If you’ve recently been thinking about upgrading from the iPhone 11, then you may be wondering how your current phone compares with the iPhone 13. It’s always a good idea to make a comparison between the older and newer phone models before taking the plunge. The comparison example below could help you decide if the upgrade is worth your money and time or not.
Price, Lineup Size, and Storage
The iPhone 11 initially came in three models: iPhone 11 (6.1 inches), iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. As with all older models, the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max were discontinued. All these models came with 64GB of internal storage. In the UK, the iPhone 11 currently costs over £400 at the time of writing,
The iPhone 13, on the other hand, is a bit pricier. Firstly, the lineup comes in four models: iPhone 13 mini (5.4 inches), iPhone 13 (6.1 inches), iPhone 13 Pro (6.1 inches), and iPhone 13 Pro Max (6.7 inches). These models are more expensive than the iPhone 11, with the mini model (128 GB storage) starting at around £600, followed by the iPhone 13, which costs somewhere in the region of £700 and has a similar storage capacity. If you need more storage, you can upgrade to 256 GB and 512 GB at an additional cost.
So, with a fairly hefty jump in price between the 11 and 13 models, you want to be sure that this jump in price is worth the upgrade for your needs – there need to be some really useful functions on this phone to justify the cost.
Design and Colours
Compared to iPhone 11, iPhone 13 has some vital design changes that give it a sleeker design and a more premium look. For instance, the iPhone 13 comes with a 20% smaller notch, meaning bigger screen real estate. It also sports a Ceramic Shield glass display, which protects the device from drop damage – a feature not present on the iPhone 11.
Both iPhone 11 and iPhone 13 are IP68 water-resistant, making them ideal for users who are more likely to experience water damage. However, iPhone 13, being the latest model, has a more robust and better water resistance rating. The feature, according to Apple promotional materials, allows the iPhone 13 to go as deep as 6 meters compared to iPhone 11’s 2 meters capability.
Comparing the measurements of the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 13, both sporting a 6.1-inch screen brings sleeker results for the latter. While the iPhone 11 measures 5.9 x 3 x 0.33 inches and 6.84 ounces in total, the iPhone 13 comes in at 5.8 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches and weighs 6.14 ounces, making the newer model lighter and sleeker for the same display size.
As for the colour variety, the iPhone 11 comes in six colours: black, purple, red, green, white, and yellow. The iPhone 13, also offers six colour choices, including: midnight, pink, starlight, blue, red and the latest addition, green.
Displays
The iPhone 13 comes with a better display than iPhone 11. Some of the pros of the 13 model’s display include:
- Better brightness of 795 units compared to 625 units for iPhone 11. The higher brightness allows iPhone 13 users a better display and vision in sunlight.
- iPhone 13 gives a sharper resolution of 2532 * 1170 pixels compared to the iPhone 11’s 1792 * 828 pixels. Combined with a smaller notch and better contrast, iPhone 13 is a better option than iPhone 11.
Cameras
The iPhone 13’s additional camera hardware makes it a difficult direct comparison with the 11 and 12 models. Firstly, the latest ultra-wide sensor allows 47% more light entry than iPhone 12. It is also has a 12MP primary wide-angle camera with sensor-shift image stabilisation, which is unavailable in iPhone 11’s as it was previously exclusively present only in the iPhone 12 Max.
The wide camera on iPhone 13 has an f.1.6 aperture compared to iPhone 11’s f/1.8, which explains the low-light performance for the latter. Moreover, iPhone 13 also offers unique Photographic Styles, making it an excellent choice in today’s world, where users need quality photos for casual and professional use. Think of this device as a filter on steroids. Sounds incredible, right?
The Cinematic Mode is the most remarkable iPhone 13 camera feature. It dynamically shifts the focus and follows the subject in your video, providing excellent convenience for the user. For instance, if the subject moves, the focus also moves, and if the person in the video looks away, the focus shifts towards the subject’s direction of sight. The video quality of the iPhone 13 is the best overall, thanks to its ability to support HDR Dolby Vision for better contrast and colours.
Performance and 5G
At the time of writing this, the number of devices supporting 5G is steadily growing, with Apple only introducing this recently with the iPhone 12. making iPhone 13 suitable for anyone looking for this feature. Unfortunately, iPhone 11 doesn’t support 5G, which hinders its users from enjoying the fastest 5G networks whose prominence increases each day across the globe.
As for raw performance, iPhone 13’s A15 Bionic (5nm chip) can vastly outperform iPhone 11’s A13 (7nm) in graphics-intensive games, among other demanding tasks such as video editing. However, A13 Bionic is suitable for users looking for basic daily use such as messaging and social media use.
On Geekbench 5, for instance, the iPhone 13 recorded 4129 and 1684 on multi-core and single-core tests, respectively. The iPhone 11, on the other hand, scored 1333 and 3251 on the same tests. As a working example, iPhone 13 took 25.9 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, while iPhone 11 took 45 seconds on video editing testing.
iPhone 13 leads with a 16-core Neural engine in leap performance compared to iPhone 11 (8 cores). The feature helps the device in everything, from the Live Text camera in iOS 15 to image signal processing.
Battery and Charging
The iPhone 13 charging time is 10 hours and 33 minutes compared to iPhone 11, whose charging time is 11 hours and 16 minutes. However, 5G connections are more demanding than 4G, even though both models support 20W charging. 20W charging is a significant aspect that ensures faster charging, getting you to 50% in 30 minutes.
Sound Quality
Despite their lack of headphone jack, there is a significant difference in sound quality between an iPhone 11 and iPhone 13’s built-in speakers. The iPhone 13 offers an incredibly high-quality sound, unbelievable for a phone speaker. The iPhone 11, on the other hand, may have a decent sound quality but nothing extraordinary in clarity and punchiness. Thanks to its high-quality sound, the iPhone 13 is an excellent choice when listening to music, watching videos, and playing games from your phone without headphones.
iPhone 11 vs. iPhone 13: Bottomline
Though iPhone 13 may not seem, at first sight, like a dramatic leap from the iPhone 11, it offers incredible improvements and could well be worth making the upgrade. The main improvements of the 13 over the 11 include: 5G connectivity, computational photography features, a brighter display and improved and ultra-wide cameras. It is impossible to talk about iPhone 13 as an iPhone 11 upgrade without mentioning the storage bump for the base model. If you have been recently thinking about a perfect upgrade for your iPhone 11, then you probably can’t go wrong with the iPhone 13. That said, you personally have to decide if the 13 model offers the kinds of improvements that are important to you and worth the large cost increase.
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