Which iPhone should you buy?

Apple announced four models of iPhone 12, and we summarise their differences in the table below. But these aren’t your only options if you want to buy an iPhone: you can also choose the iPhone SE ( see issue 310, p76), iPhone 11 ( see issue 304, p83) or iPhone XR ( see issue 292, p93).

The only reason to buy the iPhone XR is if you don’t have budget for the iPhone 11, and at £599 the latter remains a tempting buy. There are many fine upgrades in the iPhone 12, but whether they’re worth an extra £200 is a different matter.

But let’s assume you want the latest edition. As the table below shows, there really is very little difference between the iPhone 12 and the 12 mini other than size. We expect battery life to also be worse (by around two hours in our video-rundown test), but it should still last a working day.

Then we come to the thoroughbreds. The iPhone 12 Pro is exactly the same size as the plain 12, but its extra camera adds more weight (187g versus 162g) and 4x optical zoom. It’s also a better choice for photographers thanks to its support for

Apple’s ProRAW format and “Night mode” portraits; the latter stems from the addition of a LiDAR scanner. This builds up a radar-like image of a room using light reflections, which also has potential uses in AR apps.

The iPhone 12 Pro offers better optical image stabilisation (OIS) than the iPhone 12, but the iPhone 12 Pro Max goes one step further with a “sensor-shift” OIS that, Apple claims, makes 5,000 adjustments per second. Of course, it also includes a larger screen and weighs more at 226g.