Review on Apple iPhone 12 Mini, Specs & Price

Apple iPhone 12 Mini is Apple’s latest Smartphone that has made a grand entrance into their phone range with very few compromises. iPhone 12 mini looks almost like iPhone 12 but a difference in the shrink ray. You can as well check out the iPhone 12 mini advantages and disadvantages to know why it’s an outstanding smartphone to buy.

It takes after the sharpness and freshness of the other Apple’s smartphones but with aluminum sides. It has a new ceramic shield covering and a glass back. The ceramic covering is a kind of protection for the screen, which the makers say is triple drop-resistant.

iPhone 12 Mini comes with a modern OLED screen, which is about 5.4 inches on the diagonal. So it is a tiny phone, though the screen is still the same in width as the older 4.7 inch LCD on iPhone SE. It is a long taller, about 1.6mm to the face ID notch, but in all, it is a brilliant, crisp, and colorful phone.

Read Also: A Guide On How To Detect Original iPhone And Fake iPhone. Here, you’ll find all the possible ways to identify and detect original iPhones from the fake Apple iPhones anywhere in the world.

Where to buy Apple iPhone 12 Mini

Konga Nigeria – See Offers

Apple iPhone 12 mini Specs and Features

iPhone 12 Mini key specifications and features includes:

• RAM: 4GB
• Camera: Dual 12MP rear cameras with OIS, 12MP front-facing camera
• Storage Option: 64,128 or 256GB
• Apple iPhone 12 mini comes in the following colors; Black, White, Red, Green, Blue
• Processor: Apple A14 Bionic
• Screen info: 5.4in Super Retina XDR (OLED) (476ppl)
• Weight: 135g
• Water Resistance: IP68 (6 meters for 30 minutes
• Connectivity Option: LTE wifi 6, NFC. Bluetooth5, lightening, ultra-wideband, and location
• Operating System (OS): IOS 14.2
• Battery: Li-Ion 2227 mAh, non-removable type
• iPhone 12 mini has fast charging technology which is 20W, 50% in 30 minute.

Size

Apple iPhone 12 mini, as the name implies, is a tiny phone. It is a 5.4-inch device that weighs about 4.76oz which is about 135 in gram. Though over the years, the phone market has been saturated with a gargantuan size of modern flagships.

iPhone 12 mini might come in a diminutive frame, but its premium content is intact. There are no cutting corners when it comes to the phone’s quality aside from the battery life, which averagely isn’t too bad.

But for every other aspect, it is still that Smartphone, albeit a cheaper price device, that small phone lover will love to own.

Design and Magsafe

When it comes to the design of the Apple iPhone 12 mini, it has been aesthetically done design. The phone is identical to the 6.1 inches iPhone 12 though smaller.

It comes with the same matte aluminum design, the same flat edge, a glossy glass back, and a flat display shielded by Apple’s new Ceramic protective material that offers more improved shatter resistance.

So it is promised to withstand up to 20 feet submersion, which can last up to 30 minutes. The MagSafe system can found on the back of the iPhone 12 mini. This system can be used for a range of snap-on accessories cases, sleeves or a leather wallet attachment, or wireless charging.

There seems to be no much difference in how the MagSafe system operates in iPhone 12 mini to other iphone’s apart from Apple reducing the phone’s peak charging speed over MagSafe, which is about 12 watts, unlike other models that have about 15 watts.

Price and Availability

iphone 12 mini price begins at $699 on contract, which comes from carriers like T-mobile, AT&T and Maybe Verizon, but for the off-contract, it is peg at $729 with 64GB of storage.

More GB of 128GB will be gotten with an additional $50, same with getting 256GB with an additional $150.

The shipping of this phone started on November 13th 2020. Apple iPhone 12 Mini comes with a lightning-to-USB-C cable without wired earpods or charging adapter.

Like the other iPhone 12, the iPhone 12 mini is designed to support millimeter-wave 5G and Sub-6GHz on all networks. So all iPhone 12 models have 5G network support.

