Apple's iPhones have been controversial, but they're always at the top of the smartphone news. I used an Android phone which I used for about a year before receiving an iPhone 7, which I used for about an equal amount of time. I much preferred the iPhone, but after a while, the battery on my seven would completely tank after an hour or so, even at full charge, which not only was extremely annoying but left me without a way to communicate if I was out and about, and I could forget about playing graphics heavy games like Genshin Impact. So, I bought an iPhone 13 Mini and have used it for about a week and a half.
Let's start it off with what I did as soon as I got it. I turned it on and started transferring all my data and apps from my old iPhone. The process went smoothly, although it did take about fifteen-twenty minutes before the transfer was far enough along that I could use it, I blame that partially on that I was transferring 100ish gigabytes of data over a not-great connection. Going from a physical home button to a swipe bar took a little getting used to, and I still find myself accidentally swiping up to get to the control center, but overall I like the swipe bar better. Face ID works so well that I never even have to worry about unlocking my phone, which was a constant annoyance with the seven because its fingerprint scanner was broken and didn't work half the time.
One of the biggest reasons I upgraded was so that I didn't need to worry about my phone all of a sudden dropping to zero after leaving it plugged in for a while. I knew that the new phone's battery would last all day, but the idea was so completely foreign to me after using the 7 for such a long time that I was still happily amazed that I could go a whole day without needing to charge. I think the battery has dipped below 20% only once since I received it. Usually, I;ll finish out the day with 20-40% left, depending on how heavily I used it.
Another big reason why I upgraded was for the new features. iPhone 7's stopped receiving updates last year, which meant I was missing out on iOS 16's stuff, a lot of which I really wanted, including customizing lock screens, live text, etc. I was pretty impressed with all of the new stuff, I've made a couple different lock screens that I cycle through throughout the day, all of which look amazing. Being able to copy/paste text and even being able to lift the subject right off of a picture is really fun. Editing/unsending iMessage is very convenient, and something I had been wishing I could do since I got an iPhone. Listing all the new stuff would take all day, but suffice it to say that I liked it, but wasn't completely satisfied. There were little bugs, mostly aesthetic, that annoy me considering the whole point of Apple is that they make sure everything they make is absolutely perfect. For example, tapping the album art of a song that's playing on the lock screen makes the album art take over the lock screen. I like that feature just because it looks so cool, but it makes all of the notifications and the music bubble jiggle and snap up and down as they move position, which just looks bad and unpolished. I also came across some rotational bugs, mostly with the new lock screen, but they don't bother me that much.
Performance was a huge leap from the seven. The seven sports an outdated A10 chip, while my thirteen wields an A15 with incredible efficiency. Apps load like lightning, videos play flawlessly, and there's absolutely no stuttering when scrolling through menus or websites. To really push it to its limits, I downloaded Genshin Impact and maxed out the graphics settings. This gave me an overclocked warning, but the game still ran almost flawlessly, although my phone did get pretty warm. I toned it down a little bit, and it still ran perfectly at 60fps. It still heated up a little, but not enough to make it unpleasant. On top of that, loading screens I would spend five to eight minutes staring at when I used my seven blazed by in seconds.
To wrap it all up I want to talk about a few random things that just make it better. For example, the speakers on the 13 Mini are miles better than the ones on the seven. The thirteen speakers actually sound good instead of actively murdering the sound like the sevens did. I've heard people complain about True Tone, a feature that adjusts the color of the screen to make it look better in certain environments, but I love it. I leave it on all the time now, and screens that don't have it look harsh to me now. When I got this phone, I had worried that getting the mini would result in a lot less performance, after all, real estate in a phone is small, and that makes an inch a lot of difference, but it didn't actually end up making much of a difference. I'm very satisfied with what I got.
The camera quality is really impressive, and the full 4k pictures look amazing. It can record in 4k at full 60fps, which takes up a lot of
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