iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max bring 120Hz high refresh rate displays and more

Apple today announced its flagship iPhone models, the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max. The devices bring updates across the board in the form of a new display, upgraded cameras, improved computational photography capabilities thanks to the new A15 Bionic SoC, a 20 percent smaller notch that houses the FaceID sensors, and more. There is also a top-of-the-line 1TB storage option in the lineup.

The significant display upgrades come in the way of a new 120Hz adaptive refresh rate display that is touted to reach up to 1,000 nits in brightness. Just like Samsung's flagships, the refresh rate is adaptive, meaning it can range from 10Hz to 120Hz, depending on the content and the interactions on the screen, which saves battery. The firm calls it the "Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion". The screen sizes, however, remain the same at 6.1-inches for the iPhone 13 Pro and 6.7-inches for the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

The Cupertino giant is also boasting of massive improvements to the camera array on the iPhone 13 Pro lineup, thanks to larger sensors on the ultra-wide and wide-angle shooters, and a new telephoto lens that is capable of 3x lossless zoom. The company adds that the ultra-wide shooter can capture "92%" more light and also, for the first time, offers autofocus capabilities. The optics also allows for improved macro photography. The main camera, on the other hand, is said to offer a "2.2x" improvement over its predecessor, thanks to its f/1.5 aperture.

The phones also bring new computation photography improvements, including the Cinematic mode found in the iPhone 13 lineup for automatic focus shifting and improved depth of field. The cameras can also shoot in the ProRes codec to deliver higher color fidelity and lower compression, the firm adds, further touting the abilities of the shooters. The A15 Bionic also enabled Smart HDR4 and features such as Deep Fusion, Portrait Lighting, and Dolby Vision HDR recording. All three cameras now offer Night mode capabilities.

The A15 Bionic SoC in the iPhone 13 Pro series comes with the same six-core CPU as in the iPhone 13 series that houses two high-performance and four high-efficiency cores to make it 50 percent faster "than the leading competition". However, on the GPU side of things, the Pro series gets a five-core GPU, up from the four-core version in the iPhone 13 series. This, the firm says, makes it a GPU with the "fastest graphics performance in any smartphone". the SoC also sports a 16-core Neural Engine.

The efficiency gains in the A15 Bionic also bring battery improvements, with the company claiming that the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max are said to last one and a half hours and two and a half hours longer than their predecessors, respectively. Like the iPhone 13 series, these devices are offered with a base storage of 128GB. As mentioned, the top-of-the-line model maxes out at 1TB. As for other features, there are additional 5G bands to make the device compatible in more markets, Ceramic Sheild glass on the front, and IP68 water and dust resistance rating.

The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max will be sold in graphite, gold, silver, and sierra blue colors for $999 and $1,099 respectively. Pre-orders for the devices start on September 17, with the phones becoming available on September 24.