No charger, no earbuds but no reason not to be excited by the 5G-ready iPhone 12’s top specs
THIS is the first time that a non-Pro version of the iPhone is now a genuinely compelling competitor to the Pro model, even for power users. Far from Apple holding lots of goodies for the 12 Pro, there’s so much advanced stuff in the ‘basic’ iPhone 12 that the upper model will be given a real run for its money.
Even though it has improved cameras, 5G, an Oled display and an incredibly fast new engine, I have found that the biggest draw to the iPhone 12 may be its new shape. Apple has gone back to the high point of its handset industrial design, the iPhone 4, in remodeling the iPhone 12 as a flat-sided phone. The result is not only attractive in itself, but reboots a solid distinction between the iPhone 12 and dozens of rivals with their identikit rounded, smooth black glass slabs.
The new shape isn’t just a looks thing. Apple has pointed out that squaring off the sides allows it to get marginally more working parts into those extra spaces that were rounded off before. But rather than using that purely for extra componentry, Apple decided to make it a little compact in your hand. You can see this when you line the 12 up against the 11 – it’s marginally smaller, despite having an ever-so-slightly bigger display 6.1-inch versus 6.06-inch for the iPhone 11).
Shape aside, one of the biggest technical advances in the iPhone 12 is the 6.1inch display, which jumps from LCD (in the iPhone 11) to Oled. You can see it when you switch it on. To look at it, this is like using an iPhone Pro. It’s brighter (up to twice as punchy when looking at some photos), easier on your eyes and its treatment of colours and contrasts is really superb.
It’s a little odd that Apple didn’t increase the ‘refresh rate’ on this from 60hz, as almost all flagship phones have now done. But it doesn’t affect the overall performance much – it’s still fluid and smooth. But it would still be nice to have it there.
One element I was a little concerned about before using the device was battery life. The iPhone 12 is quite a bit slimmer, lighter and (marginally) smaller than the iPhone 11 – wouldn’t its battery life naturally be hit? I haven’t yet found this to be the case, although it’s certainly not better than the iPhone 11 (which was a big step up in battery life from the iPhone 8, Xs or Xr). I fairly reliably get all-day battery from it with regular, mixed use.
The headline feature of the new iPhone 12 is, nominally, 5G. This means mobile speeds of hundreds of megabits per second. Even though it’s a musthave capability for any new flagship device, this may be the least immediately compelling new ability of the iPhone 12 for most people as 5G networks simply aren’t built out yet. Even it were available everywhere, there are relatively few new things you can do using 5G that you can’t over 4G. Gaming and augmented reality are arguably the strongest uses for it right now.
One of the flagship features of any iPhone is its camera setup. As usual, Apple has boosted its cameras on the iPhone 12 and the results are genuinely excellent. It has two 12-megapixel rear lenses, a brighter regular wide (1x) camera and an ultra-wide (0.5x) camera.
One thing I was pleasantly surprised by was a ‘lens correction’ feature. Using the ultra-wide (0.5x) camera, there’s distinctly less ‘distortion’ (the sides and corners of the photo don’t warp or bend the way did on the iPhone 11’s ultra-wide camera) than that on the iPhone 11.
Another noticeable improvement, to my eyes, is its ‘night mode’. Not only is this now also applied to the iPhone 12’s ultra-wide lens, but photos are sharper and clearer in my testing, as well as being a little less noisy, than night mode photos on previous models.
Video quality remains excellent and you can record up to 60 frames per second in 4K. I’ve always rated the iPhones as being the best in the business for reliable, consistent, high-quality video, especially taking into account its superior stabilisation techniques.
Like the iPhone 12 Pro, the iPhone 12 has Apple’s latest A14 Bionic processor. Apple says that this is faster than any other smartphone chip on the market and a handful of online benchmarking tests that we have run suggest that this may well be the case.
That Apple has put this processor into the standard iPhone 12 as well as the 12 Pro is likely to be one of the most underrated features of this phone.
As far as robustness goes, the iPhone 12 has added new features into its display (it hesitates to call it ‘glass’) that’s claimed to be four times as tough as the iPhone 11 when dropped. This is a handy thing as to replace the screen is likely to cost around €300. It’s also water and dust resistant to an IP68 standard, meaning it can be submerged in water for up to 30 minutes at a depth of six metres and still be okay afterwards.
One big talking point is that there’s no charger or earphones in the box. Apple says this is for environmental reasons. But it means you’ll have to get your own charger. It does come with a (Lightning) cable in the box, but it connects to the plug using USB-C instead of USB-A. There is a new wireless charging system that Apple is promoting at the same time – its own MagSafe methods. The new iPhones have magnets built into the device that guide the MagSafe charger accurately into place. That charger is then connected to a USB-C plug in the same way as the Lightning cable would be. For an extended, in-depth review of the iPhone 12, see Independent.ie.
Design shift back to flat sides allows Apple more room inside