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I Decide Which iPhone 12 I Will Buy + iPhone SE Giveaway

13:53 video

Apple’s 2020 iPhone event just ended, and this is me figuring out which iPhone I’ll buy, with a pile of old iPhones and my iPad. (I don’t care at all about the HomePod mini.) At the end, I announce giving away an iPhone SE, because I have too many iPhones; that giveaway has ended.

iPhone 12 and 12 mini

Both have the new A14 (first seen last month in the iPad Air 4) and come in five new finishes. The main feature is 5G, but most people won’t get it, and it may be faster or lower latency, but they won’t notice for a while: like the blood pressure sensor on the Apple Watch Series 6, touted as the biggest feature but not very useful. The base 12 has a 6.1-inch OLED, essentially brought up to last year’s Pro level, with shrunken bezels and flattened sides, which I love: my favorite phone design is still the iPhone 4. (I got one right after release while living in Vietnam, traveling to Hong Kong and making the “crazy stupid mistake” of paying $1,200 for it in 2011 or 2012; the camera and Retina display were freaking amazing.) The new design is almost the same, maybe flatter on the sides, and I think it’s awesome that Apple has gone back to it with the iPads Pro, the new Air and now the iPhones.

  • Camera: an f/1.6 main wide camera for more light and low-light shots, and HDR video with Dolby Vision at up to 30 fps. Apple showed editing HDR footage on the phone on the fly, and said the Neural Engine does 11 trillion operations per second.
  • MagSafe returns, with magnets in the back for a charging pad, wallets and other accessories. I expect plenty of third-party accessories. I’m disappointed: in one part of the video, someone removed the phone from MagSafe with two hands. The benefit of a wireless pad is that you put your phone on it and pull it up. Existing Qi chargers have problems (the phone vibrates off or isn’t aligned), but if something sticks to the back and needs two hands to pull off, why not just use Lightning? It would be 100% reliable, charge faster, and not cost an extra $40. The dual pad that charges the phone and Apple Watch confuses me, too. I’ll buy one and tell you how I feel. If the base were heavy enough to sit flat and the phone popped on and off without the charger moving, that would be ideal.
  • Colors: I like the red, blue and green, black and white, but the red isn’t like the iPhone SE’s thick, candy-colored red I love; it looks brighter and lighter. I like the blue a lot (it seems the same or close to the blue aluminum Apple Watch Series 6), and the green is like the iPad Air 4’s minty green, so you can match devices (but not all three in the same color).
  • The 12 mini has a 5.4-inch OLED, the 12 a 6.1-inch; both have wide and ultra wide cameras, the A14, and the same colors with an aluminum band between two pieces of glass.

iPhone 12 Pro

Stainless steel in a light blue, a bright gold, silver and graphite: they look like jewelry. The difference between Pro and non-Pro is more subtle this year than last (when the 11 Pro had an extra telephoto lens and OLED the 11 lacked): both now get OLED and the new design, and the standard Pro and 12 are both 6.1 inches, so it’ll be harder for most people to justify the extra money. The Pro has the extra telephoto lens (about 52 mm; the Pro Max about 62 mm), 4K HDR video recording at up to 60 fps (vs. 30 on the 12), a LiDAR sensor (like the newest iPad Pro, but here for low-light autofocus), and starts at 128 GB (vs. 64 GB on the 12).

Which to buy

I want the small size (I wish I could get an iPhone this size that lasted as long), but what we’re getting is an iPhone in this design in an interim period from 4G to 5G, like going from 2G to 3G with the iPhone 3G. The benefit of 5G will come over the next year or two. It comes down to how my brain works: I want the best, and that’s the iPhone 12 Pro Max, with more camera features and what sounds like in-body stabilization. But I don’t want a phone bigger than the iPhone 11 Pro, and the 6.7-inch Max is bigger than last year’s 11, even though the battery would be fantastic. The sweet spot is the iPhone 12 Pro in blue (similar to last year’s Midnight Green, with a blue-gray tint), at 256 GB, unlocked, for $1,099.

Prices: $699 for the mini, $799 for the 12 (with an extra $30 if you don’t activate on Verizon or AT&T), and the 12 Pro starts at $999, with $1,099 for 256 GB and no unlocked fee on the Pro. Which phone are you getting? Do you prefer the 6.7-inch Pro Max, or something smaller like the 5.4-inch mini?

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