iPhone 13 mini review: The best small phone just got better
Our Verdict
The iPhone 13 mini is the most powerful small phone ever. It packs in great cameras and better battery life, plus 128GB of storage to starting time and class-leading performance.
For
- Improved cameras
- Better battery life
- Splendid operation
- Base of operations model has 128GB of storage
Against
- No mask-friendly hallmark
- Fast charging limited to 20W
Tom's Guide Verdict
The iPhone 13 mini is the almost powerful small phone ever. Information technology packs in peachy cameras and better battery life, plus 128GB of storage to start and grade-leading performance.
Pros
- +
Improved cameras
- +
Ameliorate battery life
- +
Excellent performance
- +
Base of operations model has 128GB of storage
Cons
- -
No mask-friendly authentication
- -
Fast charging limited to 20W
iPhone 13 mini specs
Cost: Starting at $699
Brandish: 5.4-inch Super Retina XDR OLED (2340 x 1080)
CPU: A15 Bionic
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB
Rear cameras: 12MP (f/1.6) chief, 12MP (f/2.4) ultrawide
Front photographic camera: 12MP (f/2.two)
Video: Up to 4K 60, 1080p 30 (Cinematic Mode)
Battery life (hrs:min): 8:41
Charging: 20W wired, 15W MagSafe
Size: five.2 x 2.5 x 0.3 inches
Weight: four.97 ounces
Yous don't need a large telephone for big power, and the iPhone 13 mini proves it. While it's smaller than basically whatsoever other phone you can buy today, it all the same features some of the all-time cameras and performance in the business.
You don't get some of Apple'south Pro-level toys similar a 120Hz refresh rate or a telephoto photographic camera, just you still become the aforementioned experience as the standard iPhone 13, including the mighty A15 Bionic processor, superlative quality (admitting smaller) display and all the new iOS features similar Cinematic mode.
In this iPhone xiii mini review, nosotros'll take a expect at merely how the all-time small phone in the globe stacks up to its predecessor and the contest. And be certain to also check out our iPhone xiii Pro Max review, iPhone 13 Pro review, and iPhone thirteen review.
iPhone xiii mini review: Cost and release appointment
The iPhone thirteen mini is available to buy correct now. The 128GB model starts at $699, with the 256GB jumping to $799 and the top-stop 512GB going for $999. Yes, Apple doubled the base of operations storage this year while keeping the price the same. Because all of the power nether the hood, the iPhone 13 mini for $699 is a great deal.
In the U.Thousand. you're looking at a starting price of £679 for the iPhone thirteen mini, with the 256GB model hitting £779, and the 512GB handset costing a healthy £979.
Before you pull the trigger on buying one, I encourage you to check out our all-time iPhone xiii deals page to make sure you get the best offering.
Just, yous may decide you want to wait another year for the iPhone fourteen before making the upgrade from your current Apple tree phone; if and so, cheque out the seven biggest upgrades nosotros want to run into from the iPhone xiv.
iPhone 13 mini review: Blueprint
The iPhone 13 mini looks very similar to its predecessor with one notable modify: the notch. Information technology's about 20% smaller this year, according to Apple, and it'southward certainly noticeable. It's prissy to have more screen real estate, even if the notch is nonetheless in that location.
The iPhone thirteen mini features the aforementioned squared off edges and the small size is still easily pocketable and I could use it in ane hand effortlessly. All the iPhone 13 models are IP68-certified, significant that the 13 mini can survive upwards to six meters underwater for 30 minutes.
I'1000 disappointed to encounter a lack of mask-friendly authentication on the iPhone 13 mini. Apple has failed to accommodate Face ID to the mask life many of us still live. I'd like to encounter Face ID get smarter or for Apple to coil out Impact ID next time.
iPhone 13 mini review: Display
The iPhone xiii mini'due south v.4-inch OLED display is relatively unchanged, but at that place'due south a big boost in effulgence this year.
Thanks to the OLED console, colors are punchy and vibrant with true, deep blacks. I played Genshin Touch on (an interesting feel on such a modest phone) and came away impressed with how well the phone rendered the saturated color palette. The iPhone 13 mini besides portrayed the section in Blade Runner 2049's third act well with rich contrast betwixt the orange fog and the shadows.
