iPhone 13 Pro has a 120Hz screen, hours of extra battery life, and new Sierra Blue colour

Apple has revealed its new iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max series, which arrive with a re-engineered triple-camera system, up to 1TB of built-in storage, a high refresh-rate 120Hz display, and four new finishes – Graphite, Silver, Gold, and Sierra Blue. For the latter, Apple says it had to design an entirely new manufacturing process to perfect the light blue shade. 

On the front, all iPhone 13 Pro models feature a smaller Face ID facial recognition system, which means the notch at the top of the display has shrunk too. As such, although there’s no difference in screen sizes compared to the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max – these new handsets arrive in the same 6.1- or 6.7-inch display sizes as last year – you should get a little extra screen real estate on these new models as the front-facing camera, speaker grill and Face ID won’t be intruding as much into your view.

Powering the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max is the new A15 Bionic chip, which has been custom-designed inside Apple to increase power and battery efficiency.

A new OLED display is a little brighter – topping out at 1,000 nits which should make checking your smartphone in direct sunlight a little easier. And that’s not the only trick up the new screen’s proverbial sleeve. Apple has also added ProMotion to its iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max screen. This technology, which made its debut in iPad Pro a few years ago, allows the screen to adapt its frame-rate from 10Hz up to 120Hz.

At 120Hz, the screen refreshes twice as often as the iPhone 12 Pro, which makes system animations appear smoother. Everyday tasks, like scrolling, should appear slicker, while fast-paced gaming will be more frantic than ever before. This is something we’ve seen from the biggest Android manufacturers and has become standard on smartphones at the same price point as the iPhone 13 Pro. However, unlike most of the Android handsets we’ve seen, Apple isn’t simply touting the improvements of 120Hz.

More than simply hitting that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 120Hz refresh rate, the slower 10Hz refresh rate will enable Apple to eke out more battery life, since the screen isn’t refreshing as frequently when it doesn’t have to (when you’re reading the page of an eBook, for example).

iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max introduce some exciting new changes to the camera system. Smart HDR 4 should enable you to capture more detail in extreme lights – like when shooting into the sun, for example. Apple is also allowing users to pick their own style, which will be synced across the various modes in the Camera app, including Portrait Mode and Time-lapse. Once you’ve made your adjustments, these will be persevered ready for the next time you launch the Camera app.

For example, if you prefer warmer tones in your images, you can tell your iPhone to prioritise these attributes when shooting via Photographic Styles. That should ensure users aren’t constantly jumping into the Edit features to make the same adjustments to their photos every single time.

For the first time ever, Night mode is now available on all cameras on iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, including the Telephoto camera.

Like the iPhone 13, Apple claims the extra efficiency afforded by iOS 15, the A15 Bionic, and a slightly chunkier case to fit a bigger lithium-ion battery, means you’ll get an extra 90 minutes of battery on the iPhone 13 Pro compared with the 12 Pro, and an extra two-and-a-half hours of battery on the iPhone 13 Pro Max compared with the 12 Pro Max.

Apple claims you’ll get 22 hours of video playback on iPhone 13 Pro, although that drops to 20 hours if you’re streaming video over Wi-Fi or 5G. If you’re just listening to some of your favourite tracks, battery life can reach the dizzying heights of 75 hours. On the iPhone 13 Pro Max, battery life is even more, thanks to the larger case leaving more room for a bigger cell capacity. Apple claims 28 hours of battery life for video playback, and 95 hours for audio playback …that’s almost four days.

iPhone 13 Pro starts at the same price as last year, with the entry-level model starting from £949. iPhone 13 Pro Max starts at £1,049. There is also a new model with 1TB of onboard storage, which is a must for anyone planning to use the new 4K video capabilities to shoot their debut feature film, that costs £1,549.

“iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max make up our most pro iPhone lineup ever with the biggest advancement for our camera system, the best battery life ever in an iPhone, and the fastest performance of any smartphone, setting a new standard for iPhone and enabling incredible experiences never before possible,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The new pro camera system offers even more pro photography capabilities like improved telephoto zoom, macro photography, Photographic Styles, Cinematic mode, as well as ProRes and Dolby Vision video. The Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion is our best display ever; it intelligently responds to the content on your screen, offers fantastic graphics performance, and is perfect for any viewing experience.”