This last september I chose to ditchApples large Max model phones and for the first time since I can remember gofor the smaller 6.1 Model, and now its been 4 months, was it worth trading in that large6.7 Screen and much larger battery for a more reasonable phone or did I make a mistake and wishI got the Max Model like I did year after year. In this video, Ill go over what my concerns werefinally making the jump and ditching the Max, if those came to light and if the iPhone 13 Prois worth buying or if you should get the Max. Let’s start out with why I wanted a smallerphone in the first place but never bought one, and how the phone world changedso much in just over a decade.
When Apple announced their iPhone the 3.5inch display was considered a large screen, bigger than my firstsmartphones the Google HTC G1, but shortly after android manufacturersstarted making screen larger and larger.My second phone was the original Samsung GalaxyS, and what sold me was the huge gorgeous display at a massive 4, which sounds hilariouswith the screen sizes we have right now. But when I saw the Galaxy Note, I knew I hadto have it even though I was making barely any money I saved up and bought one becauseI loved the idea of the S-pen and that huge 5.3 display which actually sounds small now.
That phone proved that people wanted phabletsand really propelled the whole android market since apple wanted to stick tosmall screens for many years. 3 years later, they caved and had to startmaking large screen phones and that’s what Finally got me to buy into Apple’s ecosystem withthe iPhone 6 Plus and I became a big Apple Fan.Like most tech enthusiasts, I stayed with theirlarge screens because I loved them and because they offered much better battery life than theirsmaller phones along with exclusive features, the biggest one being Portrait modewhich was a game changer and started the demise of dedicated cameras for most people. As the years went on the big iPhones keptgrowing and growing in size and weight, with the iPhone 13 Pro Max being 240grams now, closer to 50% heavier than the original big iPhone, weighing close tothe Z Fold 3 which is a much bigger phone. As these phones got bigger,heavier, and at some point unwieldy, I still stuck with the larger ones becausethe regular iPhones were just too small, up until the 6.
iPhone XR whichI absolutely loved the size of. It’s like the old goldilocks story,the XR fit perfectly in the my hand where the XS was just too small and the batterylife was bad, and the XS Max was a bit too big.But of course, Apple still gave enough reasonsfor me to keep buying the big boy phones, even up to the iPhone 12 because if youcared about having the best camera quality, you had to buy the 12 ProMax for its better cameras. But this year, for the first time ever, Applemade a change that we werent expecting. With the iPhone 13 lineup, They finally finallystopped forcing people to buy the biggest phone if they wanted the best features and capabilities.
The smaller iPhone 13 Pro has the same exact camera system with the same updated ultrawide,the 3x telephoto, and larger main sensor.Now they did put in one limitation, ifyou buy the base 128GB model you cant record ProRES video in 4K butonly 1080P in an attempt to get more people to spend more on upgradingstorage and that’s exactly what I did. For the first time ever Ipurchased myself a smaller iPhone, and because the 13 Pro costs $100 less even with that extra storage I ended up payingthe same I would have buying a 128GB Pro Max. So how has it been? Did my concerns come true and has the battery life been good enoughcompared to having a massive battery?
Well first off, Ill comment on the ProRES andif spending the extra for storage was worth it. Ive always bought the base amount of storagefor 2 reasons, the first being resale. Im obviously someone who upgrades phonesevery year and I sell my older ones, and if youve looked at used prices the iPhoneswith more storage dont sell for much more than the base amounts, and with that, Apple chargesway too much money to upgrade in my opinion, and second, Ive been using iCloud for many yearsnow so I didnt really need the extra space.With that said, The last year or so, I startednoticing that my phone kept having to buffer because my photos library had grownso much that everything was streamed and local photos were really low quality and mostvideos had to be streamed and flat out wouldnt play if I didnt have a connectionwhich started getting really annoying. The whole 1080P ProRes pushed me over the edgeand finally got me to spend extra on more storage, because how could I be forced to shoot 1080Pvideo in 2021 right?
Well, 4 months later, Im not shooting prores at all, for meit wasnt enough of a quality difference so if youre wanting to buy morestorage just for that dont do it.I will say though, that I dont remember thelast time I had to buffer video or wait for a photo to display in better quality which has beenreally nice, so Im glad that I finally got 256GB of storage, and thanks to downsizing it didntcost me any extra compared to previous years. Now by far my biggest concern goingwith a smaller battery this year was battery life.The larger iPhones havealways had much bigger batteries inside. And even though the 13 Pros battery grewover 12 Pros, the Max model grew the most, now over 40% larger so I worried thatI would struggle with battery life since Im a power user.
So how has the last4 months been in terms of battery life? Well Ill be honest, at first it was abit of a pain.The 13 pro Max was getting absolutely insane battery life butI wasnt getting through a full day with my 13 Pro like I would with my 12 Pro Max. At one point close to a month in I was actually considering getting a Max model againbecause It got annoying having my phone die if I didnt top it off at some partthroughout the day, but Im glad I didnt. Thankfully, battery life got quite a bit better after that and now I can get througha full day and still have about 10-15% left when I go to charge my phone atnight even though Im using it the same.
That’s pretty much what I got with my 12 Pro Maxand better than my 11 Pro Max. My only guess is that this is because of software optimizationand when the 13s and iOS 15 came out the software wasnt optimized well enoughfor the A15 Processor and new features, but now the battery life is fantastic. Sure, the 13 Pro Max can get some people through2 full days, but for most people that charge their phone every night the deciding point isif a phone can get through a full day without needing to be charged, and for the firsttime a regular sized iPhone can do that for me which is impressive with how much I usemy phone and how many background apps I have.So if youre someone who has been wantingto go to a smaller phone and are hesitant, dont be and give it a tryyoull be pleasantly surprised. Now how about sacrificing the screensize and comfort of the phone.
Well, I have to say I love having this smaller phone.That 6.1 Size is perfect in the hand as I can actually use it one handed withoutany issues which has been really nice. Now when I pick up the Pro Max its feelsunwieldy in the hand and I remember having to deal with it all the time to get the topof the line features and all day battery. As far as media, do I miss havingthat gorgeous large screen?
Well for videos, no not at all.Youget used to a slightly smaller screen and then you dont evennotice it, and for websites everything is just a bit smaller so you getthe same amount of usable screen real estate. I will say that for gaming, that is the one areawhere I do sometimes wish I had a larger display, especially with shooting games like Call ofDuty mobile but its still perfectly playable. So overall, after finally ditching the massiveMax iPhone and going with the smaller model, Im really happy that I did and I have no regrets.Of course the Phone is a huge improvement compared to the iPhone 12 lineup especially with batterylife and cameras, but also with 5G speeds and most of all graphics performance and muchless screen dimming which has been amazing.
I really hope that Apple keeps the iPhone14s the same and they dont give the Max model exclusive features over the regularpro so I can stick with the smaller size. If youre someone that wants to buy a iPhone 13and arent sure if you should get just the Pro or pro Max, Im happy to say that we finally donthave a huge reason to buy the big model, so if you dont need the biggest screen youll be morethan happy with the now fully capable 6.1 13 Pro.
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