The recent dramatic increase in the power conversion efficiencies of organic-inorganic tri-halide perovskite solar cells has triggered intense research worldwide and created a paradigm shift in the photovoltaics field. It is crucial to develop a solid understanding of the photophysical processes underlying solar cell operation in order to both further improve the photovoltaic performance of perovskite solar cells as well as to exploit the broader optoelectronic applications of the tri-halide perovskites. In this short review, we summarize the main research findings about the binding energy of excitons in tri-halide perovskite materials and find that a value in the range of 2-22 meV at room temperature would be a safe estimate. Spontaneous free carrier generation is the dominant process taking place directly after photoexcitation in organic-inorganic tri-halide perovskites at room temperature, which eliminates the exciton diffusion bottleneck present in organic solar cells and constitutes a major contributing factor to the high photovoltaic performance of this material.