Here'southward the breakup of our display testing as compared to the Milky way S21 and iPhone 12 mini.
| iPhone xiii mini | Galaxy S21 (Natural) | iPhone 12 mini | |
| sRGB (%) | 117 | 110 | 118 |
| DCI-P3 (%) | 83 | 77 | 83 |
| Delta-East | 0.27 | 0.29 | Not tested |
| Nits | 788 | 703 | 505 |
The iPhone 13 mini compares quite well confronting the iPhone 12 mini and Milky way S21, with some slightly stronger saturation than Samsung's phone. The Delta-E color accuracy score, where 0 is perfect, shows a slight edge over the S21.
And with a max effulgence of 788 nits in our testing, the iPhone thirteen mini gets enough brilliant plenty to see outdoors. This is great especially for photography, pregnant that yous tin can actually see the photos y'all took fifty-fifty if you're standing in directly sunlight.
iPhone 13 mini review: Cameras
The iPhone thirteen mini got several camera upgrades this twelvemonth. The main 12MP camera has a larger sensor that lets in more low-cal, improving photos in poorer lighting weather condition. At that place's also sensor-shift optical image stabilization, which Apple tree introduced on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. This should assistance things stay even more stable than traditional OIS.
As for the 12MP ultrawide camera, it too has a larger sensor. There'due south autofocus on board now, also, which tin can make a big deviation in ensuring ultrawide shots come out precipitous.
For the post-obit camera comparisons, I brought the Galaxy S21 along so y'all can come across how Samsung's best compares to Apple's latest flagship.
In this start outdoor shot, the phones had to capture the blue chairs, vibrant red door, the white wall, and the cloudy heaven beyond. The iPhone xiii mini has a much richer image with brighter colors with a stronger sense of depth. The Galaxy S21 looks a bit done out and apartment in comparison. Otherwise, the 2 images are adequately similar, though I think the iPhone's is truer to life.
In this photo of flowers on a tree, a similar thing happened. The iPhone captured a more vibrant image without going too far with the saturation. The worn blue wall to the left and the orange umbrella in the background look realistic. The S21, as is usual with Samsung, has has some oversaturation problems, but it also struggled with the sunlight where the iPhone did not — there's some lens flare in the S21'south picture.
Heading inside, the iPhone xiii mini captured this scene well. It handled the natural and artificial low-cal while maintaining the contrast and shadows. This epitome captures the mood and tone of the room and offers an artistic vibe. The Galaxy S21 also produced a skilful image that's brighter than the iPhone'due south. That said, it boosted the highlights too much and then lost much of the contrast. The concluding picture looks a bit apartment and while it's brighter, it's not what that room looked like to my eye.
In this second indoor image, both phones are nearly identical. The iPhone's shot is a bit warmer and the S21's is slightly brighter. Both phones captured the vibe of this scene with abrupt focus on the tree decoration. However, the reddish of the books up top on the S21's paradigm expect a tad washed out, while they're a bright red in the iPhone's photo.
For portraits, both phones are again rather similar. The iPhone 13 mini opted for a slightly warmer tone to complement the lighting that day, while the Milky way S21 cooled things downwardly and brightened the terminal image. Not but is the greenish in the iPhone'due south picture richer, but the orangish car backside me looks striking. The same car in the S21's portrait looks a bit faded. All the same, both phones managed near perfect blur radii, even if the S21 applied too much face smoothing.
For the ultrawide test, check out this cool vintage Protrude chip heap. The focus on the iPhone'southward photograph is a bit sharper than the S21'due south. That's non to mention the colour disparity, with the iPhone looking richer and the S21 having a done out expect. The yellow Beetle looks a bit livelier in the iPhone's motion-picture show, whereas it looks a niggling too faded in the S21's. This all comes back around to what I wrote in the outdoor section above.
