What do you do on your phone that the 13 mini isn't faster than the 7 Plus? I've had both of these phones — the 13 is my daily driver, and I have the 7 plugged into a TV as a media hub. While it isn't unbearably slow, it's noticeably slower than the 13 for pretty much everything.
I know that objectively speaking the chip in the 13 is leaps and bounds faster. But in my daily use I don’t see it. Safari is no faster. Maps is no faster. Some apps like Sonos still have startup time.
Probably the apps I use just aren’t CPU bound, or they need other optimizations to make them faster. Which probably makes me like most people. My wife is still happily using an iPhone 8 and she will probably replace it only when it completely goes out. Since phones are so durable now—the home button doesn’t even wear out—that might take years more.
Interesting! Makes me want to go do a speed test to see where the biggest differences are One app that comes to mind is Camera, which is super fast to load on the newer phones. When taking photos of babies/toddlers, load time is important! But you're right that some apps probably have similar load times across devices because the weakest link is a web connection (Google Nest, looking at you...).
But this showed me that phone performance is no longer a reason to upgrade, so I’ll probably hold on to this one even longer than I kept the 7 Plus.