OnePlus 13R and iPhone 13
Scott Kramer
As a tech reviewer, I swap mobile phones constantly. But my latest switch wasn’t for a column deadline – it was out of pure curiosity. For more than a year, I’ve been happily using a OnePlus 13R Android phone – having converted from an Apple iPhone 12 Mini – and frankly, it’s been fantastic. The sound is great, the large screen is bright, battery life is amazing, charging is super fast, the camera is the best I’ve ever had, and the overall speed is lightning.
But lately, I hit a few snags that made me wonder about its plausibility. I found myself accidentally butt-texting clients (never a good look). The ringer would occasionally go silent without explanation until I rebooted. And when I accessed my email, a lot of it suddenly wasn’t formatted properly for the phone – pretty unreadable, actually. That may have been an app incompatibility, but it was frustrating all the same.
Meanwhile, about two months ago, I bought my wife a new iPhone. Her old iPhone 13 was just sitting around with a dwindling battery, which is why she upgraded. Knowing that, I figured I would try it out for a spin. Ten days ago, I swapped my SIM card into her phone, cloned my app layout, and hit the ground running.
What I discovered immediately was that everything felt a bit muted – understandably as I was comparing a year-old phone with a five-year-old model. That is, the iPhone’s brightness capacity appeared significantly lower than my daily driver. The battery life was relatively limited, which I knew going in up front, but it also took seemingly forever to recharge. Plus, with a screen size 0.6 inches smaller, I kept hitting the wrong letters while trying to type or play Quordle because my fingers were simply too broad. And while the iPhone 13 camera was once a powerhouse back in the day, it felt mundane compared to the OnePlus – capturing what I felt were flat snapshots rather than vivid photos. On the positive side, the iPhone’s speed was fine with zero lag, and its apps integrated far more smoothly with my smart home products than Android ever managed. FaceTime? Love it. And I absolutely got hooked on Apple News – something I cannot get on an Android.
So I started wondering what would happen if I just jumped straight to the latest iPhone model. I asked AI to find an iPhone with specs matching my Android, which pointed me toward the iPhone 17 Pro starting at $1,099. Then I asked if it was worth the cash. And AI — yes, artificial intelligence — talked me out of it, advising me to simply stick with my current setup based on specs and performance data.
After eight days, the experiment was officially over. I’ll keep the iPhone in mind for the future – maybe the anticipated upcoming folding version will reignite my interest. But for now, the Android works just fine. The butt texting seems to have subsided after I changed some settings. I just wish OnePlus hadn’t opted out of the U.S. market, as it recently announced. Even so, with Samsung and Google regularly debuting fresh hardware, it’s nice to know there are plenty of good choices left on the table.