Hey what’s up guys, Will here for GSMArena. While phones keep getting larger
and larger, there are still people out there looking for a compact flagship
With that in mind, this year Apple has come out with the iPhone 12 mini
which offers the features of the latest iphones in a bite sized package. So how small
is this phone, and is it as good as its larger siblings? Let’s find out in our full review.
A small iPhone is not really a new concept. We even saw another small one earlier this year
the iPhone SE 2020, which brought back the design of the iPhone 8. But the 12 mini is even tinier
than that, with more modern features. You get pretty much the same level of quality as the iPhone 12
Just in a more compact form factor. The device is built of glass ,with a flat, matte aluminum
frame, and it really does feel small, and light in the hand weighing in at just 135 grams.
Don't be fooled by that though- it's quite durable. The glossy back is covered by gorilla glass 6,
and the screen has a new shatter and scratch resistant ceramic shield glass. And the iPhone 12
mini has ip68 rated water resistance up to a depth of 6 meters- just like the other iPhone 12 models.
Overall we really like the compact design of the 12 mini- it's the major reason to go for this phone.
Everything on screen is easily reachable with one hand. The matte frame lends a nice secure grip and
the phone will fit anywhere quite easily. Let's talk a bit about the display- a Retina XDR OLED
screen like you'd get on the other iPhone 12s but this one is 5.4 inches. It has a 1080p resolution
and the highest pixel density on an iPhone so far at 476 ppi. One downside you will find here is the
wide notch cut out at the top for the selfie cam and structured light camera. It's the same size as
the notches you'd find on the other iPhones but on this smaller screen it feels bigger than ever.
Still this OLED display is great- it's responsive, with excellent sharpness and deep blacks. Maximum
brightness is respectable at 627 nits and color accuracy is excellent with full support for DCI-P3
content. And you get truetone automatic white balance adjustments based on ambient lighting.
The only thing we wish the iPhone mini and the other iPhone 12s, offered here was a fast
screen refresh rate you just have the standard 60hz. Even though the iPhone 12 mini is so small
Apple still managed to fit stereo speakers in it- a hybrid setup with one speaker at the bottom
and the earpiece acting as the second speaker these speakers are as loud as the ones on the
iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, scoring very good in our test. However sound quality isn't as good here.
While the highs are nice, mids are a bit lacking, and there's little to no bass.
As you'd expect from a new iPhone you don't get expandable storage here.
But you can choose from 64, 128, or 256GB of storage onboard,
And unlocking the iPhone 12 mini, like on other recent iPhones, is done through the
secure and very responsive face ID. It is worth noting that face ID won't work with
a face covering or mask on though- so in those situations, you'd need to enter your pin instead.
The iPhone 12 mini comes with the newest version of iOS 14. If you're coming from an older iPhone,
chances are you already have it, so you know what it's like. iOS 14 brings a few new features
including full widget support on the homescreen. You can stack these widgets in order to save space
and either swipe through them, or set them to be automated. Another new feature is the App Library,
similar to android's app drawer. Your apps are added here automatically when you install them
and they're also automatically sorted into different categories.
Picture-in-Picture mode is a very welcome feature allowing you to minimize your currently playing
video, or supported app, into a floating window that will hover alongside whatever else you're doing.
Great for multitasking. And there's a new shortcut available called back tap. You can assign whatever
you like to a double or triple tap on the back of the phone- actually pretty handy.
At the heart of the iPhone 12 mini is the same chipset you will find on the other new iPhones-
the cutting edge Apple A14 bionic chipset, built on a 5 nanometer process. This phone is super fast- in
cpu tests its scores are about 20% higher than what we saw in last year's iPhones, which at the time
were already at the top of the charts. GPU scores are an improvement as well but less of one- about
a 10% increase over last year. However when it comes to heavy gaming the results aren't as clear of an
improvement over other devices because after the phone heats up from an intensive task performance
will throttle to give the chip a chance to cool down. Still the overall performance is nothing to
sneeze at and since the A14 bionic also comes with a Qualcomm 5G modem, you get support for
5G network speeds, too. The iPhone 12 mini is the world's smallest 5G capable phone to date.
Now, onto the iPhone 12 mini's battery life: its 2200mAh battery is about 20%
smaller than the iPhone 12s despite that it did an okay job in our battery life tests,
scoring an endurance rating of 69 hours. It's nothing impressive for a modern flagship though.
