iPhones are part of the list of most anticipated releases of the year. In 2021, the brand revealed its new bets on the market with the iPhone 13, the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

We find this to be a phone that does justice to the high-end category, as its processing, battery performance, design, photography and video section satisfy most demanding needs.

Design

This is a device that pleases the eye, and much of this is due to the quality of materials used. Its bezels, which respect the flat design that Apple revived with the iPhone 12, are made of surgical-grade stainless steel, one of the most resistant elements for the manufacture of this type of device.

Also read: Apple Airtags: How useful are they on a day-to-day basis?

On the back we find a tinted glass cover, which gives it a rather elegant appearance and considerably minimizes marked fingerprints.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max is the largest in the family, measuring 16.8 centimeters high, 7.8 centimeters wide, and 7.6 millimeters thick. Its weight is 238 grams, which, although it is not the lightest on the market, is not that considerable.

On its back side we have the apple logo in a tinted mirror, in addition to the photographic section in the upper left, which we will talk about later. Turning it around we see a 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR screen, which finally incorporates an adaptive refresh rate of 120 Hz, a debt that Apple had owed its users for years.

The fact that it integrates an adaptive rate of this caliber means that we are going to obtain a more fluid experience when interacting with the screen, as well as a better use of the battery, since the screen refresh will adjust depending on the demand, maximizing it if we interact with a video game, for example, and reducing it if we are only reading an article on the internet.

It may interest you: Apple presents a new line of iPhones with improvements in cameras and chips

Another novelty is the slight decrease in the 'notch' at the top of the device, which, although it allows us to take advantage of a little more of the screen, continues to be one of the irreconcilable points for many who criticize Apple, since the competition have computers with almost full screens that offer a better experience.

We agree: this device could be considerably improved if it said goodbye to the notch. However, it has a justification and it is the facial recognition system that Apple uses, since it does not use the front camera, as equipment from other brands does, but instead integrates a sensor that scans our face in three dimensions so that almost impossible to fool. Those who value privacy are surely willing to give up a better-used screen, but Apple should invest in alternatives in this area.

Our experience with the screen was quite pleasant, since it has an excellent level of brightness, handling of colors, contrasts and viewing angles.

We suggest you read: Apple will cut production of the iPhone 13 due to a shortage of chips

In terms of sound, this device incorporates quality stereo speakers, with successful management of bass and bass. The volume is not negligible either: it behaves very well in most scenarios and guarantees an immersive experience when viewing videos and interacting with video games.

Photography

It has to be said: iPhone continues to be a true representative of the best in cell phone photography. The handling of colors, contrasts, portrait mode and its excellent behavior in low light environments make the device stand out.

In its main section we find a set of three lenses, each with 12 megapixels. The first is a telephoto lens that allows us to reach three magnifications optically and 15, digitally; the second is a wide angle with a focal aperture of 1.5; and the third is a 120-degree ultra-wide angle with a 1.8 focal aperture.

There is a novelty (for Apple, not for the industry) and that is that this equipment incorporates the macro option, which allows us to capture the detail of small objects, such as grains of sand or small insects. The activation of this function is automatic, it is enough to bring the phone's cameras closer to the object that we want to capture about three centimeters for it to activate. We would have liked this function to be manual, since many times the phone gets confused by activating or deactivating it when we want the opposite.

Whichever lens is used, we will always find a quite outstanding result, and more so because the device uses artificial intelligence (which is really very good) to slightly touch up the photographs, mainly in terms of lighting and contrast.

For personal taste, my favorite mode is the portrait mode, since the finish it offers looks quite professional, both with the rear and front cameras, using the Lidar sensor to properly map the environment and segment each space very well .

Although, we insist, the photographic section offers quite professional results, it falls a bit short in terms of manual settings, because although it allows you to adjust brightness, contrast, exposure and photography filters (which is also something new for Apple) It is not so useful when you want to take long shots, since the exposure time is almost imposed by the phone.

Just like in the movies!

Don't get us wrong, iPhone also innovates and an example of this is the movie mode that it incorporates in video recording. Basically what this function does is bring the portrait mode to the video, achieving results quite similar to those seen in film productions.

