iPhone 13 Pro Max: Beyond the Hype
To no one's surprise, on September 14th, 2021, Apple unveiled the iPhone 13 series. After all, customary to the previous years, it's the iPhone season. As an appeased and borderline proud iPhone 11 Pro Max owner, I faced a huge dilemma. While Apple tempted me with a buttery smooth 120Hz ProMotion display, my rational self tried to introduce some reason by highlighting other mundane aspects of the upgrade.
Ultimately, all the reasoning was thrown out of the window on pre-order day, as I succumbed to my innermost temptations of using the latest in technology. Since I always order the "color of the year," the choice for me was clear —the new Sierra Blue iPhone 13 Pro Max in 256GB. Why the Pro Max? Frankly, I prefer the more prominent display and battery despite requiring a fair amount of hand gymnastics during day-to-day operations, thanks to my smallish hands. Why 256GB? Over the years, I have settled on that number as a sweet spot for my use-case since I use the storage primarily for photos, occasionally for videos, and sparingly for storing offline movies, music, and books over an average of three years for which I supposedly use my phones.
Despite ordering in the first 3 minutes of the pre-order window, I was pretty irked when I was informed that the phone would not arrive on 24th as promised. As the impatient soul that I am, I successfully talked my way through the labyrinth of numerous carriers and customer care executives to get my device on time.
Fast forward to today; it has been roughly two weeks since I started using my shiny new iPhone. To my surprise, there have been no other phones that I can remember where my thoughts about the device changed so drastically over two short weeks. I am writing this piece hoping it will help someone with more self-restraint than me to do what I couldn't; hold until next year!
Since my fundamental goal here is to share my experience as it happened, I apologize in advance if you are looking for detailed thoughts on specifications, in-depth camera comparisons, benchmarks, and all the other good stuff associated with typical reviews covered by zillion other qualified YouTubers and media.
First Impressions
Having skipped the 12 series last year, I was greeted with a surprisingly compact yet dense package. The usual satisfying to peel plastic wrap on the outside was as present as the charging brick inside the box. Instead, a cleverly hidden paper seal with a discrete green arrow on a pull tab touting me to unbox the phone.
While I welcome the removal of the outside plastic from the box, I still can't get behind the decision of removing the charging brick from the box. In my opinion, consumers should be given a choice whether they want a charging brick or not at the checkout, of course, at no extra cost. But as we all know, it's Apple, and the only opinion they care about is their own!
Coming to the phone, it felt substantially heavy and more prominent in size as compared to my 11 Pro Max. While the squared-off edges certainly made it easier to hold on to the phone's sides, it felt very unnatural to use the phone due to its sharp edges. The matt finish on the back is still the best in the business when it comes to resisting fingerprints. On the contrary, I hated the mirrorlike finish on the sides, which makes the phone unnecessarily slippery and frustratingly difficult to keep tidy. While the camera bump at the back is noticeably large as compared to 11 Pro Max, it did not bother me in any way. Quite possibly due to this beefy camera hardware, the phone felt slightly top-heavy instead of the well-balanced 11 Pro Max. As for the rest of the hardware, I found the volume and power buttons to be satisfyingly clicky and the iconic silent switch to be as reliable and helpful as it's ever been.
The device booted very quickly, and there it was! A mac-like "hello" animation in glorious 120Hz. While I was delighted to interact with this high refresh rate display, it was the battery that blew me away. I started setting up the phone at around 90% battery. Since I usually like to set up devices from scratch and not restore them from an earlier backup, I spent about 7 hours setting up the device with all the essential apps and settings. To my absolute surprise, the phone still had about 40% juice left!
The rest of the initial experience was relatively unremarkable yet familiar to those who have used iOS before.
After the Honymoon Phase
About two weeks in, the brighter 120Hz OLED display still feels like a joy to use both inside or in direct sunlight.
On WiFi, the battery life of this phone is genuinely legendary. I consistently ended my day with more than 40% battery left with almost 10 hours of screen-on time on average! I specifically mention WiFi since I found using the phone solely with 5G can reduce the endurance by half! Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt as it could be very subjective depending upon the carrier, signal strength in the area, or a multitude of such other factors.
Sadly, my amusement with the 13 Pro Max ends at this amazing screen and battery. Why? I found no discernable difference in performance during my day-to-day use between my 11 and the 13. As a testament to Apple 60Hz screens and smooth iOS animations, the 120Hz does not feel as drastic of a jump as I initially thought. Even though the battery in the 13 series is exceptional, the battery on my 11 Pro Max was no slouch either. Surprisingly, the new iOS 15 feels more optimized on the 11 than the 13. With all of the talent at Apple and all its software might, it's really sad to see a company that cares about the details ship such a mediocre experience on its latest flagships. Although some of these issues will be fixed in a future software update, it really feels lazy on Apple's part to sell such a half-baked implementation. Furthermore, the camera experience in the daylight essentially felt the same with some minor improvements in the night mode over the 11. While the photos as equally true to life on both phones, the simplicity of the beloved camera app is slowly going into oblivion. Everything else was so familiar that, after a day, I even forgot that I was using a new device!
My Two Cents
Right off the bat, nobody can tell you what to do. If you are made of money, of course, go ahead and buy the latest and greatest Apple has to offer. However, if you are on the fence for some reason about making this jump to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, save your money and hold onto your current iPhone for another year!
For me, I am already past my return period and have to live with my buyer’s remorse!
