Which iPhone Should You Buy? (2021 iPhone 12 Buying Guide) | Tech Chap By The Tech Chap

Hello, you lovely people, I'm tom, the tech chap and one of the big questions I get asked all the time is: what iPhone should I buy? And so here we are. I've got all four iPhone 12s, the mini the standard 12, the pro and the pro max, and I've also got last year's flagship, the 11 pro max just for a bit of comparison to see if the 12 series is really that much of an upgrade and if so, which one should you go for, so I'll put links to all of these in the description below. If you want to check them out and if you do find this video helpful- which hopefully you do then a cheeky little like and subscribe, would be amazing. I'm like this close to a million subscribers. Okay, let's start with, what's new and across the board, the 12 series gets a slight design refresh with flat, rather than curved edges akin to the latest iPad Air and pros. We also get MagSafe support, which gives you faster wireless charging and also connects to a fairly small range of accessories.

The new ceramic shield glass is also four times more drop resistant according to apple. So if it falls out your pocket, or you drop it on the pavement, it's less likely to shatter, although I still wouldn't really recommend it. Also, every single iPhone 12 has an OLED screen because previously on the 11 series, only the pro models had ole duh. The standard 11 just had the usual LCD, which was fine, but it lacked the contrast and the deeper colors of it soled brothers. But now we get OLED across the board, which is perfect to see, although, sadly, we are still limited to 60 hertz on all iPhone 12 models, uh no high, refresh 90 or 120 hertz, which is probably my biggest criticism, or at least the biggest sort of missing feature of the 12 series compared to its android rivals.

So it's almost certainly going to be the iPhone 13 before we get high refresh on an iPhone which isn't the end of the world, but a little disappointing. So we've had a bit of a design refresh, but we're getting the same two or three camerae module at the top left here. The fairly chunky notch at the top hasn't changed at all, and we still get Apple's lightning charger, still no USB. Unfortunately, there are rumors, of course, that the next iPhones may be even portlets completely portlets. That's a horrible word uh, but just rely on sort of wireless data transfer, but obviously one of the big slightly controversial changes this year.

You can see from just how thin these boxes are. Are you don't get a power charger or headphones in the box? Anymore? Apple says this is to help reduce waste and help the environment, which is great, but if you do want to take advantage of one of the new features which is faster, 20 watt charging. You now have the privilege of paying them 20 pounds for the new fast charger, thanks apple, but I think the headline feature with the 12 series is the support for 5g all four get 5g, which is great, but probably still not uh, throw your current phone in the bin and rush out to buy a new one kind of upgrade. Of course, it makes your phone more future-proof and will come in handy over the next. You know a few years, but right now, it's probably not like an essential upgrade.

We also get apple's faster a14 chip inside uh. They all share the same processor, which is great, although the pro and the pro max both have six gigs of ram uh, whereas the lower two tier models come with just four gigs and basically what that extra ram does is mean you can go further back in your recently used apps and then instantly resume an app as opposed to having to sort of relaunch it fully, which you'd have to do more regularly on the phones with just four gigs. But aside from that, it doesn't really make any difference to the day-to-day sort of speed or performance of the phone. We also get improved cameras. All four models now get the upgraded smart hdr3, which is basically just their marketing term, for how it handles the bright and dark areas in a photo.

So it's slightly more realistic. Now, portrait mode now works with every lens plus we now get night mode with the ultra-wide in the video department, you can now shoot Dolby Vision, HDR, which is technically impressive, but not something I actually use very often. The two pro models also get an extra telephoto zoom lens, as well as a LIDAR sensor, which helps with focusing on low light and also a better augmented reality which I'll come back to in a second plus. These two support, apple's new pro photo format. If you want the highest quality photos that maybe you want to edit afterwards and also exclusive to the 12 pro max, we actually get a much bigger main camera sensor and also improved stabilization, but all four have the exact same 12 megapixel front camera.

