iPhone 12 vs 11 vs XR vs SE — Don't Choose WRONG! By Rene Ritchie

- Apple has just unleashed four new iPhones this year. From the 12, to the mini, to the Pro, to the Max. But if any or all of those are just too rich for your blood, then Apple also has a few other, lower priced models, still on their virtual shelves. The 11, 10R and SE. If you need to upgrade, if you need a new phone, but you don't want to pay just anything more than you absolutely have to, then one of these lower priced iPhones just might be perfect for you. But which one? What are you getting and what are you giving up? Well, sit back, relax and hit that subscribe button and bell.

And I'm going to walk you through all of it right now. Sponsored by Brilliant. So, Apple has actually held the line this year on iPhone Pro based pricing, and even double the storage and lowered the higher capacity options. Yeah, a rare 2020 miracle. The iPhone Pro starts at a $1000 for 128GB.

Goes to $1100 for 256GB, and then jumps to $1300 for 512. Max starts at $1100, goes to $1200 and then all the way up to $1400. The regular iPhone 12 though, has gone back up in price. Blame OLED, blame 5G, whatever. It starts now at $830 for 64 GB, goes to $880 for 128 and $980 for 256.

And the iPhone 12 mini just slots in right under that. Starting at $730 and going up to $780 and $880. And if that's just way too much for you to spend on an iPhone, you can get an iPhone 11 starting at $600 for 64GB, $650 for 128 or $750 for 256. Or an iPhone 10R starting at $500 for 64GB, or $550 for 128, but strangely just no 256GB option. Or an iPhone SE, which is basically the guts of an iPhone 11 in an iPhone 8 body.

Starting at $400 and going up to $450 or $550, with, yes, a 256GB option. So if you know what you want to spend, you can whittle right down to which model and which storage size you want to spend on. Just remember, that with the smaller storage capacities, you won't be able to keep as many photos, or songs, or videos, or games or pretty much anything locally on the device. If you stream all your content and store all your things in all the clouds, maybe you'll be fine with 64 GB. For most people though, I think 128 GB is gonna be the sweet spot.

Especially since it's just $50 more across the line, and if you can afford it, I really recommend it. If you want stainless steel bands, silver, graphite, 18K gold or pacific blue colors, you'll need to go with the iPhone 12 Pro. Otherwise you'll get aluminum bands, but an even wider variety of color choices. And yes, even if you put a case on, you'll still see the color sticking out at you. So really, if you're spending the money, make sure you get a color that you like.

Interestingly, the iPhone 12 has one fewer option than the 11 or the 10R. Black, white, a slightly more orange product red, a deep blue and a minty green. With the iPhone 11, you lose the blue, but get a light lavender purple option, as well as a yellow. A slightly different, but still minty green and a more neutral product red. With the iPhone 10R, you lose the purple, get a sky blue back, a deeper yellow, an orange coral and a slightly more blueish red.

And for the iPhone SE, it's just black, white and neutral product red all over. But yes, pick the phone first, and then the color you like for that phone When it comes to display technologies, by skipping the iPhone 12s, you're gonna be skipping the triple density OLED displays that are across that entire lineup now. Those have high dynamic range and high contrast ratios for deep inky blacks, bright whites, lots of detail in the highlights, and the shadows, and rich vibrant colors. And there are some problems with OLED, absolutely, like color shifting and smearing and more, but Apple's done a really good job at just mitigating all of that. So they look terrific for watching movies, TV Shows, looking at photos.

What you get with the iPhone 11, 10R and SE instead, are double density LCD displays. They're still wide-gamut, so you still get richer reds and vibrant greens, but you don't get the same high dynamic range, the same high contrast. Now, Apple uses really, really good LCD panels with excellent color calibration. So unless you really care about HDR or are holding them side by side with OLED, you may not even recognize or care about the differences. In terms of size, if you don't get an iPhone 12, you don't get the option for either a Pro Max or a Mini size.

The 6.7 inch Max can either show you more information, or show you the same information, just bigger. Which is better if your eyes are worse. Though, it's harder to use one handed or fit in a pocket. The 5.4 inch mini is the opposite. Much, much easier to use one handed and fit into pretty much any pocket, but much less and smaller text on the screen.

Almost all the other iPhones are 6.1 inches, at least when it comes to the displays. That's the 12, the 11 and the 10R. They're all the same screen sizes. Just the 11 and 10R are slightly bigger, thicker and heavier, because they have to squeeze in those LCD screens. Otherwise, it's just Goldilocks, all the way, all of them.

