How fast are the iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max models compared to one another? How fast are they compared to earlier iPhone models?

Please note that the iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max all have been discontinued. However, this Q&A is up-to-date and remains quite useful for anyone considering one of these models on the used market.

With even a quick read of the pair of company press releases that trumpet the arrival of the iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13 as well as the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, an astute student of marketing would notice that Apple places much more emphasis on the camera and battery life of these devices than it does on performance.

Photo Credit: Apple, Inc. (iPhone 13)

Battery Life Promotion

For battery life, for example, Apple specifically boasts that:

iPhone 13 delivers incredible all-day battery life, offering up to two and a half more hours in a day than iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 mini provides up to an hour and a half more in a day than iPhone 12 mini...

[and] amazing all-day battery life for both Pro models, with iPhone 13 Pro Max offering the longest battery life ever in an iPhone. iPhone 13 Pro will last up to one and a half hours longer in a day than iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max will last up to two and a half hours longer in a day than iPhone 12 Pro Max.

With 19 hours of video playback for the iPhone 13 and a whopping 28 hours of video playback for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, these undeniably are impressive battery life numbers.

Performance Promotion

For performance, on the other hand, Apple states that the iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13 pack:

A new 6-core CPU with two high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores is up to 50 percent faster than the competition, the fastest in any smartphone, and handles demanding tasks smoothly and efficiently, while the new 4-core GPU is up to 30 percent faster than the competition.

For the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max Apple declares:

A new 5-core GPU in the Pro lineup that brings the fastest graphics performance in any smartphone, up to 50 percent faster than the leading competition... [and] the new 6-core CPU with two new high-performance cores and four new high-efficiency cores, is up to 50 percent faster than the competition.

Accordingly, with vague statements of performance compared to unspecified "competition" instead of specific comparisons to previous iPhone models, it would be a safe bet that the performance increase of the iPhone 13 lineup compared to their predecessors is unremarkable, or at least less remarkable than the impressive battery life gains.

A review of a detailed iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max comparison will tell you that these models all have the same 3.2 GHz Apple A15 Bionic processor, but the iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13 models only have a 4-core GPU and 4 GB of RAM compared to a 5-core GPU and 6 GB of RAM for their "Pro" counterparts.

Whether or not these differences translate to real-world performance gains for the Pro models, though, only can be revealed through testing. Testing also can reveal the performance of the iPhone 13 lineup compared to the iPhone 12 released in 2020 and earlier models.

Benchmark Performance Overview

For a helpful general overview of the performance differences between the iPhone 13, iPhone 12, iPhone 11, iPhone SE (2nd Gen), iPhone XS and even earlier iPhone models in addition to the iPad and iPod touch, Everyi.com's own Ultimate iComparison makes it quick to compare side-by-side Geekbench benchmark averages for hundreds of possible performance comparisons.

Compared to one another, the Geekbench 5 benchmark demonstrates that the performance of the iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max practically are identical, so the beefier GPU and the extra RAM in the "Pro" models does not make a significant difference in overall performance. The extra GPU power and additional RAM likely are necessary to drive the better, larger displays.

Compared to other recent iPhone models, the iPhone 13 (2021) models perform accordingly using the Geekbench 5 benchmark:

iPhone 13 Compared To:	Percent Faster (Single Core)	Percent Faster (Multicore)
iPhone 12 mini/12/12 Pro/12 Pro Max	8%	13%
iPhone 11/11 Pro/11 Pro Max	30%	39%
iPhone SE (2nd Gen)	30%	61%
iPhone XS	55%	66%
iPhone XR	55%	74%
iPhone X	87%	89%
iPhone 8	87%	101%
iPhone 7	131%	241%

With a review of the above, you can see clearly that the Geekbench 5 benchmark demonstrates that the iPhone 13 is a fairly marginal 8% to 13% or so faster than the iPhone 12 released the year before, but much more significantly faster than iPhone models released in earlier years.

Real-World Performance Comparison

For a day-to-day comparison of the iPhone 13 to the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 models that preceded it, this video from YouTuber Chigz Tech also is quite useful:

As you can see, hands-on usage commonly demonstrates that the modest performance increase provided by the iPhone 13 often is not obvious in the real-world.

Performance Summary

Ultimately, the iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max are the same speed and in the neighborhood of 8% to 13% faster than the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max released the year before. In the real-world, though, this performance improvement often is not noticeable.

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