Comparison of iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 / 14 Plus: what has changed besides the size? Apple taught us that each new iPhone is much better than the previous one. This is achieved at least with a new, more powerful chip. But in the case of the iPhone 14, the rule no longer applies. And this immediately raised doubts among users about the advisability of acquiring a new model. Judge for yourself – the design and the processor are preserved, the cameras at first glance outwardly remained the same. Maybe it was worth calling the new smartphone iPhone 13S?
Apple Watch Ultra, all functions of the Action key
In fact, Apple has not abandoned innovation, the new chip, better cameras, screen design and Always-On display just went to the flagship, the iPhone 14 Pro. And what’s new in the iPhone 14 compared to the previous model? Is it worth it to change the iPhone 13 to it? Let’s compare them and get answers.
iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 / 14 Plus design and dimensions
Most likely, the iPhone 14 will be the last smartphone that has retained the current design option. Nevertheless, he became somewhat boring, and the Pro models clearly showed the prospect of change (meaning the appearance of a “dynamic island”). In the meantime, the iPhone 14 outwardly retained the features of its predecessor, the iPhone 13. Only the iPhone 14 Plus turned out to be larger, but here it’s a matter of changing the screen sizes. The overall design is still the same.
The dimensions of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 13 are the same – 146.7 mm long, 71.5 mm wide. This is explained by the identical screen size. But at the same time, the new product turned out to be a little thicker, 7.8 mm versus 7.65 mm, but it weighs a little less – 172 grams versus 174. Of course, the iPhone 14 Plus is in a completely different league. Its dimensions are 160.8 × 78.1 × 7.8 mm and it weighs 203 grams. Note that in last year’s lineup there was no large base model at all, fans of large screens had to turn their attention to the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
The body of all models is made of aircraft-grade aluminum. The frame is polished. The corners of the smartphone are rounded, and the edges are clear, almost sharp.
The main part of the front side of all smartphones is given to the screen, on top of which there is a notch cutout.
The display is protected by durable Ceramic Shield glass. The control elements are located in the same way – the buttons are on the right and left sides, the upper side is empty, while the lower one is given to the Lightning port and speakers.
The back panel is also glass. But engineers have already noticed the changes. The repairability of the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus has been improved – it is now easier to replace the back of the case during repairs.
The camera module is located on the top left of the rear panel. It remained unchanged – two eyes are located diagonally from each other. The other two corners were modestly occupied by a flash and a microphone. The Apple logo flaunts in the middle of the panel.
And if the iPhone 14 Plus clearly stands out for its size, then the iPhone 13 from the iPhone 14 is almost impossible to distinguish externally. Hardly anyone can detect that couple of grams or tenths of a millimeter. However, coloring will help identification.
The iPhone 13 got six color options, which is a lot. These are green, pink, blue, black (dark night), white (shining star) and red (Product) red.
And if the iPhone 14 Plus clearly stands out for its size, then the iPhone 13 from the iPhone 14 is almost impossible to distinguish externally. Hardly anyone can detect that couple of grams or tenths of a millimeter. However, coloring will help identification.
The iPhone 13 got six color options, which is a lot. These are green, pink, blue, black (dark night), white (shining star) and red (Product) red.
But the Phone 14 / 14 Plus has only 5 color options, two of them are new: cyan, magenta, and the other three are the same: black white and red.
Conclusion: Externally, the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 look almost like twins, except for a couple of color options. Of course, against their background, the larger iPhone 14 Plus will not be difficult to determine. But it also just seems to be proportionately grown iPhone 13 / iPhone 14. Apple designers used the already established design without changing anything in it. If you are tired of the appearance of the iPhone 13, then there is simply no point in changing it just because of this on the iPhone 14.
iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 / 14 Plus display
The iPhone 13 had a Super Retina XDR display made using OLED technology. The diagonal size was 6.1 inches. Exactly the same display is installed in the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus, except that the “plus” model has a larger screen – a diagonal of 6.7 inches.