If you want small, but don't want to pay Mini prices, there's also the iPhone SE. It's a little bigger physically, but at 4.7 inches, it has an even smaller display. And that's thanks to the classic design, with the forehead and chin. Rather than the more modern, Edge 2, almost Edge design of the others. It's still pocket-able and one hand-able, just with a much, much lower screen to bezel ratio.

So if you want the biggest, or you want one of the smallest, you have less choice to make. But if you want one of the 6.1 inch sizes, then you can choose based on price and other features. And that includes things like the new ceramic shield on the iPhone 12 models. Which is ceramic impregnated glass that combined with the flatter design has Apple rating them as four times harder to break than the previous iPhones, like the iPhone 11. Now they're all still chemically strengthened, and ion exchanged on the 12s, 11s, 10R and SE.

Which just means if you drop your phones a lot, like I tend to do, you'll want to go for a 12 and probably, in any case, go for a case. But in terms of scratch resistance, scratch protection, they're all the same. So get screen protectors as needed. For particle ingress protection, it's also the same. Which basically means dust and dirt.

They're IPv6, which is pretty much as good as you can get. Water resistance varies a lot though, where the iPhone 12 models, all of them, will give you up to six meters for 30 minutes, the 11 will only go up to two meters and the 10R and SE, only one meter. So you can't swim or anything like that with any of them, because they'll eventually if you do. But if accidents happen in the bath, at the pool, at the beach, in the rain, you'll have as much protection, basically, as you pay for. The biggest differences between the iPhones, are the cameras.

And the biggest differences between the cameras are how many there are, and how good they are, and how many computational modes they have. They're all 12 megapixels, just all the time, at least on the back. And they all have wide angle cameras. The iPhone 12 Max is just a wide aperture, big sensor, low-light monster. With the other iPhone 12s just being a step behind it.

All of the iPhone 12s, and the iPhone 11, also have an ultra wide angle camera. Which means you can, kind of, zoom out, to capture more of what's in a scene. And the iPhones 12 Pro have a telephoto, with the max being slightly worse aperture, but also slightly more telephoto-y. So you can kind of zoom in to get better close ups. For computational modes, the iPhone 10R has the original Smart HDR, while the iPhone SE and 11 have the second generation, and the iPhones 12s, the third gen.

The iPhone 11 also has Deep Fusion, for mid level light and textures, and night mode for low-light, but only on the wide angle. The iPhone 12 has both of those things, for just all of the cameras. With the iPhone SE and 10R you get a single lens monocular portrait mode. Which uses phase adjust and segmentation masking for pretty decent results. On the 11 and regular 12, you get wide angle portrait mode with optical depth, which is better, but all of those really only work in decent lighting.

The iPhone 12 Pros, though, with LiDAR scanners, can do really damn good wide angle and telephoto portrait mode, even in low-light and full on night mode. In general they're all great in normal conditions, especially outside, during the day. But the new models are just much, much better at low-light. So if you really need that full on low-light functionality, especially indoors and at night, you're really gonna want to go with the iPhone 12 Pro, if not the iPhone 12 Pro Max. And yeah, the selfie camera story is very similar.

Just 12 megapixels with a slightly wider mode, only on the iPhone 12s and 11. And 7 megapixels on the 10R and SE. And the SE isn't a true depth camera, so it can't do any of the fancy, fun, AR stuff. It's just a regular facetime camera. For video, for a long time the iPhones have just had, best in class.

Some of the best in the game. And all of these, just all of them, can capture up to 4K at up to 60 frames per second. And slow-mo it up to 1080p at 240 frames per second. The difference is, the iPhone 10R and iPhone SE cap out at 4K30 with the extended dynamic range. While the iPhone 11 can go up to 4K60 EDR.

Which is great, except that the iPhone 12s can now go up to 4K30 in full on HDR. Dolby Vision high vision high dynamic range. And the iPhone 12 Pro, up to 4K60 in that mode. And of course you get that video in wide angle on all of them, ultra wide on the 12s and 11, and telephoto on just the 12s Pro. So it really comes down to, do you wanna shoot just, casual video under normal conditions, or do you want to pay more to shoot next level video under a wider range of conditions.

If you really, really care about the speeds to go with your feeds, both the iPhones 12 and the iPhone 11 go up to Wi-Fi 6, which is 802.11ax. The iPhone 10R and SE cap out at Wi-Fi 5, or 802.11ac. All of them are Bluetooth 5.0, but only the iPhone 12s and 11 have the new U1 ultra wideband chip. Which, frankly, doesn't do much of anything right now, but will be playing a big role in future features, like car keys or virtual keys for your car and Find My, so you can exactly locate your stuff, down to the inch. Especially if and when those long rumored Apple tags first and third party actually rollout.

