Apple iPhone 12 mini review: Compact phone in new purple colour

It’s so compact that you could fit it in a wallet or purse yet it’s also a “powerhouse”. This is why the new iPhone is turning a lot of heads.

REVIEW

The iPhone 12, which was released back in October 2020, has now been re-released with a fresh lick of paint.

A purple colour is now available for both the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini.

For the past couple of weeks I have been trialling the cheaper and more pocket-friendly iPhone 12 mini, in purple, to find out if it’s worth the upgrade.

Size and screen

The iPhone 12 mini truly is one of the most powerful yet compact phones on the market. With a height of 131.5mm, 64.2mm in width and a depth of 7.4mm it’s a phone that will actually fit in most people’s front pockets and arguably even wallets or purses!

Even though it is compact, Apple has been really clever by stretching the screen almost all the way to the edges to fit in a 5.4” display. This near-bezel less design makes the phone feel bigger than it is, especially compared to previous generation compact iPhones.

The size of the phone also makes one-handed use super comfortable, even though there are already one-handed features built into iOS. It’s also only 135g compared to the bigger iPhone 12 at 164g and although the weight difference isn’t stark, I can’t stress enough how different the mini feels to hold overall – it’s great.

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The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini in purple.

Display

Although the pixel resolution is just slightly different to the iPhone 12, it has the same Super Retina XDR display as the iPhone 12 and it’s just gorgeous. It still blows me away how the pixels aren’t visible to the eye on this type of display, or at least not to mine anyway.

The brightness and viewing angles of the screen are also excellent and you’re always able to see clearly in all kinds of lighting scenarios, especially outdoors in bright sunlight.

Cameras

You’re not missing out on anything here as the device shares the same cameras as the iPhone 12 – which has two 12 megapixel cameras on the back – one wide and ultra-wide and the selfie camera on the front is also 12 megapixels.

The megapixels are “small” in the tech world, but without getting too deep into the nitty gritty, the software behind these cameras, such as Smart HDR 3, is what allows the photo quality to be so impressive. I’ve been really happy with how my photos and videos (up to 4K video recording!) have turned out on this device.

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Elly is happy with the cameras and video on the iPhone 12.

Battery life

All around this device is a total powerhouse (running on Apple’s A14 Bionic Chip) and is basically a shrunk iPhone 12. Though the main difference of the iPhone 12 mini would have to be its battery life. It unfortunately doesn’t last as long as the iPhone 12 during the day (I’d say it lasts around a day with average use and can get quite low by the early evening with heavy use).

So if you were tossing up between the iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 12, just to save money, this is the biggest factor you should take into consideration.

Personally, I’m a small phone fan and, surprisingly, I’ve even seen a trend of a lot of people (who previously had huge phones) move over to the iPhone 12 mini for its pocketability, regardless of its battery life.

Comparison to iPhone 12

It’s perfect as my daily work phone when I’m on the run, I love the cameras and I love it’s compact design. The lower battery life simply makes me more conscious about whether I’m using my time productively or just scrolling aimlessly on my phone. Though it’s understandable that if you’re a heavy phone user this probably just isn’t the phone for you and I’d even suggest the iPhone 12 Pro if that’s the case – though it currently doesn’t come in purple.

iphone 12 purple and mini review/ comparison. Elly Awesome.

Price

The iPhone 12 mini comes in at a really great price and for the baseline 64GB model it will cost you $1199, compared to the iPhone 12 which starts at $1349 for 64GB. The iPhone 12 mini also comes in 128GB for $1279 and 256GB for $1449.

The purple iPhone 12 mini is certainly turning a lot of heads and if you’re in need of a new iPhone and not interested in waiting for a new iPhone release (likely at the end of this year) then I’d highly recommend considering it.

Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @ellyawwesome | YouTube