In a comprehensive and detailed actual test conducted by CHIP, a professional testing agency in Germany, the iPhone 13 Pro performed well. As a typical representative of Apple, it provides the performance that the Android camp dreams of. In addition, the display is also the best among today's smartphones, and the configuration also reaches the highest "excellent" level. Actual measurement results show that the battery life of iPhone 13 Pro is quite excellent. The camera works well, an improvement over the iPhone 12 Pro, but the upgrade is negligible and not quite up to par with the Samsung or Test results German Chinese comparison legend
6 comparisons, iPhone 13 Pro wins, loses, ties with 2 each Xiaomi 11 Ultra
The contrarian design of the iPhone 13 Pro
The camera unit protrudes a little more than the previous model
Apple has once again divided its new generation iPhone into two lineups: the nickname "Pro" refers to the highest quality and the most expensive price; The Pro-labeled models, while equally powerful, lack certain features, such as an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120 Hz to ensure a smooth and clear display. From the appearance, the difference between the two camps lies in the arrangement of the cameras: the Pro model has 3 large cameras, while the regular model only has 2. But both models are equally well built.
The iPhone 13 Pro’s first impression is one of familiarity, and that’s because its design is completely faithful to its predecessor, the iPhone 12 Pro. Instead of using curved glass edges like its competitors, Apple embeds the smartphone into an angular casing. The frame is made of shiny stainless steel, so it's a real fingerprint magnet. The back is once again covered in frosted glass, and the front still uses Apple’s Ceramic Shield. Therefore, Apple promises to increase the impact resistance to 4 times that of Gorilla Glass. We didn't do a drop test to verify its claims, but it's worth noting: If you drop your phone on the floor, there's a chance it will break. While this new glass may improve the phone's chances of survival, it doesn't guarantee it will remain intact. Therefore, we still recommend purchasing a protective case.
One of the best displays at the moment
For the FaceID sensor, Apple had to keep the "notch"
On the front of the iPhone 13 Pro, Apple only changed the so-called notch slightly: the groove at the top of the screen that houses the selfie camera and FaceID sensor is obvious Narrowed, but at the same time had to be lengthened a bit. The
's 6.1-inch diagonal display has a resolution of 2532 x 1170 pixels and a pixel density of up to 459 ppi, which makes the display effect very good.
In the laboratory, the maximum brightness we measured was approximately 1018 candelas per square meter. This means the iPhone 13 Pro is on the same level as the best Android phones, so it's easy to read even in direct sunlight. But it should be reminded that such high brightness is not achieved in manual mode, but only in automatic mode when very strong light shines on the sensor. If you manually control the display brightness, it can reach nearly 850 candelas per square meter - still very bright.
finally upgraded to smooth 120 Hz
On the iPhone 13 Pro, Apple is once again embracing OLED technology. Self-illuminating pixels ensure brilliant color reproduction: the extended DCI-P3 color gamut, which is especially important for HDR videos, is completely and accurately covered; the checkerboard contrast ratio also reaches a high level of 158:1; the contrast ratio under ambient light Reaching 60:1; the white display is an amazing neutral white, but the "True-Tone" function may cause the color temperature to fluctuate; accordingly, the iPhone adjusts color reproduction as the ambient light changes; in addition, The True Tone feature can be turned off.
Apple has finally adopted faster frame rates than in previous years, at least on the Pro models. This function is euphemistically called "ProMotion", but it is actually just an adaptive refresh rate, which has long been standard on flagship phones of Samsung and Xiaomi. The iPhone 13 Pro's refresh rate ranges from 10 to 120 Hz, automatically adjusting based on the content being displayed. It's only 10 Hz when displaying still text and photos, and up to 120 Hz when playing games or scrolling. This means: you can browse and game smoothly while saving battery power when you don't need a high refresh rate.
Battery: Ridiculously small, but the battery life is not short
Apple still configures a proprietary and not very fast Lightning port
The built-in battery capacity of iPhone 13 Pro is only 3125 mAh, which is small compared with the 5000 mAh that comes standard with Android flagship phones. Ridiculously so. However, the iPhone 13 Pro didn't last short in the test: 14:19 hours of continuous operation. So you can easily get through a long day without needing to recharge.
Apple does not offer the possibility to choose a fixed refresh rate, so adaptive refresh rate is always active. For comparison: the standard version of the iPhone 13 has a larger battery, but does not have the "ProMotion" feature, and its refresh rate is fixed at 60 Hz, so the battery life is shorter, only 13:06 hours. Of course, other factors also affect battery life.
On a 5G network, the iPhone 13 Pro lasts 14:11 hours, nearly 3 hours longer than the iPhone 13. This obviously benefits from the refresh rate adaptive "ProMotion" function, which allows the iPhone 13 Pro to save more power when reading text and emails than the iPhone 13 without "ProMotion".
Starting last year, in order to reduce the carbon emissions of smartphones, Apple no longer ships chargers with them. If you really need it, you'll have to buy an original 20-watt charger for 25 euros to charge the battery from 0 to 100% in 1.5 hours. Although this is not a record, it is still very fast, especially the performance of charging to 58% in half an hour is impressive. Of course, the iPhone 13 Pro can also be charged wirelessly.
