There are a lot of iPhones in play right now. Currently, Apple sells eight different versions: the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the iPhone 13 Pro, the iPhone 13, the iPhone 13 mini, the iPhone 12, the iPhone 12 mini, the iPhone 11 and the iPhone SE. It’s a strategic move to have a phone hitting nearly every hundred-dollar segment, from $399 up to $1,099, but it can also be bewildering.
When we got the iPhone 13 family in, we wanted to show you the visual difference between the phones and compare them to some of their top Samsung competitors. All of the iPhone 13 models are similar in size to their iPhone 12 counterparts. They have smaller front notches, and larger, differently arrayed camera lenses. An iPhone 12 case will fit on an iPhone 13, but not on an iPhone 13 Pro because the 13 Pro’s camera lenses are larger.
It’s honestly difficult to tell from the front which phones are the 13 series and which are the 12s, but it’s pretty obvious from the back when you look at the camera lenses. Apple is doing a lot of blue colors this year, and they’re gorgeous.
Looking more closely at the best-selling, standard-sized models, Apple said that this year’s versions have brighter screens than last year’s models, but I couldn’t see that initially.
This year’s blue color is lighter than last year’s. The iPhone 13 also comes in pink, “midnight,” “starlight,” and red. We have the “midnight” iPhone 12 mini (not shown here) and it looks black at some angles, with a slight tinge of blue from some angles.
Here’s a look at the 12 Pro and 13 Pro together. You can’t see the 13 Pro’s fanciest feature in a still image, of course: it’s the 120Hz ProMotion display.
The larger camera lenses come with larger sensors and larger apertures. The 13 Pro has a larger f/1.5 aperture on its main camera, which Apple says is 2.2x better in low light than the 12 Pro was. The wide-angle camera has an f/1.8 aperture, which Apple says is almost twice as good in low light, and the zoom camera has been upgraded from 2.5x to 3x.
Now let’s compare our iPhones to some Samsung devices. The $1,099 iPhone 13 Pro Max’s main competitor is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, which lists at $1,199 but is frequently discounted. The Galaxy S21 Ultra makes better use of its screen real estate with a “hole punch” front-facing camera rather than Apple’s sizeable notch.
On the back, the differences between the phones are clear. The S21 Ultra is matte while the iPhone is glossy, but also, the iPhone’s camera lenses protrude more. With the iPhone 13 Pro Max, a case really smooths out the line.
Looking for more iPhone details? We have benchmarks, battery tests, and a quick rundown of international models. And check out more iPhone 13 details in the video below.
