iPhone 16 vs iPhone 13 mini: Should you upgrade?

Intro

The upcoming iPhone 16, which is coming this September, will be the smallest and most affordable by a long shot, but sadly, it will be nowhere near the iPhone 13 mini when it comes to overall compactness and value for money. 

How will the upcoming iPhone compare?

Design and Size

Well, although three years will have passed since the iPhone 13 mini broke cover, there wouldn’t be that many differences between the compact old champ and the upcoming iPhone 16.

Naturally, the two will differ in terms of size. In this corner, we got a very single-hand friendly iPhone 13 mini with a 5.4-inch screen that weighs just 141gr; in the opposite corner, you have a 6.1-inch device that’s taller, wider, thicker, and heavier. 

Both phones employ the same general design language with the now iconic flat displays and frame, which has been slowly adopted by nearly the whole industry. At the front, the iPhone 16 will come with the Dynamic Island punch-hole design, whereas the iPhone 13 mini has the older notch design language. 

The iPhone 13 mini features IP68 water and dust-resistance, and the iPhone 16 will, too. 

The iPhone 13 mini was available in Starlight, Midnight, Blue, Green, Pink, and Product RED. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 will be available in Black, Green, Pink, Blue, and White colors.

Display Differences

As we mentioned, the iPhone 16 will arrive with a 6.1-inch display, a standard display size on all regular iPhones since the iPhone 11. 

We anticipate no major changes for the iPhone 16 screen, which means that we should expect an OLED Super Retina XDR screen with 60Hz refresh rate. One thing that could change is the maximum peak brightness of the device, which could go way up, probably near or above 2,000 nits. 

Meanwhile, the iPhone 13 mini also comes with an OLED screen with a 60Hz refresh rate. The peak brightness is pretty standard, at around 1,000 nits, but the main and most important thing about the iPhone 13 mini is the super compact size and the minuscule display, as of today’s standards. 

Performance and Software

A great performance leap

The iPhone 13 mini comes with the Apple A15 Bionic chip, built on a 5nm manufacturing process. Although this one will be quite outdated when the A18 range of Apple chips arrives, phones equipped with the A15 Bionic don’t really feel too outdated or sluggish. Still, not a good outlook for the potential future-proofness of the device, which is about to be sunset in a couple of years’ time. 

One major change coming to the iPhone 16 could be the use of 8GB of RAM on board, 2 more than the 6GB most previous iPhones have featured. The reason for that could be the higher hardware requirements that on-device AI processing entails. As a comparison, the iPhone 13 mini boasts 4GB of RAM, which sounds unimpressive in comparison, but RAM isn’t such a major issue with iPhones. 

Camera

Dual cameras, but better

Both the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 13 mini boast dual cameras. However, there are some essential differences.

The main camera of the iPhone 16 will be a 48MP one, which will let you take more detailed pictures and allows you to take pictures at 2X zoom with nearly optical quality. The 12MP ultra-wide camera is mostly similar to the one on the iPhone 13 mini. 

The iPhone 13 mini, on the other hand, boasts dual 12MP cameras, a main and an ultra-wide one. 

Battery Life and Charging

iPhone 16 domination incoming

No surprises: we expect the iPhone 16 to dominate when it comes to battery life. 

Not only will the upcoming phone boast a much larger battery than the iPhone 13 mini, but it will also feature a much faster and therefore efficient chipset. We expect the iPhone 16 to boast a 3,561mAh battery, whereas the iPhone 13 mini has a 2,406mAh battery, which sounds tiny by comparison.

Oh, and the iPhone 13 mini comes with a Lightning port, while the iPhone 16 will use a USB Type-C connector. 

Specs Comparison

Summary

The iPhone 16 will probably not be the promised phone that will succeed the iPhone 13 mini. However, it could be the best bet for iPhone 13 mini users: it falls right within the three-year update period, it will introduce major improvements to the performance, battery life, camera image quality, and finally, it will provide you with access to Apple Intelligence, which will surely be a big thing in the coming years. 

That said, there’s another device that could be up iPhone 13 mini users’ alley: the upcoming iPhone SE 4th Gen. We’ve heard some intriguing things about the device, but it’s still uncertain when and what features it could boast, so nothing is certain.

The iPhone 16, on the other hand, is coming in less than two months’ time, so as certain as death and taxes.