Apple's A15 processor has endless power
In terms of performance, Android competitors are significantly behind
The new generation of iPhones, the new generation of Apple processors, in 2021 is the A15 Bionic. The CPU has 6 cores and clocks at up to 3.2 GHz. Since Apple's hardware and software are well coordinated, the 6GB of working memory equipped with the processor is not the highest, but it is completely sufficient.
In tests so far, no smartphone is as fast as Apple's latest flagship machine: the huge PDF test file is loaded in just 1.3 seconds, which is incredibly fast; GFX benchmark test value that reflects graphics processing performance That's 101 frames per second. For comparison: Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, the most powerful smartphone in the Android camp, only reached a rate of 70 frames per second in the same test. This shows how powerful the iPhone 13 series is and how far behind Android competitors are.
has no problem playing high-end smartphone games on the iPhone 13 Pro. However, Apple is also leveraging this performance for its new "Movie Mode," which can provide a blurry background to videos - the level of blur can be changed while recording, or the focus can be changed after recording.
"Movie Mode"
"Movie Mode" automatically identifies objects suitable for blur effects
Movie Mode is a background blur mode for video recording, where one virtual layer is clear while all other layers are blurred, so the clip looks like More sentimental. Without your manual intervention, iPhone 13 Pro will decide which people, animals or objects to focus on. Unfortunately, in the video shooting test, whether it is independently selecting the focus or cropping the subject, the iPhone 13 Pro performs unreliably. Its effect depends entirely on whether the shooting scene has suitable conditions. For example, it works well to shift the focus from a basically static object. Therefore, it is not possible to simply transform every video into a cinematic masterpiece with "Movie Mode".
Of course, focus and sharpness can at least be adjusted with a click, and this can even be done after recording - a very useful and neat feature. Unfortunately, "movie mode" only supports two of the three lenses of the iPhone 13 Pro, namely the normal wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle lenses. iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini are also equipped with these two lenses, so all four models of iPhone 13 offer this new movie mode.
After processing all clips as needed on your smartphone, you can export them to your computer for further editing. However, depending on the file size, it takes anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes for the iPhone to complete all calculations and transfer them to a PC or Mac, which is where the aging Lightning port must heed criticism. It transfers data based on the backward USB 2.0 protocol, so the transfer of large files takes a long time.And wireless AirDrop is not a particularly fast alternative at this time.
Nonetheless, "Movie Mode" is a very interesting and cool feature that should take some home videos to the next level of quality. Content creators can try out Movie Mode and the creative possibilities brought by iPhone 13 Pro.
The camera has only minor improvements
Only the thickness of the camera hump has changed
Apple has made only minor changes to the iPhone 13 Pro's camera construction: the regular wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle lenses have slightly larger pixels than before to ensure better light capture. Correspondingly, the lens also protrudes further from the casing, causing the iPhone 13 Pro to tilt and swing slightly on the table. The basic configuration remains the same, namely 1 main camera, 1 ultra-wide-angle camera, and 1 telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. The resolution of all 3 lenses also remains the same at 12 million pixels. Only the main camera has a slightly wider aperture, from f/1.6 to f/1.5, so more light hits the image sensor. In theory, this should be an advantage, especially in low ambient light situations. The main camera and telephoto camera of iPhone 13 Pro have optical stabilization, and video shooting continues at 60 frames per second with a resolution of up to 4K.
In addition, the Pro model comes with a macro shooting mode, which is automatically activated when the lens is close to an object. This is not new, what is new is the ability to creatively influence composition, i.e. the ability to adjust image settings more uniquely through "photographic styles". The actual test results of the
camera are unsatisfactory.
The camera software can also automatically identify animals and capture them in the best way.
In the camera test, the images taken by the iPhone 13 Pro in bright ambient light have natural tones and good quality. With Apple's "Deep Fusion" technology, you can still take great photos with a tripod, even in very low twilight. Without a tripod, the quality of your dusk images will be significantly reduced. All in all, test experts rated the photo quality as 1.6, which is at the second level of "good". Compared with Android flagship phones such as Xiaomi and Samsung, there is still a big gap.
Apple has reserved ProRAW for the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max, so the iPhone 13 Pro saves information about color configurations, 3D models and some other relevant information for easier professional editing. The same applies to ProRes, a video codec designed for post-production with the video editing application "Final Cut Pro". To record 4K video in ProRes format, the iPhone needs at least 256 GB of storage space. The 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max don't yet have the ProRes format, and Apple promises to supply it later via a software update.
configuration and price
nano 1 or 2 SIM and eSIM each. The eSIM
test sample is pre-installed with iOS 15. Experience shows that Apple provides updates for about 5 years. Not only is there Wi-Fi 6, there's also 5G ensuring fast internet speeds. In the future, the iPhone 13 Pro may support the upcoming 5G independent network through software updates, eliminating the need for a troublesome switch to the 4G network (LTE).
iPhone 13 Pro can use two SIM cards at the same time, but one of them must be an eSIM.
internal storage is not expandable as always, which makes the 128 GB base version likely to be a stretch, especially if you save a lot of video in 4K or pictures in RAW.
iPhone 13 Pro has IP68 certification and therefore reaches the highest level of water and dust resistance. USB-C is still reserved for iPads, so the 13th-generation iPhone still “only” has a Lightning port. Payment is done via NFC chip, and Bluetooth 5 is pretty passable.
