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The iPhone 12 Pro has finally arrived and brings a ton of new features into play with the inclusion of a new MagSafe processor, camera system and charging. Check out our hands-on video inside for all the details!
Unpacking
For the first time in a long time, we get an iPhone unpacking experience that is a bit shorter than you may be used to. The iPhone 12 Pro has a substantially smaller box than the 11 Pro, and that’s because the iPhone doesn’t include a headphone or power adapter in the box this year. This will likely be the case indefinitely. Apple claims they want to help the environment by reducing e-waste and that disposing of these accessories apparently will.
Video of main features
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Design
Apple decided to give us a throwback to the beloved flat-edged iPhone 5 / 5S design, and it looks and feels amazing. The 12 Pro weighs only one gram more than the 11 Pro, so there is no noticeable difference in weight. The 12 Pro also uses the same stainless steel frame as the 11 Pro, so the quality hasn’t diminished with the design change. Personally, I never had the iPhone 5 / 5S, so I have never had the true appreciation for this design that others have. But when I hold the device in my hands, I can safely say that I see what all the hype was about.
With this design change, there has also been a slight improvement in the screen-to-body ratio. The iPhone 11 Pro had a screen-to-body ratio of 82.1%. The 12 Pro now has an 86% screen-to-body ratio, which is just a 4% increase, something most people probably won’t notice without looking for it.
Monitor
The display has certainly been a big talking point here for the 12 Pro, as the screen has now gone from 5.8 inches on the 11 Pro to 6.1 inches. Many 9to5Mac readers have expressed disapproval of this size increase. However, I personally prefer this increase in screen size. It gives me the perfect hand feel for usability and makes viewing the content a little more enjoyable.
Regardless of size, however, viewing content on the 12 Pro is naturally very enjoyable. The 12 Pro has the same OLED Super Retina XDR display found in the 11 Pro, but this year, we get a slight increase in resolution, and the display is now 2532 X 1170 resolution compared to the year’s 1125 X 2436. past. 11 Pro.
I can’t say that I can see a difference between the 12 Pro and the 11 Pro when it comes to resolution. But as expected from a $ 1,000 flagship, the display is absolutely gorgeous. It gets bright enough outdoors, the color reproduction is excellent, and it generally has that touch you get from OLED displays.
Ceramic shield
The iPhone 11 Pro already had the strongest glass in a smartphone, according to Apple. But apparently the toughest glass still needed to harden, because now we have what Apple calls the Ceramic Shield for the iPhone 12 Pro.
The Ceramic Shield is constructed with the use of nano-ceramic crystals, which are harder than most metals. The Apple team managed to turn those crystals into clear glass for the iPhone. Apple boasts of how they were able to develop a formula for these crystals that maximizes the strength of the ceramic material while remaining optically clear. Apple claims that you will get 4x better drop performance with this new Ceramic Shield. My advice, as always, is to treat this phone with the same care as a previous generation iPhone model. At the end of the day, glass is not invincible.
Pacific blue color
I’m a big fan of the new Pacific Blue color compared to last year’s midnight green. It is much more pronounced and you can always tell that it is a blue color no matter what angle or lighting situation you are in. That’s not something I can say about the Midnight Green 11 Pro. And as a videographer, it has often been quite difficult trying to capture the essence of the midnight green color on camera. That is not a problem that I have with the Pacific Blue color. I think this was an excellent color choice from Apple to complement the 12 Pro’s sleek matte matte glass.
A14 processor
After hot on the heels of the A13 Bionic on the iPhone 11/11 Pro is the A14 Bionic. This processor is significant in multiple ways. The A14 is Apple’s first CPU to feature a 5-nanometer process, which essentially means that the processor will consume less power and at the same time offer much better performance than the A13. There are many ways the A14 brings enhancements to all areas of experience. The 16-core neural engine will improve the performance of deep fusion for photo processing. The A14 even enables 4K HDR Dolby-Vision video recording.
When running benchmarks on Geekbench 5, it’s clear that the A14 Bionic chip brings some significant performance gains over the A13 on paper. Everywhere from image compression to speech recognition, the A14 processor will be a bit faster. And while the A13 felt far from slow, this is an even faster platform. Playing on the 12 Pro is noticeably smoother than the 11 Pro for certain titles.