The screen resolution of the iPhone 13/14 is 2532 × 1170 pixels, the density is 460 ppi. In the iPhone 14 Plus, the resolution is higher, 2778 × 1284 pixels, and the density is 458 ppi. The rest of the displays are identical – HDR support, 2000000: 1 contrast ratio, True Tone technology, P3 wide color gamut, tactile feedback on pressing.
There are no differences in the brightness parameters – a typical 800 nits, in HDR mode up to 1200 nits. Even the notch in the screen of the same shape and size, smartphones do not have the flagship Always-On display function. The screen operates at a fixed frequency of 60 Hz. The iPhone 14 / 14 Plus stands out except for the new light sensor on the back, which allows auto-brightness to work better and faster.
Conclusion: The screen in the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus has not changed much compared to the iPhone 13. All functions, features, size and resolutions have been preserved. Unless the display has grown in the iPhone 14 Plus. And the flagship “chips” remained the lot of the Pro models.
iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 / 14 Plus processor and performance
It was the performance issue that became the main one when discussing the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus. Nevertheless, Apple left the A15 Bionic chip for this smartphone, which was also in the iPhone 13. Has the company decided to save money and there is no increase in power?
In fact, everything is not so simple here. First of all, the chip really remained the same, made using 5-nanometer technology. In it, the main processor has 6 cores, 2 of which are productive, and the other 4 are energy efficient. But in terms of graphics processing, there are significant changes. If in the iPhone 13 it is produced by 4 graphics cores, then in the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus there are already five cores, as it was in the iPhone 13 Pro. 16 Neural Engine cores are still responsible for artificial intelligence.
Another significant change is the increase in RAM from 4 GB to 6 GB. This will also clearly affect the performance of the new device. But the drive options remained unchanged, there are three of them: 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB. The usual iPhone 14 did not receive a 1 TB drive, this option remained for the top firmware.
Conclusion: at first glance, it may seem that the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus received an outdated filling, but this is not entirely true. First of all, the A15 Bionic chip remains a high-performance solution today with few competitors. But Apple for the iPhone 14 models has unlocked an additional video core and increased the amount of RAM. Did it help? It is already obvious that it is. In the first tests, the iPhone 14 outperforms last year’s model by 15-20% in various tests. So there is no need to talk about stagnation. It’s just that Apple used the undiscovered potential of last year’s successful platform.
iPhone 13 and iPhone 14/14 Plus Cameras
Outwardly and at first glance, it may seem that the cameras in the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 are the same. But you should not focus only on the location and number of “eyes”. Both generations received two 12-megapixel cameras. The main, wide-angle, in the iPhone 13 had an aperture of f / 1.6, and in the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus received an aperture of f / 1.5. In addition to the increased aperture, she received new lenses. This will allow you to take better pictures in low light. The second, ultra-wide-angle, remains the same – 12 megapixel resolution, f / 2.4 aperture.
In general, the feature set of the cameras is not much different. They have optical stabilization, use 2x optical zoom out and up to 5x digital zoom. The True Tone flash on the iPhone 14 should be brighter. Also in the 2022 models, an innovation appeared – the Photonic Engine, a software photo processing system to improve its result. You can think of it as some kind of add-on for Deep Fusion technology, which is present in both the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus. Cameras shoot using Smart HDR 4, implemented Portrait mode with depth effects and bokeh. There is Portrait Lighting with six effect options, Night Mode and Photographic Styles.
There are some minor improvements in video recording. If the iPhone 13 in Cinematic mode shot in 1080p resolution at 30 frames / s, then the iPhone 14 learned to shoot already in 4K HDR at 30 frames / s. Also, the novelty has at its disposal a new Action mode, which will help you smoothly shoot dynamic scenes.
The rest of the set of functions remained unchanged: shooting in 4K resolution at 60 fps, including HDR, optical stabilization, 2x optical zoom out and 3x zoom, audio zoom, slow-mo 1080p 120 and 240 fps, time-lapse including number in Night mode, stereo sound recording.
