IS IPHONE 12 WORTH THE KIDNEY JOKES?

? Written by Hajra Abdul Ghafoor 

Everyone is excited because it’s the new iPhone time, but the real question is, is it worth the hype?  

Well, it has been a long time since Apple has made this aggressive of a pitch, and I am going to support that claim by firstly inspecting the features and then comparing them with the previous versions! 

So, the core question is, what’s new this year? Well, a lot!! 

New design, MagSafe, OLED screen, processor, camera capabilities and of course 5G! 

Okay, first things first: 

COST COMPARISON: 

It costs a bit more this year, (hence the kidney puns!), it starts from $699 but according to the official site, it was $829 for the base 64-gig model and extra 50 bucks for the 128-gig model. 

Discounts? 

There is a wide range of discounts from US carriers from special instalment plans to $30 discounts right of the bat. 

DESIGN: 

Size-wise, it is smaller than iPhone 11 and it has flat sides and a perfectly flat screen and not the rounded sides that previous versions of iPhone had since the iPhone 6! That actually gives it a modern look and despite those hard corners, it’s quite easy to use. 

But if you want any smaller phone, you will have to wait for the iPhone 12 Mini and if you want a bigger phone, then spring for the iPhone 12 Pro Max!   

(iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Mini will be available for pre-order on November 6 and the shipping will begin on November 13!) 

Colours: There is addition of new colours as well! It comes in blue, white, black, red and light green. 

The rails on the side are aluminium with a matte finish and the back is still regular glass with a glossy finish. 

The front is something Apple calls, “Ceramic Shield”, where they put a ceramic crystalline structure in the material to make it more drop resistant and according to them it is four times more drop resistant than iPhone 11! 

As for scratch resistance, there is no change from before. 

But if you are really looking for something to not like in the design, there might be two things to complain about: 

1. There are a bunch of antenna lines and cut-outs on the rail to make it look a bit asymmetrical. 

2. There is still a big old notch for the Face ID camera. (People with trypophobia might get where I am coming from!) 

But again, neither one of those are a big deal to most people! 

Face ID still works great as long as you are not wearing a mask, it would have been better with a fingerprint sensor though (just a minor suggestion!). 

SCREEN: 

A new thing in the iPhone 12 is the screen. Apple has switched to OLED, which most people think is better, black is blacker and Apple’s dedication to keeping colors accurate is of course profound as always. OLED is what allowed Apple to reduce the size of the bezels and make the phone smaller overall. 

Another nice thing about the screen is more pixels. It is a proper 1080p panel now! In HDR, the regular 12 can still hit 1200 nits of peak brightness   

MAGSAFE CHARGER: 

Magnetic: The new MagSafe wireless is a $39 charging puck and it simply charges as magnet attached to the back of the phone. It means that you can use the phone while it is wirelessly charging, and the magnets are strong enough to hold the phone up.  

Charging Power: A MagSafe charger for iPhone 12 can charge up to 15 watts instead of capping out at 7.5 watts like other wireless chargers. 

Note: You are going to need a strong USB-C adaptor to charge it as it does not come with the box! 

Speed: It is not faster than the cable charger, but overall wireless charging times are definitely faster than other wireless chargers. 

Testing: Almost 40% charge in an hour of testing though overall battery life is quite good. 

Wallet: There is also a shielded wallet that is supposed to keep your cards from demagnetizing, though it can only fit up to 2-3 cards. 

5G:  

Well, we have seen the hype associated with 5G everywhere but still in the developing countries and even in Australia and America, mobile networks are providing limited access to certain places and so there is not much of a difference or it can be even slower in specific areas, though we are hoping for a better future to 5G.  

But to keep battery life good and checking network strength, iPhone 12 has a default mode called Smart Data Mode which drops to the 4G or respective LTE speed once detected, unless the phone decided you really need 5G for something that you are doing! 

But if that irritates you for some reason, you can always turn it off and use 5G all the time if it is available to you. 

Limitations: If you have both physical and an eSIM active on the phone at the same time, you cannot use 5G because of the limitations of the dual-sim, dual-standby in that spec, but you can turn one of them off and get 5G back. 

Bottom Line: Just, don’t buy the phone solely because it has 5G! 

CAMERA: 

Software: Some new updates have been made to the camera this year and Apple has updated and improved its software for processing photos. 

Aperture: The main camera has now a slightly faster aperture. It is 1.6 instead of 1.8 that lets more light in which helps with low light photos. 

It is still the same wide-angle camera, the same ultra-wide camera and the single selfie camera. 

The new software and the A14 bionic processor let the phone extend the night mode to every single camera lens and let it do portrait mode in low light and it also applies better semantic processing to things that phone can recognize like faces or the sky etc. So, compared to iPhone 11, it has less noise and sometimes better colour in photos. 

Though Apple is trying to work on the quality of its ultra-wide camera, but it is a step down from the main camera. 

Though, these are just some of the edge cases but mostly iPhone 12 camera quality won, and it is the major improvement that we think leads! 

Video Quality: Apple is also making big claims about its video quality with HDR and saying that this is a Dolby Vision camera, and of course, it is also the newer version of Dolby Vision and it works great on the iPhone but it will seem weird on other Apple devices like the Apple TV. 

 PROCESSOR: 

There is a new A14 bionic processor in iPhone 12 which is very fast and of course way better than android but also, the main impact it has this year, is on the photo improvements. 

Overall, this iPhone is having several features, but when we single out each of them, then they come with their own limitations. So, this phone can act as a basis for further improvements but if you already have an iPhone, then It is not a must-have but just a minor upgrade! 

Hope this article helped you decide your next steps. If you have any queries, we at ONE IP INTERNATIONAL are always there for your help. Contact our team for any kind of assistance. We would be glad to be of any service! 

REFERENCES:

https://www.apple.com/au/