Shopping Original iPhone 12 Mini Online

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Apple iPhone 12 mini Display

If you are trying to upgrade from other iPhone models like the iPhone 8, you will enjoy a better display pattern as offered by iPhone 12 mini.

Apple has poised to close the gap between the pro-iPhone and the regular models, and they are giving OLED displays which iPhone 12 mini has got to offer; with the OLED display on iPhone 12 mini, the colors are more vivid, the blacks are truer to life and more profound.

iPhone 12 mini has a pastiche of different colors when used to see a movie, so we can conclude that the iPhone 12 mini’s display repertoire is rich and colorful.

For light meter, the iPhone 12 mini’s screen has a full – screen brightness of 505 nits, which is the maximum.

This might be because a little of the phone’s battery life need to be curtailed for the device’s small battery, but then it is still good enough to read a display outdoors.

The iPhone 12 mini does capture 83.4% of the wider DCI-P3 gamut for color reproduction and 117.8% of the SRGB color space.

iPhone 12 mini Camera

Apple iPhone 12 mini’s camera is almost the same as other iPhone 12 models. The iPhone 12 mini has a 12-megapixel selfie camera and a dual 12-megapixel camera on the rear, which other models have.

The primary wide camera on the iPhone 12 mini captures fantastic photos with low-light performance and improved detail than the previous models. Its ultra-wide camera is enjoyable and fantastic, and the night mode can be used here too.

The video capture on iPhone 12 mini is top-notch same with Dolby vision HDR recording in 4k. The iPhone 12 mini is limited to 12Watt wireless charging, unlike others 15Watt that have come with a MagSafe charger.

The cheapest model of this phone comes with only 64GB of storage, and unfortunately, this will not be enough for downloads, photos, or videos if one needs to store a lot of them.

iPhone 12 mini Performance

Other small phone models might give optimum performance, but iPhone 12 mini gives every bit of high performance. So if you are using the camera, swiping through social media, or gaming, you should be rest assured you will have excellent performance with iPhone 12 mini.

Going by a video encoding test, you would be sure of converting a 4k clip to 1080p, and it will take the shortest possible time. Even for system-wide Geekbench 5 multi-core test, the Apple iPhone 12 mini does better than other models too.

Lastly, the iPhone 12 mini’s graphics power is superb. The 3Dmark’s wildlife benchmark shows another excellent performance by iPhone 12 mini. So the performance by this latest apple’s phone is highly improved

Battery Life

Like the other Apple iPhone 12, where the battery life figures are not published, same is applicable with iPhone 12 mini where the battery information did to be getton from the teardown.

As previously done and discovered, the larger iPhone 12 models like the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 battery life is 8 hours 25 minutes as tested for battery-lasting, i.e., repeated loading of web pages and the screen brightness set 150 nits.

The iPhone 12 mini is then tested, and it then lasted 7 hours 28 minutes on average using the same testing method. But ideally, any test for battery life resulting in less than 8 hours isn’t ideal.

This Smartphone isn’t shipped with a charger, so it more about the new MagSafe charging system. So from this test, the iPhone 12 mini battery might not be a good one for heavy users who need to do things with their phone during the day.

5G Features

As usual, Apple uses 5G networks for its iPhone 12 line, so iPhone 12 mini wouldn’t be an exception. This is why it is prevalent to see phones below $700 being supported by the 5G network.

So the striking thing about Apple iPhone 12 mini is its total support of the next generation networks in all ramifications, which has made it an incredible 5G valued device. 

iPhone 12 mini supports mmWave 5G on all networks whether you purchase it unlocked or not. To fulfill Apple’s promise, the iPhone 12 mini supports more 5G bands than any other device.

So with this assertion, the iPhone 12 mini seems to be the most future-proofed choice for a 5G phone on the market currently.

So it can be concluded to be the smallest 5G phone since 5G phones are always bigger to fit larger batteries to offset their high power draw. But note that 5G consumes a lot of power, so the new feature on iPhone 12, which is also on iPhone 12 mini, the smart data mode, will be enabled.

