iPhone 13 mini What Will You Do Now iPhone mini Owners?

[klasma]

Are you sure about the display? In what way is it better?

I got a regular iPhone 17 to replace my 13 mini. First thing I noticed was how bad the display was on the new phone. A white background such as this text box veers wildly in colour – green, magenta – as I tilt the phone back and forth. My mini 13 display, side by side, has much less colour shift. The difference isn’t subtle.

There are significant differences between displays of the same iPhone model, due to different display panel suppliers (Samsung, LG, BOE), and sometimes also for panels from the same supplier, such as better or worse contrast and variations in color temperature. This is referred to as the “panel lottery” when buying an iPhone.

I had one mini with that green-magenta tilt shift. I also had two minis without it from a different panel supplier (as indicated by 3uTools), but one had significantly better contrast than the other despite being from the same panel supplier. I also measured visible differences in color temperature.

The iPhone 17 has a much better display in terms of advertised brightness, ProMotion, and AOD, plus the improved Ceramic Shield coating.

 

[splifingate]

Not an option right now.

Nothing new compares.

 

[Analog Kid]

I just don't see an option right now. Everything just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Big and thin isn't really a fit. I don't use my phone like others do, I guess. I don't obsessively look at it and interact with it. It's there on the rare occasion that I need it, it feeds map directions to my watch, if family texts or calls I can get it. I don't need a massive display for that.

 

[Moreplease]

“panel lottery”

An aware. Unfortunately don’t know which display my phones have.

The iPhone 17 has a much better display in terms of advertised brightness

It’s 1000 versus 800 nits. Photographers will understand that as one-third of a stop and recognise that that’s perceptually a very small difference.

And so it transpires in real life. Open Macrumors on my 13 mini and 17 and slide brightness to max and there is no significant difference in brightness. The 13 mini is brighter at an angle by about as much as it is dimmer straight-on, and both differences don’t practically matter.

The other brightness specs are HDR gimmicks that don’t affect overall display visibility in bright light.

ProMotion

Yes. Very nice for battery saving and viewing 24p content (films).

AOD

Useful but not a display quality issue.

plus the improved Ceramic Shield coating.

I hope that works because indeed my 13 mini has scratches.

But while we’re talking about coatings, I was astonished to see that even the display reflectivity has not changed much between my 13 mini and the 17.

We’re really stalling out on display tech here. All of my previous iPhones (at 4 or 5 year intervals) had huge jumps in display quality, especially contrast in high ambient light.

 

[klasma]

It’s 1000 versus 800 nits.

The 17 reaches 3000 nits max brightness in the sun. The 13 mini can be quite hard to read in the sun, even at 100% brightness. Also for those on the 12 mini, that one had only 625 nits, and the 800 nits of the 13 were a noticeable improvement. 800 to 1000 is almost the same factor.

There’s also the reduced minimum of 1 nit, which can be nice in full darkness.

I hope that works because indeed my 13 mini has scratches.

The iPhone screens of that time were very scratch-prone, unfortunately, compared to the iPhone SE1 and earlier. It’s likely that Apple traded off scratch resistance against shatter resistance for the larger screens. It seems that they now found a way to significantly improve scratch resistance (see the JerryRigEverything video of the Air) while keeping the shatter resistance.

But while we’re talking about coatings, I was astonished to see that even the display reflectivity has not changed much between my 13 mini and the 17.

Yes, the Samsung smartphones seem to be better at that.

 

[Neil J. Squillante]

Are you sure about the display? In what way is it better?

I got a regular iPhone 17 to replace my 13 mini. First thing I noticed was how bad the display was on the new phone. A white background such as this text box veers wildly in colour – green, magenta – as I tilt the phone back and forth. My mini 13 display, side by side, has much less colour shift. The difference isn’t subtle.

That’s a fair question. I was among those who documented the flawed display of the iPhone 12 series, including the 12 mini (“Yellowgate” though it was more off white). My hypothesis is that Apple could not send its QA engineers to China because of Covid. I skipped the 12 series but most people didn’t care and it sold well. Scratchgate will also be a nonissue.

I didn’t notice any flaws at the Apple Store yesterday but I was mostly focused on other factors. So I dropped in again today and looked at 4 iPhone Air models using websites with a lot of white space like Yahoo Finance. I also looked at Messages, which has a lot of white space in light mode. I analyzed the screens with brightness all the way up and also at my usual 33% or so. I’m pleased to report that the white is about as pure as it gets, identical on every model. The text also looks sharper but maybe that’s just the luxury of a larger display. The iPhone Air display is objectively better than the display on my 4 year old iPhone 13 mini. There’s no off white or yellow tint.

Reviewers seldom talk about the things that matter to me.

True. That’s why I mentioned document scanning likely improving with the 48 megapixel camera.

 

[Moreplease]

Well, the display quality of my regular iPhone 17 is honestly shocking to me.

I never do this, but I’m going to have to return this phone.

I can’t accept a big drop in display quality in a phone four years newer. What on earth?

I suggest mini 13 owners check the new iPhones carefully in a shop before buying one. I plan to compare the displays on a white web page in an Apple Store, viewing them at various angles.

But I can’t tolerate the size of the 17 Pro Max, and I think the 17 Pro has the same display as the regular iPhone 17 – that is, with big colour shifts as viewing angle changes, apparently. That leaves only the Air as an alternative, and on paper that phone isn’t ideal for me for a few reasons.

This sucks.

 

[vvvvvv]

Next level stuff.

Thoroughly enjoying the Air, especially the boosted brightness outdoors.