The front camera in the iPhone 14 has also become better. It retained its resolution of 12 MP, but now its aperture is f/1.9, while the iPhone 13 was f/2.2. It has autofocus, which will allow you to fix the object in the frame. In general, according to the manufacturer, it will shoot 38% better. The new Photonic Engine feature will help with this. The rest of the feature set is almost identical: Retina Flash, Deep Fusion, Smart HDR 4, Photographic Styles, Portrait Mode with Bokeh and Depth Depth, Portrait Lighting with six effects, Night Mode. The iPhone 14’s camera also records video better, in Cinematic mode up to 4K 30 fps versus 1080p 30 fps in the iPhone 13. Otherwise, everything else remains the same: 4K video recording at 30 fps, including HDR, Cinematic stabilization, slow-mo 1080p 120 fps.
Conclusion: The cameras in the new iPhone 14 still received some improvements, both hardware and software. And although the core set of features has remained unchanged, Apple still gave a couple of new features. The A15 Bionic chip is still enough for photo and video processing, although there are only two camera modules in the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 / 14 Plus, they still shoot decently. Smart algorithms help with this. In the iPhone 14, the front camera has also improved, given its gradually increasing importance for users, this is quite important.
Water resistance of iPhone 13 and iPhone 14/14 Plus
Describing Apple smartphones of the latest generations, one has to constantly mention the same dust and moisture protection standard. It has already settled down, proved its practicality, and in the foreseeable future, major changes in the approach to defense should not be expected. Both the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14/14 Plus received IP68 certification. This standard allows you to immerse the device in water to a depth of 6 meters for half an hour. Nothing new has appeared in the iPhone 14 lineup. And do not forget that water damage to the iPhone is still not covered by the warranty.
Battery and autonomy iPhone 13 and iPhone 14/14 Plus
Given the similar dimensions of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14, it’s hard to imagine that the new device will have a special battery that will give a sharp increase in autonomy. The iPhone 13 has a 3240 mAh (12.41 Wh) battery, while the iPhone 14 has a 3279 mAh (12.68 Wh) battery. As you can see, there are few purely mathematical changes. The iPhone 14 Plus received a much larger battery, 4323 mAh, 16.68 Wh. However, let’s talk about real time work.
The iPhone 14 was able to gain some autonomy due to optimization and a slight increase in battery. It plays video up to 20 hours, streams up to 16 hours, and audio up to 80 hours. The iPhone 13 does not have much, but still worse: up to 19 hours of video, up to 15 hours of streaming and up to 75 hours of audio. The large iPhone 14 Plus is capable of much more: 26, 20 and 100 hours, respectively – this is perhaps the best indicator among all smartphones released by Apple.
All smartphones support fast charging. Half an hour is enough to replenish the battery by half, but you need a powerful power supply. iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 can charge using wireless charging, including support for Apple’s faster native MagSafe standard.
iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 / 14 Plus Package Contents
In the matter of bundling their smartphones, the strategy chosen by Apple in its time has far from exhausted itself. Under the pretext of fighting for the environment, the manufacturer simplified the iPhone kit as much as possible by removing the power supply and headphones from there. And then the packaging film disappeared. So here everything is the same for the iPhone 13 with the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus. The box is protected not by a film, but by a paper tear-off label. Inside, in addition to a smartphone, you can find a Lightning / USB-C cable and some documentation.
Conclusion
A direct comparison of the iPhone 13 with the iPhone 14 / 14 Plus showed that the external similarity and the same chip do not give rise to alarms about the absence of changes. Yes, the 2022 model has not evolved as dramatically as its predecessors, but the Pro family shows progress. The base iPhone 14 was able to improve its performance relative to the iPhone 13, received an improved software and hardware camera, and several useful and noticeable functions in operation. And it is also worth noting that now the inexpensive and large iPhone 14 Plus is available to the user; in the iPhone 13 line, a large smartphone was present only in the Pro family.
