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apple finally did it it made a small
iphone again well small it's pretty
small look it's not
big and it's probably about as small an
iphone as you're ever likely to see
again
this is the iphone 12 mini and normally
when a company makes a
mini version of a phone you expect there
to be a lot of
compromises but with the iphone 12 mini
you only have to make
one well two technically i'll explain
look let's just talk about this little
sucker
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there are a couple of ways that i could
do this review the first and most
obvious is to compare the iphone 12 mini
to the
regular iphone 12 and tell you what's
different between these two phones
basically what do you lose from going
from the big iphone 12 to the mini
iphone 12.
okay well here goes the iphone 12 mini
does everything that the iphone 12 does
but since it's smaller
it has a smaller screen
and it also has a smaller battery that
means that battery life is
a little bit worse and if you're going
to try to make it through a full day of
intense use
you're really going to want to keep an
eye on the battery meter and probably
turn on battery saver
also there is no also that really
is the whole story it really is an
iphone 12
but smaller it costs 729
for the 64 gig model and 779 for the 128
gig model which
really is the one that i think most
people should get that is a hundred
bucks less than the
regular iphone 12 which means that this
is a small phone but it's not
necessarily a
cheap phone you're still paying some
kind of 5g tax on this thing
but you know what just to remind you
what the iphone 12 series is
and what it can do let's go through it
real quick the iphone 12 is a complete
redesign from earlier iphones with
flat aluminum rails a really good oled
screen that's more resistant to drops
and a slightly improved camera setup see
the main camera has a slightly wider
aperture which means that it's better in
low
light but more important is apple's
powerful a14 bionic processor system
helps the iphone do even more
computational photography in more
situations
so you get more detail in low light and
you can do portrait mode in more
situations
there's also an ultra wide camera here
too but there is no telephoto
and the pictures are great if you're
upgrading from anything older than say
an iphone
10s or 10r you're really going to be
blown away
video quality also continues to impress
it just effortlessly handles a bunch of
different lighting conditions
now you should know that this camera
defaults to hdr dolby
vision in video mode so if you're trying
to shoot professionally with
professional desktop video editing apps
you need to be aware of what all that
hdr stuff means
this phone also works with apple's new
mag shape system which attaches cases or
wireless chargers with magnets and one
tiny quirk of the iphone 12 mini is that
it maxes out at 12 watts of wireless
charging instead of 15 watts but
overall the charge time is the same
since the iphone 12 mini has a slightly
smaller battery
apple also has this sort of leather case
thing
and it has a little credit card slot in
it and you put the phone in and it shows
you the time in this little window
it's kind of neat but it's not for me
and finally there's
5g it is fast if you can find it but
it's not so pervasive that i think you
should rush out to buy this phone just
to get 5g
now the fact that apple could even fit
5g in something this small
is impressive and yeah without it they
probably could have made it a little bit
smaller and also a little
bit cheaper but apple decided to include
the millimeter wave
version of 5g which can provide
ridiculous download speeds i've seen
over 2000 megabits per second if i'm
standing in
exactly the right street corner not
around the block or in a building
look 5g is fine but it's not
the reason to buy this phone so that is
the first way to review the iphone 12
mini but it
kind of misses the point the second way
to review this phone is to actually talk
directly to the people who have been
waiting for something
like this for years these are the people
that are hanging on to their small
iphones for dear life and i mean the
truly small iphones the ones that are
based on the
iphone 5 or 5s or more likely the
original iphone se the ones that
look like this well not like this i got
mine custom anodized in
orange because back in the day apple
hated fun colors
not like now by the way you can get the
iphone 12 mini in black white
blue red or a kind of a seafoam green
anyway
there may be a larger group of people
these are the people that have a newer
iphone
that they think is just too damn big
people who want to go back to the good
old days of having a phone that doesn't
feel
like a little ping-pong paddle when they
hold it and who want a phone that fits
in their
damn pocket because even though the
phones that are based on the iphone 6
through the 8 or this newer iphone
se they're not that big by recent
smartphone standards
when they were released they were first
thought it was big phones so
you know i personally am not actually
that mad about the size of phones these
days
even though i generally prefer smaller
phones you know who is mad though
my friend and our deputy editor liz
lepato look if i wanted an ipad
i would buy an ipad okay
like i i want a phone i would like
something that fits in my hand that i
can operate with one hand
portability real big for me i like my
current phone
it's an 11. i resisted buying it for a
really long time the phones are too
damn big like i have jerry rigged this
with a handle on the back and it's still
fingers underneath to prop it up and
then i can operate it but
okay so i'm not as mad as you about big
phones because i am lucky
i have large pockets in my pants however
i've got the iphone 12 mini here
it is my favorite of the new iphones i
just want to know what you think of it
oh it's so small
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um i can hold this and also reach the
other end of the phone
this feels like it's a little bigger
than the fc was is that right yeah it's
just a little bit taller
no but this is i could even go smaller
if i'm honest about it
but it's exciting to be able to actually
operate a phone one-handed again
yeah how do you feel about the sides
being a little bit more squared off than
most
more recent iphones that are curved i
don't care you don't care
i mean i look i i understand that i work
at a site with a lot of people who get
really excited about these sorts of
design things yeah
um but i'm just much more of a
functional user than that
like i i don't mean to blame anybody who
does it's not i don't care
so that is probably about as small as
phones are ever going to get because all
phones have to have 5g now and they need
to fit the 5g components in there so i
don't know is it
did they do it small enough for you yeah
i mean like look i
i'll be honest with you it's not going
to fit in my pocket probably okay so i
could do smaller
but the basic thing is can i operate it
while holding it yeah and i can operate
it while holding it my thumb reaches the
entire phone
so yeah it is small enough
i said at the top of this video that
there were two compromises you make by
getting this smaller iphone 12 mini
instead of the default iphone 12.
so let's talk about them the first one
is battery life and i know it's a big
question mark
so i just i'm gonna tell you what my
experience has been i definitely noticed
a difference between the regular iphone
12
and the iphone 12 mini and the upshot is
that while i kind of had to work to kill
the iphone 12 by the end of the day
with the iphone 12 mini i could do it
pretty easily now with a little bit of
care and how you use it and strategic
use of battery saver i do think you can
get through a full day with no problems
but
you got to keep an eye on it apple
doesn't give up specs for its battery
sizes which
you know it's really annoying i get that
lots of things affect battery life and
you can't tell everything from just the
milliamp count of the battery but
it's still really helpful information
anyway all we know for sure is that the
battery is smaller but then
the screen is smaller too so that takes
up less power with battery
saver and a little care in how you use
it you can get through a full day
it's a disappointment but it's not a
surprise
but it does mean that i use this phone a
little bit differently from how i use
big phones look i don't know if this is
coming through in the video yet so i
just have to tell you
i love the iphone 12 mini it just feels
so much better to hold it's more
ergonomic
i can even reach the control center
panel swipe down
thing by reaching my thumb up too
without contorting my whole hand
i know that it's not like the itty bitty
smartphones we used to get back in the
day and i know it doesn't fold in half
like the z-flip or the razer
but it is still way more pocketable than
most smartphones today
and it manages to do all that without
making you give up too much to get a
smaller phone
i think the regular iphone 12 is
probably still a better bet for most
people but this one this one's my
favorite
hey everybody thanks so much for
watching of course we have reviews the
iphone 12 and 12 pro but if you're
looking for a review of the iphone 12
pro max the big one neil has a review of
that and you should check it out