Part 1: The reason I „upgraded“

My previous phone was a Google Pixel 7, with 256GB in Lime or whatever the Color is called, now I have a iPhone 13 with 128GB in Polestar that I bought new from Amazon. It is technically an older phone with a worse camera, but everything else is miles better. I „upgraded“ in the first place because nearly everything on that Pixel is gone, on first glance, it looks like a perfect phone, but when you use it, you notice, that the charging port is gone, the selfie cam is gone, the ultrawide cam is gone, and it won’t recognise SIM‘s anymore, so yeah it’s pretty bad as a phone, because it can’t make calls.

Part 2: The parts that are better

For one, the speakers are the first thing I noticed, because I normally kept my Pixel at maximum alarm volume and at half notification volume, on the iPhone, well, (Android vs iOS is kickin) both were at max volume, so the next morning when I woke up, to seriously get into what this phone is better at, I nearly got a heart attack when the alarm has gone off, so yeah, the speakers were the first thing I properly tested.

Part 2.1: The speakers

I normally don’t listen to music through my phone speakers, but on this, it is actually quite fun to do. I have quite a bit of audio knowledge and especially reference items on me, and when I tested it, it was quite literally the speaker version of my AKG K240‘s, because they had a not a huge amount of base, but it is definitely there, and it also has a lot of treble, and the mids are sorta in between, and because of the „Spatial Audio“ Feature, when you hold it at the right angle, it really sounds like Dolby Atmos, when you have a song that supports it, or also videos. The speakers are definitely a world apart the ones on the Pixel, these sound like a joke in comparison, both in loudness and in clearness.

Part 2.2: The microphone

This is not really something Google, or any Android Manufacturer could do something against, but the microphones are quite similar when you record a voice memo, and listen to it on the device. But in a real world scenario, the iPhone microphone will always be quite a bit better than any Android, just because of the optimization specifically for iPhones, that would just be impossible on Android, because there’s too many Android’s to optimize for. So when you send someone a voice message, the Pixel would consistently just sound like I would be screaming, like the gain was turned up to a ridiculous amount, but on the iPhone, it sounds a lot clearer, and definitely not like I’m screaming all the time.

Part 2.3: The software

Yes, I am including this in the stuff that’s better section, because I don’t need a whole lot of customisation, I just want something that works, and when I’m thinking about it, I think especially when we get iOS 18, it would completely destroy the Pixel in terms of customisation, but anyway, I just like to have something where truly everything is from one company, like I already subscribed to iCloud+ 50GB, Apple Music, and Apple TV+, and till now, which is one week after I got the phone, it works great. I also tested a bit of the ecosystem, but it was really limited, because the last time we bought Apple Devices, was like 2012 and 2014, so we had an original Apple Watch and an iPad 3 to test with, and the Apple Watch wouldn’t pair, and the iPads battery wouldn’t charge up, oh well, no ecosystem then. But the last thing I noticed about the software was that the Apps are so much better optimised without gray and black bars on top and below the screen. While I’m writing this I’m noticing that the predictive text is so much better too.

Part 2.4: The battery

The Pixel 7 definitely hasn’t had a bad battery, but it definitely wasn’t great, but the iPhone so far had a far better battery life. From my experience, it lasted around 4-5 hours longer watching YouTube (no I don’t actually watch that, I just let it autoplay until it dies to test the battery), and in daily use, I definitely don’t have to charge my phone as often.

Part 2.5: The processing speed

The A15 Bionic is a way faster chip than the Tensor G2 in the Pixel, that has after 1 year of use already started stutters in the software. According to Geekbench, the A15 is about 2x faster than the Tensor G2, and you definitely feel that, because the apps really feel like they start up twice as fast, and the apps seem to stay open longer on the iPhone even though the Pixel has twice the RAM at 8 GB while the iPhone „only“ has 4 GB, but that seems to be enough and that’s what matters

Part 3: The parts that are the same

Pretty much the second thing I noticed, when I shot the pictures for my wallpaper on day, evening and night (because that’s something I always do when I get a new phone) was that the pictures were… different.

Part 3.1: The camera

I noticed the lower resolution of the camera straight away, because I need to do a lot of cropping when I want to have the 3 photos in exactly the same position, so that was a bit unfortunate, but the night mode on the iPhone was simultaneously so much better than on the Pixel. I also noticed that the standard color tone of the iPhone is a lot cooler than the Pixel. And everything else to do with the camera is more or less the same.

Part 3.2: The display

The display on the iPhone has more accurate colours than the Pixel definitely, but at the same time, you have the big notch up top, which is definitely something you have to get used to. Something you also have to get used to is the 60hz refresh rate, because even from the 90hz display of the Pixel 7, it is a massive step down in smoothness, but iOS is so well optimised, that most of the time I don’t notice it. I also appreciate that the iPhone has symmetrical borders, which the Pixel definitely hasn’t got.

Hello. I’m using an iPhone 13 (not Mini, Pro, or Pro Max) i bought it in July 2023, after all this time, the battery is super too. Everything runs so smooth. Apps, Games like Infinite Flight, or Call Of Duty, sound quality is super. No overheating issues, i really like the camera too. I know these days it is seen as outdated, and the most popular models are Pro and Pro Max of all series, but i really think this model is one of the best price/value iPhone out there in many countries, if you do not see your phone as a status symbol, and just want a very good phone for a good price. What do you think? Greetings to all of you from Hungary.