Apple continues to use FaceID for biometric unlocking. Thanks to infrared technology, this is a three-dimensional face recognition invisible to the human eye. Given that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made wearing a mask compulsory, fingerprint unlocking is a good option. But Apple couldn't and didn't want to respond to an epidemic so quickly. Facial recognition often doesn't work when wearing a mask.
The iPhone 13 Pro has a ring magnet embedded in its back shell, which is quite practical. For example, compatible Qi chargers automatically click into the optimal position to charge at maximum power. Due to the presence of magnets, the protective case is tighter and more securely attached to the iPhone.
iPhone 13 Pro is available in 4 colors with different storage spaces and different prices:
- 128 GB: 1149 Euro (China ￥7999)
- 256 GB: 1269 Euro (China ￥8799)
- 512 GB: 1499 Euro (China ￥10399)
- 1 TB: 1729 Euro (China ￥11999)
Detailed test data
Product: iPhone 13 Pro
Performance: Excellent (1.0)
- Load PDF test file over WLAN Time: 1.3 seconds
- Benchmark GFX Bench: 101 frames/second
- Benchmark PCMark :-
- Processor: Apple A15
- Processor Clock Frequency: 3.2 GHz
- Processor Cores: 2+4
- Running Memory: 6 GB
Configuration: Excellent (1.5)
- In-Prototype Operating System: iOS 15
- Weight: 203 grams
- Height x Width: 147 x 72 mm
- Thickness: 11.3 mm
- WLAN: 802.11 n, ac, ax
- VoLTE: Yes
- LTE Bands: 800, 1800, 2600 MHz
- LTE network download rate: 2000 Mbit/sec
- 5G: support
- notification display: only LED flash
- SIM card slot : Nano/eSIM⧸eSIM
- Dual SIM Dual Standby: Yes (5G/5G)
- Dustproof and Waterproof: IP68
- Biometric Unlocking: Face Recognition
- Memory Nominal Capacity: 256 GB
- Available Storage Space for Users: 238.3 GB
- Memory Card Insert Slot: -
- USB port: Lightning
- Bluetooth: 5.0
- NFC: Yes
- Headphone output: Lightning
- SAR value: -
- Firmware version: 15.0
Battery: Excellent (1.1)
- Battery capacity: 3125 mAh
- Battery life Duration: 14:19 hours
- Time required to fully charge battery: 01:30 hours
- 30 minutes Charge to: 58%
- Bundled fast charger: No
- Wireless charging: Support
Display: Excellent (1.0)
- Screen diagonal length: 6.1 inches
- auxiliary Screen diagonal: NoneScreen size: 65 x 140 mmDisplay type: OLEDDisplay resolution: 2532 x 1170 pixelsDisplay pixel density: 459 ppiDisplay refresh rate: 120 HzDisplay brightness: 1018 cd/m² (nits)
- Checkerboard contrast ratio without ambient light: 158:1
- Screen contrast ratio under ambient light: 60:1
- display screen covers sRGB color gamut: 142%
- display screen covers DCI-P3 color gamut: 100%
Camera: Good (1.6)
- Camera type: Triple camera
- Gross pixels of camera main sensor: 12 million pixels
- Standard mode photo: 12.2 million pixels
- Camera slow motion (HD/Full HD): 240 fps (720p)/240 fps (1080p)
- Image resolution (center): 1600 Lp/Bh
- Image resolution (corners): 1573 Lp/Bh
- Image detail restoration (low contrast): 1373 Lp/Bh
- Image detail restoration (high contrast): 1289 Lp/Bh
- The image quality under daylight was evaluated by experts as: 1.6 (good)
- The image quality under low light was evaluated by experts as: 1.6 (good)
- Camera noise: 1.8 VN1
- Optical image stabilizer: Yes
- Camera autofocus: Yes
- Maximum video resolution Rate: 3840 x 2160 pixels (60 frames per second)
- Front camera resolution: 12.2 million pixels
About COTEST
Quality and Safety The purpose of the European Testing Association COTEST is: to independently test goods and services for consumption in developing countries and around the world Provide objective and true quality assessment information to readers and promote the formation and development of a safe and trustworthy market. To this end, a comprehensive scientific evaluation is carried out on samples purchased anonymously by individual consumers or organizations in their markets. Next, we will successively release the scientific evaluation results of thousands of products, covering various products closely related to life, such as digital electronics, food and beverages, maternal and child care, household daily necessities, beauty and health, etc.If you pay attention to "COTEST", we will notify you of the evaluation results in time so that you can know the detailed evaluation data and choose the product
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