This is a sample of how cinema mode works on the iPhone 13 Pro Max. pic.twitter.com/lyoePsp1hn

We were testing it and the truth is that it is quite impressive, since the cuts it makes are very clean and the quality and stabilization of the image is more than outstanding. Really, for content creators this is a function that they can get a lot of juice out of.

This is just a plus that Apple adds to its video section, since the apple brand has been standing out in this area for some years now. With the IPhone 13 Pro Max we can record with HD resolution (720p or 1080p) at 30 and 60 frames per second, and in 4K at 24, 30 and 60 frames per second.

A powerful processor

We tested this phone with demanding video games and it offered a smooth experience in all of them, with a high degree of graphics handling and no device overheating. We took it to the next level with video editing shot in 4K resolution, and again, we experienced no bugs, heat-ups, or other glitches related to processor exhaustion. In fact, we were able to export a four-minute video in about a minute, which is already quite demanding on a computer.

All this is possible thanks to the A15 Bionic chip, which integrates a 6-core CPU with 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores; a 5-core GPU and a 16-core 'neural engine'. Keep in mind that the number of cores in a processor tells us how efficient it is, so the more cores the more tasks we can do.

We were surprised by its battery

The battery has been one of the "Achilles heels" that the iPhone has had. However, we found that in this new installment Apple showed special dedication and had a battery with which you no longer have to battle. To which is added a 20 W fast charge that allows us to have 50% of the supply ready in about half an hour.

As many already know, Apple does not usually reveal the capacity of its battery (probably because more than capacity it bets on efficiency supported by its processor), however, the brand promises that with it you can enjoy 28 hours of battery life. video playback, 25 hours of streaming video and 95 hours of audio playback.

In our average use of this device, it easily made it through a day and a half without ever getting below 8% battery. In this example you can see that the phone started the day with 100% of its battery at 6 in the morning. After a use of more than 7 hours of having the screen on (where the most used applications were YouTube, with 42%; telephone calls, with 13%, and WhatsApp, with 9%) and, twelve hours later, the level battery was at 41%.

Software

Although it is not exclusive to this iPhone, we want to highlight the facilities that are hidden behind the iOS 15 operating system. One of these is the possibility we have of converting the physical texts, which we find in an advertisement or in a book, and turn them into digital texts.

Just point the phone's camera and the function that will allow us to select and convert it will be activated immediately. We were quite impressed that it also works with the photos we have in our gallery. We can, for example, search for the word and the images that have that text will appear.

In order not to make this text any longer with the benefits that iOS 15 brings, we invite you to read this report.

What can be improved

There are things that we were not completely convinced about this device. Part of this is its design, since it does not have significant changes compared to the previous version of Apple, and we reiterate that the 'notch' on the screen (even if they have reduced it) is still a component that gets in the way.

We were also missing a little more innovation, something that can motivate buyers. Although this iPhone integrates quality things and does not fall short in anything, it would have been wonderful if the apple brand had winked at the market, imposing a new trend in the segment of smartphones, as other brands have already done. .

The lack of a powerful telephoto lens is also noticeable. For years the competition has presented advances in this matter that are considerable, such as the possibility of taking a more than decent photo of the moon. The iPhone 13 Pro Max still has a lot to learn in this segment.

Finally there is biometrics. It's great that they have what is probably the most secure biometric validation system on the market, but in times of a pandemic, with the use of face masks, this system simply does not work. It would have been nice if they integrated a fingerprint reader (as they already do on their iPads and as they did on older devices). But no, users have been forced to enter the numeric code over and over again to access their phones when the mask is mandatory.

Otherwise, and those buts aside, this is a device that comes in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB versions. It supports 5G connectivity and has an IP68 certification, which gives it a resistance of up to 30 minutes submerged at a depth of 6 meters.

Its price, in the version we use (which is the 512 GB one) is around $7 million in Colombia.

****

This article is part of Tecnoespectador, the consumer technology analysis section of El Espectador. We also have a space on YouTube, where you can see the reviews we have made of other products. We invite you to follow us in that space, and on our Twitter account @tecnoespectador.

Tell us in the comment box what you think of this product and what others you would like us to try!