never had before.

The iPhone 13 has 4 core graphics which aren’t that much more powerful than last year, probably the smallest upgrade we’ve ever had, but the 13 Pro has 5 core graphics which are a big improvement.

Both work great for everything you can do now, but the 13 Pro’s has some major advantages.  

It doesn’t use any more power than the iPhone 12  Pro’s graphics but gets the much better performance,  and on the flip side if you’re not pushing the phone to its limits it can actually save battery power by not having to work as hard compared to 4 core graphics.

With that, you can actually enable battery-saving mode and that will basically give you the same performance as the 13 but using less power and thus less heat at the same time.

Of course, not everyone needs this level of performance, but if you keep your phone for many years the 13 Pro’s better graphics will still keep up with apps and games for at least a year or two longer than the 13.

With that, the 13 Pro also has 6GB of RAM instead of 4GB, and yes it's noticeable if you’re someone  who multi-tasks especially with tougher apps that load a lot of data or if you play games.

There's nothing more annoying than to be watching a YouTube video and then going to snap a photo which uses a lot  of RAM, and then go back and you’re  YouTube app closed, or you were looking at  something in social media and now you lost it.

For casual simple users this won’t matter, but having 6GB of ram is nice and that also future proofs your phone.

And now lets talk about the cameras. The iPhone 13 inherited the main camera from  the very best iPhone last year, the 12 Pro  Max, and the ultrawide has been improved too, but the 13 Pro has an even bigger improvement this  year with huge improvements to both of those along with a new 3x telephoto camera which give you much  better zoom shots than the 13 which lacks this.

For low-light shots the Pro’s ultrawide lets  in much more light, and it can take nighttime portraits due to lidar. With that, the 13 Pro has a macro mode that can get crazy close to the subject,  thanks to the ultrawide lens being able to focus which the iPhone 13 can’t.

You also get support for ProRes video and Apple RAW photos, which I almost never use anyway, but in general, the difference in cameras this year is much better than last year.

I’ll just say that if you care about camera quality and capabilities the 13 Pro is for you, and with that, with all of these differences that I mentioned, this year unlike last year the 13 Pro is well worth the extra $200. If you’re buying a new iPhone, make it the iPhone 13 you won’t regret it, or get the iPhone 13 Pro Max which we just did a super detailed review on right over there.