So if you're an Instagrammer, influencer narcissist person, then you'll be just as happy with any of the four phones. Now the last change isn't really an upgrade, because across the board, the 12 series have slightly smaller battery capacities, uh versus the 11 series, and of course, if you're also using a 5g network that will drain your battery even quicker. Now, the more efficient a14 chip does help to even that out a little uh, but really looking at about the same battery life or a little less if you are using 5g. So to sum up, we're now getting four models, including this new, very cute, mini iPhone.12 we've got a slight redesign with a range of new colors, tougher screen, the MagSafe compatibility faster charging, 5g support the new a14, slightly more versatile cameras, and they're also now a little more water resistant ip68 to six meters rather than four. So that's what's new, but the next question is which one should you actually buy? Well, I can tell you, which is most popular in terms of what most people buy, and that is actually the iPhone 12 Pro max.

And surprisingly, I didn't think this would be the case. The least popular is the iPhone 12 mini. I didn't really expect that, but yeah this hasn't sold quite as well as the others, but it doesn't really matter what other people are buying, because this is all about you. So let's talk pros and cons of each and let's kick off with the smallest and the cheapest, the 12 mini for 700 pounds or 700. This is the cheapest of the 12 range and, of course, the big selling point of the mini aside from the price is that 5.4-inch screen. It really does feel small uh compared to the other iPhones.

This is the standard 12 6.1 inch and yeah. It's a good deal smaller. So if you are a fan of more compact sort of one-handed phones that don't take up a ton of room in your pocket or your bag, then this is definitely a good option and, what's really impressive, is that it's not really a big compromise over the other ones. In fact, it shares almost all the same features with the 12, with the only difference really being the screen size and also the battery life, and aside from maybe the pixel 5, you can't really get a better camera on a phone at this price point, and it's actually also got the sharpest screen. The pixel per inch density is just a little higher than the other ones.

You wouldn't really notice it in real life, but technically yeah. This is the sharpest screen. The only real downside of the 12 mini is the battery life. It's not terrible, but compared to the other iPhone 12s, it does fall behind quite a bit. So that's the mini, but let's move on to the standard iPhone 12, which will cost you a hundred pounds more.

So this is 800 pounds or 800, but really there's not much difference between this and the mini. It's just the slightly bigger 6.1-inch screen, which I think is a good size. It's kind of like a nice sort of sweet spot between the pro max and the mini. The battery life is a little longer as well. You can expect about an extra hour from this over the mini, but I think for me the 12 is probably gonna, be the sweet spot for a lot of people uh in terms of size, value for money and also just features, so they're they're kind of regular 12s.

But now, let's move to the pro series and if we start with uh the 12 pro, this will actually cost you 200 pounds more than the iPhone 12. So it is quite a bit more expensive, but you are getting a lot more for your money with a third lens, giving you two times: telephoto zoom, as well as a LIDAR scanner which I'll come back to in a second. We also get night mode portrait shots which are exclusive to the pro models and, as you can see, if I bring back the standard 12. We're actually getting this matte glass back rather than the glossy one and on the edges we're getting a stainless steel kind of glossy side versus this uh color matching aluminum on the stunner 12 and the mini other differences with the pro is that we get a slightly brighter screen. This actually peaks at 800 nits, with standard SDR content versus 625 on the regular 12s, although all four phones do actually peak at 1200 nits when they're playing HDR content.

Now, if I bring up geek bench five you'll see we actually get two extra gigs of ram on the pro models. Six uh versus four, as I say, makes a bit of a difference when it comes to multitasking, but that's about it. More importantly, though, is, if I jump into where is it general settings and then storage? I've actually got the 512 gig model here, but the pro phones start at 128, gigs of storage uh, whereas the regular iPhone 12 starts at 64. So you are getting double the storage. If you pay the extra for a pro plus, you have the option, as you can see, to uh whack it up to 512 gigs.

If you are Mr moneybags, but I think, aside from the storage, it's in the camera department, where we've had one of the biggest upgrades, as I say, we've got the third telephoto lens. So you can see here I can punch into two times optical, and then we've also got this LIDAR or light detection and ranging scanner, and it's designed to help with low light, focusing it also unlocks nighttime portrait or sorry night mode portrait, shots which you don't get on the regular 12s and also, of course, improved augmented reality. So it's a little sort of more accurate for measuring and 3d spatial things. So for a cool 1000 pounds you can bag yourself. The 12 pro, which is to say, is 200 more than the standard 12 and for that you're getting the slightly more refined design.

