Table of Contents
amazon Apple iPhone 13 mini reviews
Configuration parameters for iPhone 13 Mini
– Dimensions: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.7 mm, tipping the scales at 141 g, encased in Gorilla Glass from both sides.
– Display: 5.4 inches, 1080 x 2340 pixels, Super Retina XDR OLED, HDR10, Dolby Vision, 800 nits maximum brightness.
– Processor: Apple A15 Bionic (5 nm) 6 cores
– Graphics: Apple GPU (4-core graphics)
– RAM: 4GB RAM
– Storage: NVMe 128GB
– Rear Camera:
+ Wide: 12 MP, f/1.6, 26mm, 1.7µm, dual pixel PDAF, and sensor-shift OIS.
+ Ultra Wide: 12 MP, f/2.4, 120°, and 13mm.
– Front Camera: 12 MP, f/2.2, 23mm, 1/3.6″.
– Battery: 2438 mAh.
– Colors: Starlight, Midnight, Blue, Pink, and Red.
The one I use for the contents of this article is the white (Starlight) version in 128GB.
Review of design and screen: How mini is the experience?
Small-breezy-small, compact-breezy-compact, and light-breezy-light; those were my first feelings, holding the iPhone 13 mini in my hand. If you have ever used an iPhone 8 (148g), you will consider the iPhone 13 mini silly light, as its distribution of weight is somehow different. Now, in dimensions, while iPhone 13 mini is slightly thicker than iPhone 8, it is more compact in width and length (iPhone 13 mini – 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.7 mm; iPhone 8 – 138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm).
If you’re used to phones with 6-inch screens and beyond, your first feelings might be a bit let down when you pick up this ultra-compact phone. Well, it doesn’t feel as sturdy, comfortable, or luxurious as on the Pro versions due to the aluminum frame. However, once I put on a silicon case, whether aluminum or steel or plastic, they all become equal; thus, I like the aluminum frame because it is even lighter.
The iPhone 13 mini is almost identical to the iPhone 12 mini in that it has a neater diagonal camera cluster and even neater notch.
The most confusing point is the compact notch-feels bigger, which adds confusion, on the other hand, does not display battery percentage; therefore, the experience is not much different from previous lines of iPhone.
About the screen, although not much improved since the iPhone 12 mini, the brightness is better this time, so one can see that by an outside appearance. During the daytime, the combination of OLED screens with high brightness makes sure that the display shows good, clear colors, and sharpness-certainly nothing to complain about since it is Full HD + resolution that looks beyond big, at that size of only 5.4.
Color and contrast are nearly identical to the Pro models; you will feel that the motion is smooth when touching and swiping with a 120Hz screen.
The display area and typing experience will, on balance, be more disadvantageous for the virtual keyboard than that of their larger counterparts. If you come from an iPhone 8 (or 6, 6s, 7, SE 2020), you’d see the iPhone 13 mini with a more spacious display area; on the other hand, if you are more used to 6 inches or more for your daily texting and tasks, it would take you some time for acclimatization to the rather petite size of the device.
The biggest issue arises when watching movies and playing games. Whenever you have to manipulate a game, that area is simply too small; every little detail on-screen is also a little too small for you to clearly see it. Watching movies and videos is about the same. So even though the performance of the iPhone 13 mini is quite strong and smooth in all games, it wouldn’t be the perfect choice for them.
where can you get a Apple iPhone 13 mini online
Apple iPhone 13 Mini (128GB, Blue) [Locked] + Carrier Subscription: Buy it now
Camera
I will be covering low-light shooting in the camera section as this is a fantastic improvement for the iPhone 13 mini. In specifications, the main camera sensor size of the iPhone 13 mini is equal to that of the iPhone 12 Pro Max and larger than that of any Apple iPhone before. The pixel size of the main camera of the iPhone 13 mini is 1.7µm, and the pixel size in previous models of the iPhone is 1.4µm.
In addition to that, this year the sensor-shift anti-shake technology has also been brought to the mini model by Apple. Last year, it was only available on 12 Pro Max. This is good in terms of anti-shake performance, but the low-light shooting was the promise with a bigger sensor. Because, when sufficiently bright, it becomes difficult to differentiate between photos shot with the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 13.
iPhones provide one of the best experiences when taking night shots. This means when you are in low light, avoid activating night mode automatically and give the right shooting time, normally just 1-3 seconds. It allows you to also extend that in very dark scenes to as long as 10 seconds, but practically, after going past 7 seconds, there isn’t too much improvement to be gained and becomes a little too much in my opinion. Overall, the iPhone experience is still about picking the device and pressing the shutter; the rest will take care of itself.
I shoot hand-held, holding the shutter button down and steady with my hands. Hence, 100% of my pictures are tack sharp, with no blurring—partly demonstrating useful sensor-shift anti-shake technology. From these low-light images above, one can easily note that low-light shooting on the iPhone 13 mini is killer.
The comparison camera was the Xiaomi 11T (108MP main camera, 1/1.52-inch sensor size). And so the iPhone 13 mini produced better, sharper pictures and was more true to color, while the contrast was nice, with overall better image quality. A common weakness with many Android models, from the Xiaomi to Samsung, is tendency to render images a little flat; at this point, iPhone models tend to do very much better.
The main camera shows a strong backlighting effect. Because even in front of the sun, taken through the window, every detail inside the house and the detail of the tree are excellently represented, demonstrating the Smart HDR 4 technology that Apple has endowed the iPhone line with working efficiently.
I took two shots at 2.5x zoom, which means there is no telephoto camera and just digital zoom, and they were still very sharp and clarity-wise pure. Impressive is an understatement for what the iPhone 13 mini camera has done:
To put it really simply, the iPhone 13 mini is just too good if you don’t need a 5x-or-10x zoom camera for manual modes or further advanced tracing features.
Performance rating: Beyond Comparison
If there were to be a smartphone even more potent than the iPhone 13 mini, then there exists the possibility that the iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max could fill in that role.
As far as performance specifically goes, the iPhone 13 mini has almost the same CPU performance as the Pro counterparts. However, the GPU performance is abysmally less, which is only a minor increase over the last iPhone due to the extra one core. This is just about enough to crush any Android in the market by the iPhone 13 mini.
Some of the best games run smoothly on iOS, and the device for PUBG Mobile shows solid performance at Extreme frame settings (60 fps) and HDR graphics, yet I guess very few of you would buy such a little phone for such games.
Battery life rating of iPhone 13 mini
The battery life of iPhone 13 mini comes up to about 5 hours of onscreen time considering the real-life usage, which is not too much but sufficient for attention-grabbing Internet activity and moderate usage for an entire day.
Verdict
The iPhone 13 mini is not a good option for gaming, movie-watching, or performing arts activities. It will work fine for people who love compact products, easy to use with one hand, or women that like neat phones that match with any clothing without having to worry about pockets.
With a good display, “unmatched” performance, comfort for use for the next 3-4 years (up to 5-6 years for iOS upgrade), an amazing camera, decent battery output, and a pain to actually operate it, what mini-ever is better than iPhone 13 mini right now and probably in the future?