Apple finally did it, it made a small Iphone again. It’s pretty small and it’s probably about as small an iphone as you’re ever likely to see again. This is the iphone 12 mini. And normally when a company makes a mini version of a phone you expect there to be a lot of compromises. But with the iphone 12 mini you only have to make one, well two technically I’ll explain.
Look let’s just talk about this little sucker ,there are a couple of ways that I could do this review. The first and most obvious is to compare the iphone 12 mini to the regular iphone 12. And tell you what’s different between these two phones.
What do you lose for going from the big iphone 12 to the mini iphone 12
Well here goes the iphone 12 mini does everything that the iphone 12 does. But since it’s smaller it has a smaller screen and it also has a smaller Battery. That means the battery life is a little bit worse and if you’re going to try to make it through a full day of intense use. You’re really going to want to keep an eye on the battery meter and probably turn on battery saver. It costs 729 for the 64 gig model and 779 for the 128 gig model. Which really is the one that I think most people should get.
That is a hundred bucks less than the regular iphone 12. Which means that this is a small phone but it’s not necessarily a cheap phone. You’re still paying some kind of 5g tax on this thing. But you know what just to remind you what the iphone 12 series is and what it can do, let’s go through it real quick.
The Key Changes
The iphone 12 is a complete redesign from earlier iphones with flat aluminium rails. A really good oled screen that’s more resistant to drops and a slightly improved camera setup.
The main camera has a slightly wider aperture which means that it’s better in low light. But more important is apple’s powerful a14 bionic processor system helps the iphone do even more computational photography in more situations. So you get more detail in low light and you can do portrait mode in more situations. There’s also an ultra wide camera too but there is no telephoto and the pictures are great. If you’re upgrading from anything older than say an iphone 10s or 10r you’re really going to be blown away.
Video quality also continues to impress it just effortlessly handles a bunch of different lighting conditions. Now you should know that this camera defaults to HDR dolby vision in video mode. So if you’re trying to shoot professionally with professional desktop video editing apps, you need to be aware of what all that HDR stuff.
Apple’s New MagSafe
This phone also works with apple’s new mag shape system which attaches cases or wireless chargers with magnets. And one tiny quirk of the iphone 12 mini is that it maxes out at 12 watts of wireless charging instead of 15 watts. But overall the charge time is the same since the iphone 12 mini has a slightly smaller battery.
Apple also has this sort of leather case thing and it has a little credit card slot in it and you put the phone in and it shows you the time in this little window it’s kind of neat but it’s not for me.
And finally, there’s 5g it is fast if you can find it but it’s not so pervasive. I think you should not rush out to buy this phone just to get 5g now. The fact that apple could even fit 5g in something this small is impressive. And yeah without it they probably could have made it a little bit smaller and also a little bit cheaper. But apple decided to include the millimeter wave version of 5g. Which can provide ridiculous download speeds, I’ve seen over 2000 megabits per second. If I’m standing in exactly the right street corner not around the block or in a building. Look 5g is fine but it’s not the reason to buy this phone. So, that is the first way to review the iphone 12 mini.
But it kind of misses the point, the second way to review this phone is to actually talk directly to the people who have been waiting for something like this for years. These are the people that are hanging on to their small iphones for dear life. And I mean the truly small iphones. The ones that are based on the iphone 5 or 5s or more likely the original iphone SE.
By the way you can get the iphone 12 mini in black white blue red or a kind of a seafoam green. Anyway there may be a larger group of people, these are the people that have a newer iphone that they think is just too damn big. People who want to go back to the good old days of having a phone that doesn’t feel like a little ping-pong paddle when they hold it and who want a phone that fits in their damn pocket. Because even though the phones that are based on the iphone 6 through the 8 or this newer iphone SE.
They’re not that big by recent smartphone standards when they were released they were first thought it was big phones. So, I personally am not actually that mad about the size of phones these days even though I generally prefer smaller phones.
Look if I wanted an iPad I would buy an iPad okay like I I want a phone, I would like something that fits in my hand that I can operate with one hand. Portability real big for me I like my current phone it’s an X2. I resisted buying it for a really long time.
The phones are too damn big like I have jerry rigged this with a handle on the back and it’s still fingers underneath to prop it up and then I can operate it but okay. So i’m not as mad as you about big phones, because I am lucky I have large pockets in my pants.
I just want to know what you think of it. It’s so small you can hold it and also reach the other end of the phone. But it’s exciting to be able to actually operate a phone one-handed. The sides being a little bit more squared off than most of the recent iPhones that are curved.
So that is probably about as small as phones are ever going to get because all phones have to have 5g now. And they need to fit the 5g components in there. So, I don’t know is it did they do it small enough for you ?
Yeah I mean like look I’ll be honest with you, it’s not going to fit in my pocket. Probably okay so I could do smaller.
But the basic thing is can I operate it while holding it? Yeah I can operate it while holding it, my thumb reaches the entire phone. So, yeah it is small enough.
The Compromises
I said at the top of this review that there were two compromises you make by getting this smaller iphone 12 mini instead of the default iphone 12. So let’s talk about them.
The first one is battery life and I know it’s a big question mark so, I’m gonna tell you what my experience has been. I definitely noticed a difference between the regular iphone 12 and the iphone 12 mini. And the upshot is that while I kind of had to work to kill the iphone 12 by the end of the day. With the iphone 12 mini I could do it pretty easily. Now with a little bit of care and how you use it and strategic use of battery saver I do think you can get through a full day with no problems. But you got to keep an eye on it.
Apple doesn’t give up specs for its battery sizes which you know it’s really annoying. I get that lots of things affect battery life and you can’t tell everything from just the milliamp count of the battery. But it’s still really helpful information. Anyway all we know for sure is that the battery is smaller, but then the screen is smaller too. So that takes up less power with battery saver and a little care in how you use it you can get through a full day.
It’s a disappointment, but it’s not a surprise but it does mean that I use this phone a little bit differently from how I use big phones. Look I don’t know, I just have to tell you that I love the iphone 12 mini. It just feels so much better to hold it’s more ergonomic I can even reach the control center panel swipe down thing by reaching my thumb up too without contorting my whole hand.
I know that it’s not like the itty bitty smartphones we used to get back in the day. And I know it doesn’t fold in half like the z-flip or the razer, but it is still way more pocketable than most smartphones today. And it manages to do all that without making you give up too much to get a smaller phone. I think the regular iPhone 12 is probably still a better bet for most people. But this one, this one’s my favourite.
Hey everybody thanks so much for reading of course. We have reviews the iPhone 12 and 12 pro. But if you’re looking for a review of the iPhone 12 pro max the big one Please check out our review on The TechWizard.
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