A little later in the year than usual, but today we finally saw the announcement of Apple’s newest line-up of iPhones. This time around we didn’t get two, or even three phones, but a total of four new devices ranging both in size as well as in pricing. The iPhone 12 series is a major leap for Apple as they represent the company’s first ever 5G devices, preparing the company for the next generation of cellular networks for the better part of this decade.
The iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max are both straightforward upgrades to the 11 Pro series, whilst the regular iPhone 12 represents the mainstream option as a successor to the iPhone 11. The new entry in the line-up is the iPhone 12 mini – an incredibly exciting device for people who are looking for a more diminutive form-factor device, being smaller and more light-weight than even the iPhone SE released earlier in the year.
Thanks to the new A14 SoC, we’re seeing upgraded performance across the board, as well as greatly improve image processing on the camera systems, with particularly the iPhone 12 Pro Max standing out in terms of its camera systems.
| Apple iPhone 12 Series Specifications | |||||
| iPhone 12 mini | iPhone 12 | iPhone 12 Pro | iPhone 12 Pro Max | ||
| SoC | Apple A14 Bionic 2 × Firestorm 4 × Icestorm | ||||
| DRAM | Yes | ||||
| Display | 5.42″ OLED 2340 x 1080 625nits peak | 6.06″ OLED 2532 x 1170 625nits peak | 6.06″ OLED 2532 x 1170 800nits peak | 6.68″ OLED 2778 x 1284 800nits peak | |
| Size | Height | 131.5 mm | 146.7 mm | 160.8 mm | |
| Width | 64.2 mm | 71.5 mm | 78.1 mm | ||
| Depth | 7.4 mm | 7.4 mm | 7.4 mm | ||
| Weight | 135g | 164g | 189g | 228g | |
| Battery Life | ? mAh -12% video vs 11 | ? mAh +-0% vs 11 | ? mAh -5.6% video vs 11 Pro | ? mAh +-0% vs 11 Pro Max | |
| Wireless Charging | MagSafe Wireless Charging up to 15W Qi Compatible (7.5W) | ||||
| Rear Cameras | Main | 12MP 1.4µm 26mm eq. f/1.6 Optics OIS | 12MP 1.7µm 26mm eq. f/1.6 Sensor-shift OIS | ||
| Tele- Photo | – | 12MP 52mm eq. f/2.0 OIS | 12MP 65mm eq. f/2.2 OIS | ||
| Ultra- Wide | 12MP 13mm eq. f/2.4 | ||||
| Front Camera | 12MP f/2.2 | ||||
| Storage | 64GB 128GB 256GB | 128GB 256GB 512GB | |||
| I/O | Apple Lightning | ||||
| Wireless (local) | 802.11ax Wi-Fi with MIMO + Bluetooth 5.0 + NFC | ||||
| Cellular | 5G (sub‑6 GHz and mmWave**) Gigabit LTE with 4×4 MIMO and LAA **US models only | ||||
| Splash, Water, Dust Resistance | IP68 up to 6m, up to 30 minutes | ||||
| Dual-SIM | nano-SIM + eSIM | ||||
| Launch Price | 64 GB: $699 £699 €809 128 GB: $749 £749 €859 256 GB: $849 £849 €979 | 64 GB: $799 £799 €909 128 GB: $849 £849 €959 256 GB: $949 £949 €1079 | 128 GB: $999 £999 €1159 256 GB: $1099 £1099 €1279 512 GB: $1299 £1299 €1509 | 128 GB: $1099 £1099 €1259 256 GB: $1199 £1199 €1379 512 GB: $1399 £1399 €1609 | |
Starting off with the specifications, one big centre-point figure about the new iPhones 12 series is Apple’s newest A14 SoC chip. Apple had already revealed the chip back last month with the release of the iPad Air. The CPUs still feature 2+4 cores, with Apple a few weeks ago proclaiming a 40% performance boost compared to the A12, which should end up as 16% boost against the A13. Similarly, they had noted a 30% GPU performance boost over the A12, and when we normalise that across generations it would represent a more meagre 8.3% boost