Dark mode proved interesting, every bit you tin can run across. The Galaxy S21's attempt at photographing this smoker in the dead of night turned out much brighter than the iPhone xiii mini'due south. Not only is the smoker in stronger focus with more details, but you can fifty-fifty run across the contend slats in the background better. I expected much improve from the iPhone, considering that Apple's Night mode is usually very good.
Wrapping upwardly with front end-facing camera comparisons, the ii phones took 2 very different approaches. The iPhone xiii mini opted for a softer, warmer tone, highlighting the reds in my face and apparel backside me. The Galaxy S21 cooled things downwardly and brightened them significantly, making my eyes brighter, but also applying too much face up smoothing.
Standard
Rich Contrast
Vibrant
Warm
Cool
Standard
Rich Dissimilarity
Vibrant
Warm
Cool
Standard
Rich Contrast
Vibrant
Warm
Cool
New this year is what Apple tree calls Photographic Styles. Yous can think of these like real-time filters which come up in four presets. You can select something that matches your personal taste and run across what it looks like as you're lining up your shot. You can too tweak things to totally match the style you want. It'southward a cool feature that adjusts the camera settings on the fly instead of relying on a filter later the fact.
You can see a sample gallery of the standard selection and the different Photographic Styles above.
iPhone 13 mini review: Video
Apple tree holds the crown for video recording on a smartphone, with the iPhone thirteen series standing that trend. The true star of the prove this year is Cinematic mode. Possible cheers to the upgraded Neural Engine in the A15 Bionic, this new feature is portrait video on steroids.
Not only does Cinematic mode utilise a bokeh effect to your video, it can dynamically shift the focus depending on where your subject is in frame or where they're looking. It's quite interesting to run into in exercise, offering a truly artistic and professional person fashion to record video. Information technology tops out at 1080p 30 fps and all the piece of work is done on-device.
The true applications of Cinematic mode for the average person remain a mystery and I don't remember you should rush out to buy an iPhone 13 mini just to get this feature alone. It'southward definitely neat and impressive, not to mention a not bad utilize of the Neural Engine, but, on its own, information technology doesn't sell whatsoever of the iPhone 13 models for me. Regular video recording, meanwhile, remains a solid strength for Apple.
iPhone thirteen mini review: Performance
With the new A15 Bionic organisation-on-chip, which includes a quad-cadre GPU, the iPhone 13 mini is a very powerful little phone. In fact, it destroys the best that Android has to offer, even the best gaming phones.
The fastest chip that an Android telephone tin utilize, the Snapdragon 888, already had a difficult time keeping upwardly with the A14 Bionic from last year and the A15 furthers Apple'southward atomic number 82 over its competitors.
Nosotros ran a few benchmarks, which you'll find below.
| iPhone 13 mini | Milky way S21 | iPhone 12 mini | |
| Geekbench 5 (single / multi-core) | 1733 / 4643 | 1048 / 3302 | 1602 / 4123 |
| Adobe Premiere Blitz (Mins:Secs) | 0;27 | one:03 | 0:28 |
| 3DMark WIld Life Unlimited (Score / FPS) | 10231 / 61 | 5805 / 35 | 9804 / 54 |
The iPhone 13 mini is quite a ways ahead of the Snapdragon 888-equipped Galaxy S21. It even beats out the iPhone 12 mini by a slight margin, which is what I'd expect for a next generation fleck at this signal.
For instance, expect at the Adobe Premiere Rush benchmark, where a phone transcodes a 4K video file to 1080p as chop-chop equally it can. The iPhone 13 mini managed it in a blistering 27 seconds, where it took the Galaxy S21 more than twice as long to accomplish the same task.
The other benchmarks stress test the hardware, similar the 3DMark Wild Life graphics test. You can come across a noticeable jump from the iPhone 12 mini, and a huge leap over the Galaxy S21. Fifty-fifty in Geekbench, which measures CPU performance, the results bear witness a significant divergence betwixt Apple tree and Samsung.
While the Pro models perform amend across the board with their bigger GPUs and 50% more RAM, the $699 mini does some serious work and provides the best bang for your buck.
