All posts

The iPhone 12 is STILL pretty great in 2023!

9:57 video

The iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro and Pro Max were the first of the newer design, released in 2020, and they aren’t all that different from the iPhone 14 line. This video came from my wanting an iPhone 12 Pro for beta testing and an upcoming video.

Where to buy one

The iPhone 12 is the oldest iPhone Apple still sells new. The 12 mini and 12 Pro aren’t available new from Apple, but there are options:

  • New 12 from Apple: $600 for 64 GB, not bad, but you can do better.
  • Renewed from Amazon: a 12 mini starting at about $300 and the 12 at about $400. Mine arrived in fantastic condition, really good for a couple-year-old used device. The 12 Pro is around $560 and the Pro Max $669.
  • Apple Refurbished: I got my 12 Pro there for about $660, only $60 more than a new iPhone 12. The difference is warranty and condition: Amazon devices usually come with a 90-day warranty and conditions from good to great, while Apple refurbished devices basically look new, with a battery at or near 100% health and a full 1-year Apple warranty.

The iPhone 12 line is also when Apple stopped including power adapters, so you’ll need one. UGREEN sponsored this video, with its Nexode 30 W charger, built on GaN II, with fast charging for iPhones and Samsung Super Fast Charging. It charges an iPhone 14 Pro to 55% in 30 minutes, the plug folds in, and it has short-circuit, overload, over-voltage and temperature protection. It works with MagSafe for fast wireless charging, and can charge iPads, tablets and even MacBooks.

Design

The 12 line doesn’t look much different from the 14: the flatter, squared-off edge design started with the 12. The 14 Pro Max has the Dynamic Island versus the notch, but otherwise it’s hard to find a significant difference.

Things that started with the 12

  • Ceramic Shield over the display, which Apple says is four times more resistant to breaking.
  • OLED displays on every model for the first time, up to 1,200 nits peak for HDR, the same peak as the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus. The sizes are 5.4 inches (mini), 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches. In most cases you can’t see a difference between the 12 and 14 displays.
  • MagSafe, with up to 15 W wireless charging with a certified charger.
  • The squircle camera bump, with a bezel bump and a lens bump, three bumps in all.

Cameras

iPhone cameras have been good for years, so it’s hard to see year-over-year differences. I compared a 12 and a 14 Pro:

  • A flower bed: besides slightly different framing, I couldn’t tell the difference on my Mac.
  • A tree: the 14 Pro does a bit better in dynamic range, and the 12 has a bluish cast.
  • A studio shot: the 12 brightens things up, and the 14 keeps shadows a bit darker.

For a point-and-shoot person, there’s not much difference. The Pro models add a zoom lens, OIS on more lenses, LiDAR for night shots, HDR and Pro RAW on the 12 Pro; the 14 Pro adds Cinematic mode, Action mode and macro.

5G and battery

The iPhone 12 line was the first with 5G, which promised to revolutionize the world, like doctors remotely controlling surgical robots. Almost three years later, that hasn’t happened, though you can sometimes get multi-gigabit speeds on ultra-wideband 5G, enough to scroll Instagram (which doesn’t need 2 Gb/s), and you don’t need a 14 for it.

Battery was probably a weak point. The consensus is that it wasn’t as good as it should have been, especially on the mini, and the 13 line fixed most of it. Apple says 15–20 hours of video playback, depending on the model. You may want a MagSafe battery pack for days you need a boost.

Performance

The 12 line has the A14 (6-core CPU, 4-core GPU), with 4 GB of RAM on the 12 and mini and 6 GB on the Pro. The 14 has the A15 and the 14 Pro the A16, with 6-core CPUs, 5 GPU cores and 6 GB.

In Geekbench 6: the iPhone 14 is about 10% faster single-core than the 12, and the 14 Pro about 25%. In multi-core, the A15 is about 33% faster and the A16 about 50% faster. Graphics are about 46–50% faster. But those are generic benchmarks. In regular use (web, email, Twitter, notes, calendar, photos, video, podcasts), it feels the same as the 14. In games like Call of Duty Mobile and NBA 2K23, I didn’t feel any slowdown.

Differences from the 14

Sure: Satellite SOS, ProMotion on the Pro, Crash Detection and the Dynamic Island, but nothing that significantly changes how you use the iPhone. Whether you’re on a budget or don’t care about the latest and greatest, the iPhone 12 line will do everything you need.

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

Watch on YouTube

Keep reading

Related posts