At least charging speed is pretty good with an Apple 20 watt power delivery charger,
we were able to charge the iPhone 12 mini from zero to 60% in half an hour.
But in case you haven't heard yet- none of the new iPhones come with a charger in the box. So you
need to buy one separately if you don't already have one. This year's iPhones bring support for
something called Magsafe- you can attach certain magnetic accessories to the back of the phone.
Besides things like wallets, this includes the magsafe wireless charger. We weren't impressed
with the results we got from this charger though. It was able to charge the battery from zero to
only 30% in half an hour and if you use a generic Qi charger, this will be even slower.
Let's move on to the dual camera setup, which is the same as the regular iPhone 12's
There's a 12mp main camera with OIS with a wider aperture than last year's iPhones and a
12mp, fixed focus ultra wide cam, which has night mode support. This year photos from the main cam
look good, with well-handled noise, accurate white balance and colors, nice contrast, above average
dynamic range, and overall good detail. However just as we observed on the regular iPhone 12
fine and intricate details like foliage are rather mediocre looking. This subpar rendition
is often combined with over sharpening. Portraits are shot with the main camera and look brilliant.
They are sharp and rich in detail with true to life colors, superb contrast, competent separation,
and natural looking backgrounds. Shots from the ultrawide camera are very wide indeed
and the distortion correction does an excellent job. These photos have reasonably low noise,
good contrast, and true to life colors. Detail is just average here though.
If you're shooting in low light, the iPhone 12 mini will automatically make the switch to night mode.
These photos come out quickly and the ones from the main cam look great. They're sharp
and detailed with low noise, well-balanced exposure, and well-preserved highlights. There's good color
saturation and nice contrast, too. You can opt out of night mode and the result is a photo with lower
sharpness and contrast, less saturated colors, and more noise. It's still pretty good though.
Auto night mode shots from the ultra wide cam are pretty usable, with balance exposure and preserved
highlights. There's enough detail and colors are true to life. The photos overall are rather noisy
and soft, though disabling night mode on the ultra wide camera gets you very soft and noisy
images, with washed out colors, so better to leave it on. Now on to selfies, from the 12mp
front facing cam you have a choice between two different framing modes; a 12mp wide mode
or a cropped-in 7mp one with tighter framing. These selfies are class-leading with great
detail and contrast, nice colors, and well handled noise. The HDR is well-balanced, too, giving a
natural look. Selfie portraits are great thanks to the 3D camera. These come out in 7mp and
have outstanding subject separation. Night mode is available on the selfie cam, too, and it does
brighten the whole photo and exposes more detail. The images are still soft and noisy but usable.
You can shoot selfie videos in 4K resolution and these are excellent, with very good detail. Now onto
video captured with the rear cameras, starting with the main one. 4K footage is excellent with
great contrast, low noise, impressive dynamic range, and true to life colors. Fine detail is a little
lacking, but it's hard to notice that 4K footage from the ultra wide is decent but not great.
While you do get excellent contrast, colors, and dynamic range, the resolve detail is just okay.
In low light 4k videos from the main cam look good.
They're detailed enough, with nice colors and reasonably low noise.
Electronic stabilization is available on all cameras, resolutions and fps options. It works great
as it always has on the iPhones, and like the rest of the iPhone 12 series, you can capture HDR videos
straight into the Dolby Vision dynamic HDR video format. The color boosting Dolby Vision
information is saved separately, so the video will look normal on a non-hdr player or screen.
So that's the iPhone 12 mini. You don't see compact flagships too often these days and this one is
great, with this durable build quality, excellent OLED screen, lightning-fast chipset, stereo speakers,
good cameras, and decent battery life, for the size. You get basically the same experience as
the regular iPhone 12, just smaller. Besides a few nitpicks, like the lack of a high refresh rate on
this screen and no charger in the box, there's not a whole lot to complain about here. I would
say that this isn't a device for heavy gaming since the thermals aren't ideal, and the battery
is smaller than most alternatives. But if you're looking for a tiny pocket friendly phone, with the
latest flagship features and plenty of software support down the road, the iPhone 12 mini is
definitely worth recommending. Thanks for watching guys, stay safe, and see you on the next one.