REVIEW: Apple iPhone 12 mini

Dubai - Who says bigger is always better?

Oh no, we're not done yet. After running through three of the iPhone 12 quartet, it seems fitting that we'd like to end the 2020 cycle on a big note... with the smallest of the lot.

When it became clear months ago that Apple was going to launch a small — really small — iPhone this year, questions were raised on how it's going to hold up against the rest of the pack. And now we have the answer.

The iPhone 12 mini can easily be equated to the great-things-come-in-small-packages adage. Yes, looks can be deceiving, and while we already knew that it was really a smaller version of the iPhone 12 on paper, experiencing it makes the difference — and it quite took away that scepticism. Let's go.

TALE OF THE TAPE

As you can see, it's a dead heat, save for the obvious difference in size. And we decided against comparing the 12 mini to the second-generation iPhone SE, since the latter was positioned as a budget device.

FORM

As its names suggests, this is a small smartphone, and it will remind you if iPhones of several years past. We've heard a lot of comments about it once it was in people's hands, but practically the universal descriptions for it are 'wow, it's so cute!' and 'it's like a toy!'

But this 'cute toy' ain't fooling around: Save for literally a couple of main specs (as shown above), this is also a beast.

Heck, it's so cute that it's even smaller than the already diminuitive second-gen SE — and it still has the bigger screen.

It's so easy to fit in your hand and can be safely tucked into a bag or purse. However, if you're clumsy-dumsy, you could easily misplace it, especially if you're used to bigger phones. Not a clear-and-present danger; just saying.

One minor thing is about the notch. If you look closely, it has the same size just like the rest of those in the iPhone notch family.

And upon even closer inspection, that in turn eats up a considerable portion atop. We took the liberty of whipping out an old-fashioned ruler and, based on our calculations, the notch practically takes away five per cent of the screen, considering the slimmer displays on either side of the notch. You will, however, still see the time/network operator name on the left and the signal/Wi-Fi strength and battery level on the right, albeit cramped.

In any case, its 5.4-inch display is pleasantly bright, also boasting a 2,000,000-to-1 contrast ratio, 1200 nits and everything Dolby.

PERFORMANCE

Again, the 12 mini is a literally downsized version of the iPhone 12. The findings in our iPhone 12 review indeed hold up here, but to recap:

• A14 Bionic: Apple's new chipset, the world's first 5nm processor on a smartphone with over 11 billion transistors. Makes the 12 mini up to 50 per cent faster in terms of performance and graphics

• New Neural Engine: More cores, making it 80 per cent faster and can crunch 11 trillion processes in a second, enough to challenge even laptop performance

• iOS 14: A new App Library, more customisable widgets that you can drag onto homescreens, a minimalistic Siri experience and a smarter overall ride

And as if it can't get any cuter, its base storage is, however — and what we also protested about recently — still stuck at a cute 64GB. Don't worry, you can opt for 128GB or 256GB.

CAMERA

Just like the iPhone 12, you get a dual-camera system that has, once again, the best lenses on an Apple flagship by far: The fastest aperture on an iPhone, 27 per cent more light and Smart HDR 3, among others. Night Mode — with 87 per cent better performance — and Deep Fusion are now on all cameras as well, and don't forget about the ability to shoot in 4K Dolby Vision HDR.

There are no qualms about shots in the right lighting conditions, and the 12 mini also has that nice blur effects on certain aspects of a shot, especially profile ones.

Those were taken at 0.5x, 1x and 5x, the max you can go, which still has a good amount of clarity. Notice, though, how the zoom function was able to give more detail on the sunlight being reflected on the Burj Khalifa.

At night, there tends to be some overexposure, and this seems the camera reacting to the light it detects, therefore brightening up the relative areas on shots.

This next snap's a nice one, with a great balance between the water, buildings and the sky. It is, however, brighter than it actually looks.

— alvin@khaleejtimes.com