This feature is to help drop your phone back to the LTE band for less power consumption.  This mostly happens when your screen is off, and background processes are running, or maybe data is being streamed.

The result of this will be longer downloads, but if you still want faster downloads despite the rate of power consumption, you are turned the feature off.

Apple iPhone 12 Mini Full Specs

See below for the iPhone 12 mini full specifications:

NETWORK

• Technology: GSM / CDMA / HSPA / EVDO / LTE / 5G

BODY

• Dimensions: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4 mm (5.18 x 2.53 x 0.29 in)
• Weight: 135 g (4.76 oz)
• Build: Glass front (Gorilla Glass), glass back (Gorilla Glass), aluminum frame
• SIM: Single SIM (Nano-SIM and/or eSIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by) – for China
• IP68 dust/water resistant (up to 6m for 30 mins)
• Apple Pay (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX certified)

DISPLAY

• Type: Super Retina XDR OLED, HDR10, 625 nits (typ), 1200 nits (peak)
• Size: 5.4 inches, 71.9 cm2 (~85.1% screen-to-body ratio)
• Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (~476 ppi density)
• Protection: Scratch-resistant ceramic glass, oleophobic coating
• Dolby Vision
• Wide color gamut
• True-tone

PLATFORM

• OS: iOS 14.1, upgradable to iOS 14.4
• Chipset: Apple A14 Bionic (5 nm)
• CPU: Hexa-core (2×3.1 GHz Firestorm + 4×1.8 GHz Icestorm)
• GPU: Apple GPU (4-core graphics)

MEMORY

• Memory Card slot: No
• Internal                Storage/RAM: 64GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 4GB RAM, 256GB 4GB RAM

MAIN CAMERA

• Dual: 12 MP, f/1.6, 26mm (wide), 1.4µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS
• 12 MP, f/2.4, 120˚, 13mm (ultrawide), 1/3.6″
• It features Dual-LED dual-tone flash, HDR (photo/panorama)
• Video: 4K@24/30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps, HDR, Dolby Vision HDR (up to 30fps), stereo sound rec.

SELFIE CAMERA          

• Dual: 12 MP, f/2.2, 23mm (wide), 1/3.6″
• SL 3D, (depth/biometrics sensor)
• It features HDR
• Video: 4K@24/30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, gyro-EIS

SOUND               

• Loudspeaker: Yes, with stereo speakers
• 3.5mm jack: No

CONNECTIVITY

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 5.0, A2DP, LE
• GPS: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS
• NFC: Yes
• Radio: No
• USB: Lightning, USB 2.0

SENSORS          

• Face ID, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer
• Siri natural language commands and dictation
• Ultra Wideband (UWB) support

BATTERY

• Type: Li-Ion 2227 mAh, non-removable
• Charging: Fast charging 20W, 50% in 30 min (advertised)
• USB Power Delivery 2.0
• Qi magnetic fast wireless charging 12W
• Stand-by: Up to 15 h (multimedia)
• Music play: Up to 50 h

Other iPhone 12 mini Features

• Colors: Black, White, Red, Green, Blue
• Models: A2399, A2176, A2398, A2400, A2399
• Price: $ 729.00 / € 730.09 / £ 659.00 / ₹ 63,900

TESTS

According test performance on iPhone 12 mini the following are noted:

• AnTuTu: 589616 (v8)
• GeekBench: 4174 (v5.1)
• GFXBench: 60fps (ES 3.1 onscreen)
• Display  Contrast ratio: Infinite (nominal)
• Camera: Photo/Video
• Loudspeaker: -24.6 LUFS (Very good)
• Battery life: Endurance rating 69h

Conclusion

Apart from its size and a little hit to its battery life, the iPhone 12 mini can be said to be in a class of its own. I hope other phone makers will have the conviction to build phones like this. Affordable and compact but yet powerful flagship phones that can only be in their class.