IPHONE 12 PRO
It has best-in-class cameras, speed, screen quality and design – but you’ll pay for it
With a best-in-class screen and the fastest processor in a mobile, Apple retains the
smartphone throne
From $1,699, apple.com/au
If you’ve read our review of the iPhone 12, you’ll be aware that this year’s mid-range iPhone has already set a high bar. But with a few extras, the 12 Pro sails over this, offering one of the best designed and most powerful phones available – with an equally premium price.
This is a gorgeous-looking gadget. The gold version, for example, has a solid gold band around the outside, visible from the front, surrounding a sleek black, shiny oblong on the front. It makes this phone look more like a piece of jewellery, an accessory, than other phones. Yet despite these refined looks, it’s hardier than ever: it includes Apple’s new ‘Ceramic Shield’ glass, which the company says is four times more likely to survive a drop.
The iPhone 12 Pro has an OLED display, with a resolution of 1170x2532, which is 460 pixels per inch. That’s exactly the same as the iPhone 12. But with a typical brightness of 800 nits and reported peak HDR brightness of 1,200 nits, the screen is nothing less than stunning.
The big talk around the display in the iPhone 12 Pro is the lack of 90Hz or 120Hz support. We were surprised not to see support here, but aside from gaming, which benefits from faster response times, a higher refresh rate just makes things animate more smoothly, which is very nice, but not essential.
The iPhone 12 Pro’s triple-lens camera appears very similar to the 11 Pro’s, but there are improvements inside and out. Its 12MP wideangle lens now has a wider f/1.6 aperture than the 11 Pro and it packs a 12MP 2x telephoto lens on top of the 12’s 12MP 0.5x ultra-wide. And there’s a new piece of hardware to help with low-light shooting in particular: LiDAR. A depth-scanning sensor on the back makes autofocus so much faster in low light compared to other phones – even the iPhone 12.
The telephoto lens hasn’t changed. It’s a 2x zoom compared to the wide-angle camera, which is the same as the 11 Pro. With the likes of the Samsung S20 Ultra offering a 5x telephoto lens, it feels like Apple is behind here.
5G is one of the biggest new features on the spec sheet, though it does share that with the iPhone 12, of course. And it’s not the only speed improvement. In benchmarks, the new A14 processor is around 20% faster than the A13 chip in the iPhone 11 Pro. Apps open almost instantly, and the interface is totally smooth.
Yes, the iPhone 12 Pro is expensive. But the iPhone has always been more than the sum of its parts: sure you can get an 120Hz screen here or a longer battery life there but no other phone is class-leading in so many areas at once.