The third camera lens, the telephoto zoom, plus the LIDAR double the storage and two extra gigs of ram. Now last, but by no means least, let's have a look at the new 12 pro max and kind of surprisingly starting at 1100 pounds. It's actually only a hundred more than the 12 pro. So there isn't like a massive price difference between them, and for that, as you can see, we get this massive 6.7-inch screen uh just for interesting. Let's bring back the mini for a second here, and you can see the difference there, 5.4 versus 6.7 inch and also just how far your thumb will get across the screen. The pro max is definitely a two-handed phone, so this is 6.7 inches and actually, if I bring back last year's 11 pro max while the overall footprint is about the same, it's actually slightly taller we're actually getting a 0.2-inch bigger screen. But the point is this: is the biggest phone apple has ever made so uh yeah.

Bear that in mind before you drop 1100 pounds on it, just because you want the biggest and the best, so I actually switched to the 12 pro max, as my kind of like I hate to say my daily driver um. Before going back to my note, 20 ultra, because as much as I do love this, it just feels a little too big, or at least iOS isn't as well optimized for big phones, for example. Uh, there's still no split screen. You can't swipe back from the right hand, side a lot of apps require you to go to the sort of top left for a back button and even just reaching for the notification menu or the command center requires a fair amount of finger gymnastics. But on the other hand, you might love that a big screen iPhone may be exactly what you want, and also the pro max offers the best battery life, giving you a good hour longer than even the 12 pro.

So if battery is important to you, then again, that is a perfect reason to go for this guy. But that's not all, because the pro max also, as I mentioned earlier, has a couple of unique camera features. The main lens has a bigger sensor, so it lets more light in which makes it better in low light. We also get a slightly longer 2.5 times optical zoom, up from two times as well as enhanced sensor shift stabilization. In my experience, I can't really tell much of a difference in quality or smoothness between them, even in this tricky lighting.

But what I did notice, though, is in this low light scene. The pro needed a two-second-long exposure versus just one second on the pro max, so basically the long exposures don't need to be as well long, it's a small difference but handy if you've got moving subjects, so that is a lot to take in, but before we wrap up. I just want to talk about battery life for a minute, because a couple of weeks ago, I made a big battery rundown test with all four of these and also last year's 11 pro max, and to save you some time. If I jump to the end here are the results and how they compare. They actually all did pretty well, but you can see the mini falls behind, and it's the 12 and the 12 pro max that offer the biggest gains to battery life.

While I'm here, I also ran a few benchmarks on all the phones and, as you can see, since they all share the same a14 chip. There's really very little between them when it comes to overall performance. So after all that which one should you actually buy? Well, it's a little tricky. I think apple's done a good job, differentiating them and there isn't really a bad option. It all comes down to value for money.

Your budget, I think, if I were to go out and buy an iPhone 12, I would probably go with the 12 pro because as much as I'm usually a kind of person to go for the biggest and best all singing all dancing phones. I actually found this a little uncomfortable to use, particularly with the case on as well, so just for sort of everyday quality of life and also to save 100 pounds. I think the 12 pro would be my recommendation, but between everything else, I think the mini is good, but the battery life does let it down. It's a nice entry level point, and it's good to see uh that there is an option if you want a small screen phone, but I think for the vast majority of people uh, who maybe aren't power users who aren't me uh, but just want a good new iPhone. You know what I think the standard iPhone 12 is the one to go for.

Yes, you don't get a telephoto lens or the LIDAR, and you have to pay a bit more for storage, and maybe you don't get quite the same. Uh sort of premium feel to it, but I think for the money, 800 pounds 800, the iPhone 12 would be my recommendation for the average user, but if you're a bit of a power user, as I say for myself, I would personally go with a pro. However, if you're not that bothered about 5g, or you know these slight camera improvements or MagSafe, or you know the a14 chip, if you can get a good deal on last year's 11 series, I would say: go for the 11 pro. It's like a good all-rounder. The 11 stun 11 has that LCD screen, as they say so, maybe avoid that, but the 11 pro or maybe even a discounted pro max is worth considering if you just don't really care about having the super latest fastest, processor, uh and 5g.

But if you guys have any other questions at all, do let me know in the comments below I read every single comment. I tried to reply to as many as possible. So do let me know your thoughts which one you'd go for or knowing the above. Thank you so much for watching guys. I hope that was useful and if you do want to see more from me, then don't forget to hit that subscribe.

Button below, and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat.

Source : The Tech Chap