Apple launched the new iPhone 12 series recently and it has quite a few new things that need to be addressed. With the new iPhone, Apple has taken a few steps forward, and a few steps back as well. The biggest points of interest are clearly the addition of a smaller sized option to the line-up, a lack of charger in the box, and the design. Let us take a closer look at some key areas of the latest iPhone instalment.
Design
After years of seeing rounded iPhones, the company has finally released a flat design, just like what we saw in the iPhone 4 and 5 series. The glass back and the new colours are not exactly a big change in design so you could call it a revision rather than a reinvention. One thing that stands out though is the new “Ceramic Shield” display which features a new technology making the display of the iPhone 12 much stronger than its predecessors and tests show it to be quite reliable. You can get the phone with aluminium or steel sides, depending on the model and the colour choice.
Cameras
The dual lens cameras on the iPhone 12, 12 Pro and 12 minis, and the triple lens on the 12 Pro Max are nothing short of spectacular. It is certainly one of the most intelligent camera applications that we have seen so far in any phone and you can see the difference in quality immediately. The night mode shots in particular show how the phone stands out, even against the iPhone 11 Pro. The colour accuracy is also quite good, and the images are generally sharper across the board. The selfie camera has also seen a huge improvement with the Deep Fusion technology that Apple has recently developed clearly making a difference.
Display
Apple has finally addressed one of the biggest drawbacks in its phones and introduced OLED displays to replace LCD across the board. The new Super Retina XDR OLED screens bring a huge improvement in the display quality and you can immediately tell the difference. Another great feature is the support for HDR10, which is particularly useful considering that the cameras in the new iPhone 12 are capable of shooting HDR with support for Dolby Vision. You can enjoy your videos in the quality that they are meant to be seen in. However, despite all of that, the lack of higher refresh rates is still a let-down, especially considering how many other competitors are offering refresh rates upwards of 90Hz already.
Performance and Battery
The A14 Bionic incorporated into the iPhone 12 is the first ever 5nm processor which allows the phone to deliver better than ever performance. Running the latest games and performance demanding apps is no problem at all and Geekbench scores also show that quite clearly with the iPhone 12 scoring above 1500. The graphics are no joke either and you get the best in class performance when compared to any other flagship currently available.
All that performance is supported by a battery that is smaller than the previous models but still provides good results, at least on 4G. The 5G antenna does seem to consume the battery much faster and that could be a problem, especially for the smaller iPhone 12 mini. The lack of support for wired earphones and lack of charger in the box will only make the problem look bigger.
How the new iPhone fares in anyone’s hands is entirely dependent on their specific use scenario. We are a bit unsure about its value now but with time we will get a better idea of where the new iPhone really stands.
