The iPhone 12 Pro is all the rage in the media and among techies. It’s the top-tier version with all the bells and whistles, and we don’t care how much it costs; we all want one.
Yet, this ignores the fact that the vast majority of consumers have more realistic expectations and budgets, making them gravitate towards the base iPhone 12.
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All You Need To Know iPhone 12
Customers are drawn in by the iPhone 12 and can then upgrade to a Mini, Pro, or Pro Max depending on their needs and budget. That places a heavy strain on the iPhone 12, as most people’s go-to phone is the iPhone.
Read on to find out how well it meets your anticipations. And why it’s the most popular iPhone 12 model, too.
Technical Specifications, Layout, and Presentation
Apple’s own cases will fit both the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro. When protected by a case, the sole visual giveaway that this isn’t a Pro model is the lack of a third camera lens; nonetheless, the big squircle camera housing is still present, serving as a constant reminder of what could have been.
Yet, there are many other hardware distinctions if you are brave enough to use your phone without a case, or at least intrigued by the concept that you might carry it naked. The first is the rainbow of hues, which you’ve probably already seen arrayed like a bowl of Skittles.
Even the blue version of the iPhone 12, which along with black is one of the more modest options, is lively, colourful, and bright. The iPhone 12 has an aluminium rather than stainless steel chassis, and its metal has a matte rather than hyper-glossy appearance.
Instead of having a glossy front screen, it has glossy rear glass, which is great for grip but will attract fingerprints like crazy the second you pull it out of the box. The iPhone 12 is impressive despite the inevitable fingerprints that will appear on its glass back.
Beautiful as it is, I for one am relieved to see angular lines replace the metal pillow forms of recent years. More can be seen and touched, and it’s comfortable in the hand. This is especially true with the 12, which is around 15% lighter than the 12 Pro, albeit this reduction in weight also contributes to the device’s overall impression of cheapness.
This is just a light and manageable phone; if you’ve never used the 11 Pro or 12 Pro, you won’t even notice the difference. Although the new OLED display makes the screen bigger than before at 6.1 inches with slimmer bezels on all sides, the phone’s featherweight weight is impressive.
The small sensation is enhanced by the sleek metal edges and the angular glass screen. Although the Face ID notch is still distracting to the eye, the feature is well worth the price of admission.
The screen is fantastic, especially considering the low cost. It’s vivid and colourful, with low colour shift and wide viewing angles. Because it is a laminated OLED, readability is excellent even in direct sunlight.
On paper, the sole distinction is that the iPhone 12 is rated for a maximum brightness of 625 nits, whilst the iPhone 12 Pro is rated for 800 nits. Strangely, both screens can attain the same maximum brightness of 1200 nits when viewing HDR video, and Apple’s own literature confirms this.
The screen of the 12 Pro seems slightly brighter, although that could be my imagination. Despite what Apple’s numbers say, it doesn’t appear to be 28% brighter. We can all get behind the new Ceramic Shield glass’s increased drop performance by a factor of four, but I want to be clear that no such claim is made for the glass’s scratch resistance.
You shouldn’t expect this screen to be unbreakable, as my review device already has a few little scratches after a week of moderate use. I dropped my phone on the sidewalk from waist height, but since I had a silicone case on it, it was unharmed.
Functionality, Efficiency, and Effectiveness
The fact that the iPhone 12 runs the same version of iOS 14 as the user’s current device will be the best feature for many consumers. Consistency is a significant reason why so many people continue with iPhones, even though it may appear boring to Android users who purportedly get to taste a new flavour of Android with each phone upgrade.
The only difference between the iPhone 12 and your current iPhone, regardless of how old it is, is that everything will happen faster. The A14 Bionic chip is more powerful than your current setup and is built to handle upcoming iOS capabilities.
The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are identical in everyday use; the only difference is shown in extreme conditions. The iPhone 12 has 4GB of RAM (memory), whereas the iPhone 12 Pro has 6GB; this could lead to a slight slowdown while multitasking intensively or playing graphically intensive games while streaming media in the background.
We also know that the lower memory capacity is why the 12 Pro is the only model that can take advantage of some of the more powerful camera processing functions. My daily use isn’t particularly taxing, but I haven’t seen any slowdown in software loading times or graphical performance.
The A14 Bionic is still in charge, and that’s what counts in the end. The iPhone 12 cannot be accused of slow performance.
Battery Life:
After spending some time with the iPhone 12 Pro, checking out all of the new features, and running numerous 5G speed tests, I was able to relax into using the phone as I typically would after the review rush died down. That helps my “real world use” estimate of the 12’s battery.
The iPhone 12’s battery life actually turns out to be rather respectable if you stop testing it and start actually using it. Although the iPhone 11 Pro’s storage space is lesser than the 12 Pro’s, Apple has a lot more efficient chipset powering the device, so they must have a plan.
I spend most of my day on Wi-Fi, checking and responding to several emails, messages, social networking apps, utilities, and listening to numerous podcasts via Bluetooth, and I still have plenty of juice left over at the end of the day.
That gives me plenty of headroom for the days when I take a lot of images and videos, listen to a lot of podcasts, use my phone as a hotspot via 5G, or make a lot of video calls. Nonetheless, I would typically enter Low Power Mode (20%) about dinnertime and go all the way through to bedtime without needing to recharge.
If you bought an iPhone 12 instead of an iPhone 12 Pro, you probably don’t plan to use it as heavily at first. Neither the 12 nor the 12 Pro suffered from poor battery life under normal use. If you need to push your iPhone to its limits every day, then the iPhone 12 Pro Max is your clear winner.
Cameras Quality:
The upgraded camera is the main selling point for the 12 Pro above the regular 12. But, keep in mind that the 12 provides essentially the same camera experience as the 12 Pro. The 12s Pro has a telephoto lens, a lidar sensor, can record in Dolby Vision HDR at 60 frames per second (up from 30), and will eventually support Apple ProRAW files.
This telephoto camera only provides a 2x magnification increase over the regular camera and is therefore unnecessary. Cool but unnecessary, Lidar adds Portrait Mode functionality to Night Mode; standard Night Mode is otherwise same on both phones.
If you care about shooting HDR at 60 frames per second, you probably recently upgraded to an iPhone 12 Pro. Each of the three cameras—primary, ultra-wide, and front—uses the same hardware and is supported by the same imaging technology—from Smart HDR 3 to Deep Fusion to any other proprietary Apple feature.
That’s why it’s wonderful news for those who purchase an iPhone 12: most people won’t notice a change in camera quality between the 12 and 12 Pro. The camera is as good as an iPhone 12 Pro that costs $999, making this a superb deal.
The primary camera always takes photographs that are vivid, clear, and full of vibrant colours with a pleasingly warm and punchy profile that never goes overboard. HDR effects are restrained and usually perform an excellent job of adjusting contrast between bright and dark areas.
Portrait Mode is still fantastic for head and shoulders images, but it’s hit-or-miss when used on entire bodies or inanimate things. The improved nighttime performance and larger aperture are readily apparent after the sun goes down.
Pictures compete head-to-head with the Pixel 5’s Night Sight, but the iPhone 12 has the advantage of not requiring a mode switch for these photos (the camera chooses when to do so). And autofocus worked fine in the dark; I didn’t even need lidar!