The biggest difference here, though, is cellular. The iPhones 12 all support 5G NR, New Radio. Maybe you heard. Of course, whether your carrier, in your area, supports it or not is a way bigger question. And sure, getting 5G iPhones now will future-proof you if you get 5G soon, but if not, future iPhones will have even better, more efficient 5G radios.

So you know my advice. Wait as long as you possibly can to buy, then buy when you absolutely need to, and then just enjoy the hell out of what it is you buy, and have zero regrets. Because there will always be something better coming next. Which is great, because it just means that whatever you buy next will be that something better when you need to buy it. For 4G LTE, the iPhones 12s go up to two gigabits, while the iPhone 11 and SE go up to one gigabit and the iPhone 10R tops out at LTE Advanced.

Which is, yeah, slower than one gigabit. Biometrics is another key difference. It's what lets you skip having to enter your passcode or password, making it much easier and more convenient to unlock, authenticate for purchases, use Apple Pay, just all of that stuff. And almost all of the iPhones now use Face ID. That's Apple's facial geometry scanner.

It identifies you based on the structure of everything between your eyes and your nose. Which, in normal times, is just super quick as to be almost transparent. But it does not play nicely with masks, like at all. Because masks, when worn properly cover your nose, which is one of the three points Face ID needs. And all of us are just wearing a lot more masks, a lot more often these days.

The iPhone SE though, still has a home button, and that means it still has Touch ID, or Apple's fingerprint scanner. And that identifies you based on the swirls and ridges of your fingers. It has some problems if you've just washed your hands and the moisture levels has changed, and it doesn't work at all with gloves, but masks are zero problems. And that's probably not what you want to base your entire decision on, but if it's important to you then make sure you consider it. For battery life, the iPhone 12 Max, by virtue of its size, is just max, because there's so much battery.

It's rated for up to 20 hours of video playback. On the flip side, the iPhone 12 Mini, also by virtue of it's lack of size, has mini battery life, because there's just less battery. So it's only rated for 15 hours of video playback. The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 are both around 17 hours, and so is the iPhone 11. And the iPhone 10R is just behind it, with 16 hours.

And yeah, that leaves the iPhone SE in dead last, with 13 hours. For the iPhones 12, a lot of that has to do with the OLED and the A14, which gives them a boost. But if you go on 5G, especially millimeter wave in the US, that advantage will just drain away fast, especially on millimeter wave in the US. And they can all charge, inductively, on cheese standard pads, up to 7.5W. But the iPhone 12s can also use the new MagSafe magnetic inductive charging system, which will just take you all the way to 15W.

They all still have lightning ports. Sorry, so sorry, no USB-C. And can fast charge up to 50% in 30 minutes, with something like Apple's new 20W AC Adapter. So, the only big difference here, MagSafe aside, are bigger and more expensive phones have bigger and longer lasting batteries. And the little, less expensive phones have littler and less, because, physics.

So if you want the fastest, most energy efficient processor in the industry right now, you're gonna have to go with the iPhone 12 and the brand new A14 bionic. It's on a five nanometer process with better CPU, GPU, a 16-Core neural engine, blazing fast machine learning, with 4GB of ram for the regular model, 6GB for the Pro, and that's just enough overhead for all the compute you need now and probably five years or so of IOS updates down the road. So like, IOS 19 in 2025. The 7 nanometer A13 bionic in the iPhone 11 and iPhone SE is no slouch either. And probably still better than a lot of what's in other phones on the market today.

Not quite as much compute as the A14, but it still has 4 GB of ram and that means you should still get up to four years of updates, to about IOS 18 in 2024. The A12 bionic in the iPhone 10R, is a little older now, but still 7 nanometer and a similar architecture. Just not as much compute.3GB of ram, and probably only good for updates out to IOS 17 in 2023. Which, to be fair, is the maximum currently offered by the very best of the best Android phones, by the likes of Google and Samsung. Now, day to day, you'll only really notice the difference in things like, how many photographic modes you get and how fast they resolve.

How well big games play and big social media apps stay in memory, before they get jettisoned. And yeah, more is always more, but also sometimes enough is enough. Especially with just how damn good Apple silicon is in general these days. Especially with how it's using AI, and machine learning, and computational photography and audio. Basically using all the bits and algorithms to do far more than the atoms themselves are capable of.

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Just check out the explanations and keep going. Head on over to brilliant. org/reneritchie and sign up for free. For free. Just click on the link in the description or go to brilliant.

org/reneritchie and the first 200 of you can also level up with 20% off the annual premium subscription. And clicking on that link just really helps out the channel. For more, just a ton more on the iPhone 12 hit the playlist above. I've already got a full, hyper detailed review up, with every single feature you need to know about and lots more to come. So click the playlist and I'll see you in the next video.

Source : Rene Ritchie