The first reviews of Apple’s new 5G-enabled smartphones, the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, are in from publications with early access to two of the four new models.
The £999 iPhone 12 Pro has an extra telephoto camera and Lidar-based depth sensor not present on the cheaper £799 iPhone 12, which just has a regular and an ultrawide camera on the back. Neither the smaller and cheaper iPhone 12 Mini nor the largest and most expensive iPhone 12 Pro Max are yet available.
While the redesign with flatter sides and smaller bodies around the same or larger screens has proven popular, some of the improvements to the hardware, including 5G, have not yet paid off. The differences between the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro models are also smaller than ever, while those keen on photography might be advised to wait to see what the iPhone 12 Pro Max with its improved camera system will deliver in November.
The Guardian will have its own reviews of the new iPhones in the next week or so, but in the meantime here’s what those given early access by Apple had to say.
iPhone 12
Costing from £799, the iPhone 12 has a 6.1in OLED screen, two cameras on the back, 64GB of storage and the same A14 Bionic processor as the rest of the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro line.
Dieter Bohn from the Verge notes that the iPhone 12 is noticeably smaller than its predecessor despite having the same size screen:
Overall, though, this design just feels more elegant and confident than the past few years of iPhones, including even the big iPhone X redesign. And the smaller size is the best part; the iPhone XR and iPhone 11 always felt just a little too big. If this is the design we’ll be living with for the next six years, I won’t complain.
The faster processor and smaller design haven’t dented battery life, as Rhiannon Williams from the i notes:
New year, new iPhone, new processor (essentially the brains of the device), and this year’s four new phones all contain the A14 Bionic chip – Apple’s fastest to date, and, it claims, the fastest ever in a smartphone full stop – the same assertion it made about last year’s A13 Bionic processor.
The speed bump is at its most obvious when playing energy-intensive games and processing videos. It’s an incredibly fast chip designed to reduce strain on the battery. In terms of battery life, I found it to be largely in line with the iPhone 11 – ending a 16-hour day with 25-30% charge after sending and receiving WhatsApps and texts, streaming a radio app and running a 40-minute workout app onscreen.
Stuart Miles from Pocket Lint found the night mode and HDR capabilities of the camera to be much improved:
Night Mode, added to Apple’s arsenal in 2019, is like night and day when it comes to low-light photography, and we’re equally impressed with the iPhone 12’s HDR photography capabilities, all the while not really bothering you with dozens of settings to master. Point, shoot, snap, and enjoy seems to be Apple’s mantra here and it works.
TechRadar’s Gareth Beavis concludes that the iPhone 12 is more future-proofed with lots of potential but doesn’t yet feel like a massive change over the iPhone 11 and is more expensive:
The iPhone 12 feels like it’s packed with potential – but Apple is relying on others to make it a success to a large extent. We need to see wider deployment of 5G, and others need to get on board with MagSafe accessories quickly, to really make the new phone an appealing buy. Those things aside, and while the upgrades to the display and design are nifty, the iPhone 12 doesn’t feel massively different to the iPhone 11 – and doesn’t feel like it outperforms its higher price tag in the same way that phone did.
Lauren Goode for Wired found many of the iPhone 12’s features similar to the iPhone 11, including the camera and battery, and, with 5G not a widely developed system yet, she warns:
Get the iPhone 12 if you’re long overdue for a fast phone with a great camera and you prefer iOS and living in Apple’s ecosystem. But don’t get the iPhone 12 solely for 5G. A smartphone, more than ever, should be something that fits into your life and delivers the experiences and connections you need it to. It shouldn’t be an overpriced vehicle for technology you can’t fully take advantage of yet. And it shouldn’t be the cause of more stress. There’s enough of that already.
Engadget’s Chris Velazco was impressed by both the new iPhones but noted that the delta between them has shrunk:
Here’s what I find really interesting about these phones: they’re even more similar than I expected before I started testing them. The gap between the “regular” iPhone and the Pro iPhone has shrunk, and that’s great news for anyone who doesn’t want to spend more for a smartphone than they have to. But it also means deciding between the two is no easy feat.
iPhone 12 Pro
Costing from £999, the iPhone 12 Pro has a 6.1in OLED screen, three cameras on the back plus a Lidar sensor, 128GB of storage (double the iPhone 12) and has the same A14 Bionic processor as the cheaper iPhone 12.
Patrick Holland, writing for Cnet, preferred the iPhone 12 Pro because of its feel:
During my time with both phones, I found myself picking the 12 Pro more. Not because it had a telephoto camera or Lidar, which the 12 lacks: I preferred the matte textured back, the shiny stainless steel band around the sides and the fact that the 12 Pro, despite weighing nearly an ounce (25 grams) more, felt solid and premium in my hand.
Meanwhile, Joanna Stern writing for the Wall Street Journal found the inverse, and that the MagSafe accessory attachment system is good in theory but you need to be a bit careful in practice:
I actually prefer the 12’s lower-end aluminum for its lighter weight. Plus, the Pro’s flashy stainless-steel frame is a fingerprint magnet.
Speaking of magnets, Apple put some in the backside of these phones so you can snap on its new MagSafe accessories. It’s a neat trick – at least in theory. The $59 leather wallet attachment is great for storing credit cards. Except a few times, when I slid it into my jeans, the magnet detached and the wallet flew off.
The Verge’s Nilay Patel found the camera system is only slightly better than its predecessor for still photography:
Compared to the Google Pixel 5 and the Samsung Note 20 Ultra, the iPhone 12 Pro delivers exactly what we’ve come to expect from Apple: great photos in almost every case, with balanced colours and great details. I still prefer the Pixel look ever so slightly, and I am reliably informed that there are people who prefer Samsung’s hyperrealistic colours, but the iPhone 11 Pro was the phone to beat. The iPhone 12 Pro slightly improves on the 11 Pro in most situations and adds the ability to get usable shots in even harder-edge cases.
All in all, the iPhone 12 Pro camera remains one of the most powerful, capable smartphone cameras on the market right now. The problem is that the iPhone 12 Pro Max camera is coming out in less than a month. If you are the sort of person who buys a new phone for the camera, I would definitely wait.
Apple’s focus on video appears to be paying off, however, as Rhiannon Williams from the i found the both the quality and stabilisation to be top-notch:
I filmed 4K videos in broad daylight and at night walking around London and indoors, and was blown away by how smooth and natural-looking the resulting footage was. Shooting a squirrel eating nuts on a fence perfectly captured the colour gradients of its fur and the way the tail blew in the breeze, zooming and panning in a clean and natural manner. It also refocuses automatically and copes well in artificial light and in the dark. I’m no videographer, but the iPhone Pro 12’s camera set up is so impressive I found myself trying to track down interesting stuff specifically to film.
Shooting a bike ride around a park (holding the bike in my hand) in 4K 30fps (frames per second) demonstrated how smooth the handling is, even when rolling over bumpy ground, handling shifts in light quality and auto-focuses as it shoots. Colours are vivid and sharp, textures are clear. Recording a swan stretching its wing highlighted the subtle light reflected off the water and on to the outstretched feathers without oversaturation. The clarity of the Pro camera while recording video is breathtaking.
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