The Apple iPhone 12, launched in October 2020, comes with an Apple A14 Bionic chip, OLED display, and 5G connectivity. The iPhone 12 with 128GB storage variant costs Rs. 84900 in India. However, we bought the phone at an effective price of Rs. 54,900, which includes a trade-in Value for iPhone X worth Rs. 24,000 and HDFC bank cashback offer worth Rs. 6000.
iPhone 12 Design
The iPhone 12 is lighter than both the iPhone 11 and iPhone X. It features a flat-screen, flat back, and flat frame, similar to the older iPhone 4 and 5 models. The phone is using an aluminum frame and Gorilla Glass 6 protection on the back glass. On the front, Apple has used a new Ceramic Shield material, which increases the drop resistance by up to four times.
I think this design is more suitable for smaller models. With this design, the iPhone 12 mini is perfect for holding and using. Due to its sharp edges and bigger size, the iPhone 12 is less comfortable to hold the phone for longer durations. It is also difficult to lift the phone from flat surfaces due to the edges being skiddy and sharp.
Coming to the ports, the iPhone 12 has the silent switch and volume rockers on the left-hand side top, and at the bottom, it has a single Nano-SIM tray. On the right-hand side, it has the power button, which is wider than the power button on the iPhone X. On the bottom, there is a lightning port, along with the speaker grills and a microphone. The phone is IP68 water and dust resistant.
iPhone 12 Display, Performance, and Battery life
All iPhone 12 models come with OLED displays and feature a Full-HD+ resolution. The display on iPhone 12 is gorgeous and vibrant, viewing angles are great, and Sunlight legibility is excellent. Watching videos and playing games on this phone is a pleasure. Apple didn’t include a higher refresh rate, but it hardly matters, as the scrolling and navigating is super smooth on iOS.
Under the hood, the iPhone 12 has an Apple A14 Bionic (5 nm) chipset paired with quad-core graphics. Coming from the iPhone X, which uses the Apple A11 Bionic (10 nm) SoC, the performance on iPhone 12 is significantly faster, and the apps also stay in memory for a longer duration. The phone did heat up during the initial setup, but since then, we didn’t face any further heating issues while playing games or using the camera, and even while charging. We played the CarX Highway Racing, and it ran in the highest possible quality without dropping a sweat. Face ID is lightning fast on this phone, definitely faster than the iPhone X. Out of 128GB, 119GB was available for use.
The phone came with iOS 14.2.1 out of the box, and there was an iOS 14.3 update available. The privacy features on iOS 14 have been the talking point all over. The privacy controls have become very granular. The App store demands the app developers to display the type of data they collect in their app description. Also, the user has an option to “Ask app not to track” if they choose to.
We felt that the battery life is above average on this phone. We were getting more than 6 hours of screen on time on iPhone X, which is at 83 percent of its battery capacity. And on iPhone 12, we are getting around 6 hours 43 minutes hours of screen on time. However, this may improve to more than 7 hours once the device adapts to usage habits. The phone supports up to 20W fast charging. When using the 12W iPhone X charger, the iPhone 12 takes about 1:45 minutes to full charge, with “Optimized Charging” turned on, and 0 to 80 percent takes about 1 hour.
iPhone 12 Camera
The iPhone 12 comes with a dual rear camera setup of 12 MP (f/1.6) primary sensor and a 12 MP (f/2.4) 120-degree ultra-wide-angle lens. On the front, it has a 12 MP (f/2.2) camera with Retina Flash and EIS support. The cameras support Night mode and Deep Fusion and can record Dolby Vision HDR video at 30fps.
The primary camera takes brilliant pictures, even with casual clicks. One doesn’t need to be a professional photographer to take great photos with this camera. We took pictures during day/night, and the results were excellent. The colors were natural with great detail, and it did not add any effects like few other smartphone cameras out there. The portrait mode is extremely sharp with good detail. Videos are amazing as well, with excellent optical stabilization. The front camera is also decent enough for those casual selfies.
Images taken from iPhone 12’s primary camera during daytime
Images taken from iPhone 12’s primary camera during night time
Portrait mode images
Ultra-wide-angle images taken during daytime
Ultra-wide-angle images taken during night time
iPhone 12’s front camera images
Final thoughts
It’s a great device, no doubt. If you are looking for a high-performance mobile with absolutely brilliant cameras and privacy features and you are willing to spend a few extra bucks, look no further. However, if you are currently using the iPhone 11 or iPhone XR, you won’t gain much performance improvements. In the box, Apple includes a USB Type-C to lightning cable and a SIM ejector tool. No charger or earphones are included, and if you don’t have a USB Type-C charging adaptor in your home, you will have to buy one.
Pros:
- Gorgeous display
- Excellent cameras
- Amazing performance
- Perfect weight distribution
- Lightning-fast Face ID
- Unmatchable iOS privacy features
Cons:
- No accessories in the box
- Extremely pricey compared to the US. They should have fixed the price at 10k lesser
- Above-average battery life (may improve with the usage as it’s adaptive)
- Sharp edges are problematic without a case
- The ugly notch hasn’t gone away
Credits – Siva, OnlyTech Community Forums