Check out our iPhone 13 benchmarks page to see how the iPhone xiii mini and iPhone thirteen Pro compare to each other and the Android phone contest.
iPhone thirteen mini review: Battery life and charging
Apple doesn't disembalm iPhone battery capacities, but the visitor did say that it improved the iPhone 13 mini'south bombardment life by upward to ane and a half hours over its predecessor. In our testing, that concluded up accurate.
In the Tom's Guide bombardment life test, we prepare a telephone's display to 150 nits and task it to endlessly reload web pages over a 5G connection until it dies. Here'southward how the iPhone 13 mini compares to the Milky way S21 and iPhone 12 mini.
| iPhone thirteen mini | Galaxy S21 (Adaptive / 60Hz) | iPhone 12 mini | |
| Bombardment life (Hrs:Mins) | 8:54 | 6:31 / 9:54 | vii:28 |
| Recharge percentage (15 mins) | 29 | xxx | 33 |
| Recharge percentage (30 mins) | 58 | 55 | threescore |
Year-over-year, you lot tin can meet an improvement of just over an 60 minutes. Still, over eight and a one-half hours of bombardment life is better than the iPhone 12 mini's seven and a half.
Head over to our iPhone 13 battery life results page to see how the iPhone 13 mini compares to the other new iPhones and the best Android phones.
Apple once again didn't include a charger, but that's no surprise. Neither did the company upgrade the iPhone xiii mini'southward charging speed, keeping the new phone at a 20W max wired. MagSafe is still here, which tops out at 15W. I would accept liked to come across the iPhone 13 mini get more than competitive with its charging, especially equally other phone makers push the limits of what'due south possible.
iPhone 13 mini review: Software and iOS 15
The iPhone 13 mini debuts with iOS 15, which is a pretty major update. It sports new features like tweaked notifications, Focus manner, FaceTime improvements and upgrades to many core apps such as Safari and Notes. We already have some fantabulous coverage on iOS fifteen, which I encourage you to check out and then you lot can come across exactly what's new.
Apple tree likes to go on the iOS experience as universal across devices as possible. Some of the older devices can't do some of the new stuff due to hardware limitations, but iOS 15 on the iPhone thirteen mini will feel basically the same as it does on the iPhone 12 mini.
Other than some of the iPhone 13-specific features like Photographic Styles and Cinematic Style, there'southward not a whole lot to say about the software experience on the iPhone 13 mini. Even so, developers go along to produce peachy apps for Apple tree's devices, and if you're new to the iPhone, we'd suggest grabbing the best apps for your new iPhone.
iPhone 13 mini known issues
Every bit is often the case with a new device, iPhone thirteen owners have encountered a few problems. Amidst them, the iPhone 13 models are having a problem unlocking with the Apple Sentinel, though this issue doesn't appear to be affecting every user. Apple has officially acknowledged the problem and a fix is supposedly on the manner.
At that place are as well issues with the bear upon brandish reportedly not being responsive plenty in some cases, though that could be an iOS 15 upshot.
A couple of other problems are specific to the iPhone 13 Pro models, including that the cameras are automatically switching between lenses without warning and that the ProMotion displays on the iPhone 13 Pros aren't running at 120Hz with some apps. Apple tree is said to be addressing both these issues in an update.
See our iPhone 13 bug roundup for more info.
iPhone thirteen mini review: Verdict
The iPhone thirteen mini continues the legacy laid down by the 12 mini last year. It's the best small phone you can possibly buy, outpacing anything Android can offering. Fans of smaller handsets volition honey this telephone, equally information technology fits in many a pocket. I tin think of a few people personally who would appreciate that.
Even though the blueprint hasn't inverse much, the iPhone 13 mini is still a pretty device. I capeesh the smaller notch, even if Apple doesn't take advantage of the extra screen space.
But what I dislike is the lack of competitive fast charging and biometric authentication that works with masks. The latter is a serious lost opportunity. Despite the iterative improvements fabricated across the lath with the iPhone 13 mini, none of them obviate the annoyance of typing in my PIN while in public, and doing so again for Apple Pay.
If you're on an iPhone 12 mini, I don't call up that the thirteen mini is worth an upgrade. But if you're coming from something older and want a pocket-sized phone, this is basically the best you can get.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/iphone-13-mini
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