Hands-On with the Apple iPhone 12 Mini: Unboxing & First Impressions
Retail Price: $729.00
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A Different Twist
What an absolutely wild year it has been in the gadget space. Who would have guessed that the title of undisputed king of compact mobiles would be on IOS and not on Android? Yet that’s exactly where we are in this market as Android OEMs have all but abandoned the small phone market (looking at you Sony!)
With the release of the iPhone SE earlier this year, Apple reclaimed its spot atop the mountain supplying high end one handed experiences. There hasn’t been another phone of that footprint to even come close to offering what the SE provided users. That is until Apple one-upped themselves in the same calendar year with this brand new iPhone 12 Mini. It’s a head scratching lineup for sure as the Mini and the 12 are redundant at least in the size chart, yet this phone really excites the compact enthusiast in me due to a few important improvements.
First and foremost, the design of this phone brings the modern Apple look to the compact form factor. Whereas small phone lovers had to settle for an outdated (yet still clean looking) iPhone 7 design on the SE, the 12 Mini is legitimately a miniature replica of the iPhone 12 lineup. Everything from the glass back to the reintroduced sharp body lines and Face ID notch; no one is mistaking this as an iPhone 7 like the SE could pass as.
With an Apple A14 Bionic chip and 4 GB of Ram, the Mini continues on with that impressive Apple hardware to software synergy as right out of the box, scrolling through IOS 14 feels smooth as silk. This is even though the phone is working with a somewhat outdated spec of a 60hz refresh rate. While I did feel like it was a step less crisp scrolling around the 12 Mini, (seeing as I just came from a 120 hz display before popping my sim card in this phone) most people upgrading won’t know what they’re missing. Keep in mind that this is a $729 phone so it is in no way a budget device where corners are trimmed drastically. The 12 Mini has Qi charging just like the rest of the 12 family and it supports Apple’s new (or old) Magsafe technology.
Wirelessly charging this phone is going to come in handy seeing as Apple still insists on forcing users to use the archaic proprietary lightning connector. Worse yet, Apple has decided to remove the charging brick in all phone purchases and although they included a charging cable, it is a USB-C to lightning one. If you are upgrading for the first time in a couple of years, chances are you have a USB-A charging brick. You’re going to need to buy a charging brick that takes USB-C as it’s input if you’re planning on using the cable from the box. Things like this just give off bad optics as a money grabbing OEM scheme, especially when the company self-righteously preaches that they are doing this to save the environment.
The rest of the specs on this phone are pretty standard as we have dual 12 MP cameras. One is a f/1.6 26mm wide lens while the other is a f/2.4 13mm ultrawide. The display on this tiny phone is a 5.4 inch Super Retina XDR OLED good for a pixel density of 476 ppi. That’s a sharp looking display numbers wise. We’ve wanted an OLED iPhone display like this for a long time and another first for us on a form factor like this is finally jumping past 720p resolution. This is a 19.5:9 aspect ratio size that hits for a resolution of 1080 x 2340p. Granted Apple never had a problem with quality viewing experiences, but it is nice to get over that threshold on a spec note.
The one potential letdown is that the iPhone 12 Mini has a miniscule battery the size of 2227 mAh. I don’t know how Apple gets a number that specific, but anyway you look at it, that’s a small number for a modern phone. Having an OLED display that is energy efficient for darker pigments with a smaller overall display size could help this phone perform longer, but we’ll have to keep an eye out and report back in our full review. For now, I’m just so excited to have a phone that’s actually smaller than my hand in my (well…) hand again!
Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!