iPhone 13 smaller notch and new camera revealed in leaked pics

(Image credit: Duanrui)

published 15 April 2021

Good news for iPhone fans who don’t love the notch: in the iPhone 13, it’s going to be much smaller. That’s according to images shared by noted leaker DuanRui (via MacRumors), which show a much narrower notch with the selfie camera moved leftwards: in the iPhone 12 it’s on the right.

The iPhone 13’s notch may be narrower, but according to industry insiders it’s a lot busier too. Speaking off the record to MySmartPrice.com, insiders claim that there are three camera cutouts on the front that may contain two front-facing cameras plus an infrared camera, with a fourth cutout for additional sensors. The earpiece speaker has been related to the top bezel, something that was rumoured for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, but evidently didn’t make the final cut.

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We’re inclined to take these rumours seriously, partly because DuanRui has proved accurate before, and partly because other industry sources have been talking about a smaller notch too. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the smaller notch in the iPhone 13 is a precursor to a completely notch-free design in the iPhone 14, which is claimed to have a punch-hole design similar to current Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 and a Face ID system located under the display rather than in a cutout.

There are changes round the back too, according to renders apparently leaked to MySmartPrice.com. We don't whether the specifications are different, but the cameras’ positions appear to be changing to a diagonal layout, which maybe suggests some internal changes forcing some rearrangement. The LIDAR sensor currently limited to the Pro models of the iPhone 12 is apparently remaining Pro-only: it won’t be in the stock iPhone 13.

iPhone 13 render — MySmartPrice.com says this render comes from our old friend "Industry sources".

A faster, more energy-efficient display

Although the dimensions of the iPhone 13 will apparently be identical to the iPhone 12, new display tech is incoming – although it’s not clear whether it’s going to make it to all the iPhone 13 models or just to the pro ones.

The tech, a more power-efficient LPTO OLED, would offer variable refresh rates much as we’ve seen on the iPad Pro 2020. This tech means the screen doesn’t refresh unnecessarily quickly for low-intensity tasks such watching a movie, but it can boost its speed to a game- and scrolling-friendly 120Hz on demand. That avoids the power drain that having 120Hz screens on all the time can cause, without sacrificing gaming performance for the times you want it.

We'll find our more about iPhone 13 later this year – we don't expect to see it at Apple's 'Spring Loaded' event on April 20th, nor at its June 7th WWDC keynote.

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).