Apple iPhone 13 Pro review: specs, battery & used prices

Summary

The iPhone 13 Pro is where 2021's Apple lineup drew the enthusiast line: the 120 Hz ProMotion OLED, a third camera with telephoto, and the same A15 Bionic with an extra GPU core. Our everyday score of 75/100 and screen score of 63/100 hold up well five years on — and the used market has priced it as the Thinking Buyer's iPhone.

Display and design

The 6.1-inch OLED finally brought 120 Hz to the iPhone, with a 1,000-nit rating — still one of the better panels in the catalog's 2021 cohort. At 204 g with IP68, it is noticeably denser than the aluminum 13; the compactness score of 78/100 records the heft without calling it heavy.

Performance

The A15 Bionic in its Pro configuration: everyday 75/100, gaming 37/100. The extra GPU headroom mattered mostly for the 120 Hz display's sake, and the pairing still feels fluent. As with the whole 13 family, the chip will outlast the battery and probably the owner's patience.

Camera

The triple 12 MP system — main with OIS, ultrawide, and a 3x telephoto — with 4K60 and Apple's best computational pipeline of the year. The 32/100 score sits at the top of the 2021 field in our scale; macro and night modes both debuted here and both still work.

Battery and charging

A 3,095 mAh cell sounds small and is: a 2/100 endurance score, with 23 W charging (5/100) as the mitigation. ProMotion's adaptive refresh does real work stretching the battery on static content, but this remains a charge-most-nights phone for everyone.

Verdict

Used pricing follows the storage ladder with unusual discipline: 6/128 around $294 (two listings), 6/256 around $340 (five), 6/512 around $397 (five), 6/1024 around $465 (two). At roughly $300 for the 120 Hz screen, telephoto and A15, this undercuts the iPhone 13 value case by only a little money while giving considerably more phone — arguably the best price-to-hardware ratio in the used iPhone shelf. The 14 Pro is the step up if the budget allows.