Improved memory and storage
If you weren’t a fan of the 64GB base storage option on the iPhone 11 Pro, then you’ll be happy to hear that you get 128GB to start with, which is much more appropriate for a $ 1,000 phone in my opinion. On top of that, Apple increased the RAM from 4GB in the 11 Pro to 6GB in the 12 Pro. This will help with multitasking and more intensive application usage. I don’t feel like the 4GB of RAM in the 11 Pro was a bottleneck in any way, but having an extra 2GB definitely gives me more confidence in the device’s long-term performance capabilities.
MagSafe
A year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined that my next iPhone would have MagSafe, but here we are. MagSafe has returned to iPhone 12. And while this is going to open up a whole new world for accessories, MagSafe charging itself doesn’t offer any features or benefits that I feel I can’t do without. The idea of MagSafe is to eliminate the drawbacks of standard wireless charging through the use of magnetization. And while this isn’t necessarily a game-changer in its current form, it has a lot of potential to be much bigger in the future with better accessories. This is something I will touch on more in the full review.
One of the first MagSafe accessories Apple released is a silicone case. When you connect the case to the phone on the lock screen, you’ll get a connection ringtone and animation, with a color that corresponds to the color of the case you have, which is pretty cool. I didn’t think MagSafe could transfer that kind of information, but it’s cool to see it anyway. I can only imagine how third-party manufacturers will implement this in the future.
Camera
With every iPhone update, it’s tradition to expect a few updates in the camera department, and the 12 Pro is no different in this regard. The 12 Pro features the same triple-lens camera setup as the 11 Pro. The only hardware differences we’re getting is an aperture of f1.6 on the main lens instead of an f1.8 lens on the 11 Pro.
I took quite a few photos to determine if the 12 Pro’s camera system is noticeably better than the 11 Pro’s, and I’d say it can be, depending on the environment. But the 12 Pro’s overall image quality isn’t noticeably better than the 11 Pro in my tests. Dynamic range and low light seem to be the 12 Pro’s biggest advantage over the 11 Pro for photos.
They have improved low light performance on the 12 Pro per ton. Brightness and noise are definitely handled much better on the 12 Pro most of the time as it now has the night mode feature for all three cameras. And on top of that, you now also have the night mode on the front camera. This dramatically improves exposure levels for photos taken in low light and can really save some low-light selfies.
DolbyVision video recording
The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are now capable of recording 10-bit DolbyVision HDR video at up to 60 frames per second, which is the first time it has been used on any smartphone. Recording 10-bit video instead of 8-bit video will help preserve much more color data. True DolbyVision doesn’t support most displays on the market, and even Apple’s own Final Cut Pro doesn’t yet support DolbyVision HDR. Like 5G on this phone, this isn’t something you can take full advantage of right now.
However, from my initial impressions, even on the iPhone itself, the video quality looks noticeably better than on the 11 Pro. The dynamic range specifically has definitely seen an improvement. Overall, the video prowess on the iPhone 12 Pro is amazing as expected. Be sure to keep an eye on our full review for our opinions on the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Maxes camera.
LiDar scanner
The iPhone 12 Pro is Apple’s first product outside of the iPad Pro to include the LiDar scanner. This little sensor is really important for enhancing augmented reality experiences in things like games and measurement utilities. The LiDar scanner measures depth using invisible light rays to measure the distance between the sensor and any particular object. All of this is important in order to have realistic representations of what something will look like on your phone in real life.
The LiDar scanner will not only help with augmented reality performance, but photography in general as well. The LiDar scanner will improve autofocus performance, helping you better track your subjects in low light conditions. This is especially useful for taking portraits in low light, which is very nice with this camera setup.
5G
The iPhone 12 Pro has support for Sub-6 and mmWave 5G, which will be the most common forms of 5G that you will probably see in the future. When in ideal conditions, the potential of 5G is quite staggering. 5G makes your phone capable of Gigabit download speeds and significantly faster upload speeds. When 5G is everywhere, it will be amazing to take advantage of it. But it will be years before we achieve these speeds in most areas. With 5G support on the 12 Pro, you’ll get slightly faster 4G LTE speeds. But it’s not the drastic speed boost you’re supposed to get with mmWave 5G.
In the settings, there is an option to choose between 5G On and 5G Auto. With 5G-On enabled, the phone will essentially use 5G radio whenever it can. 5G-Auto will automatically enable and disable 5G, depending on how severely it is affecting battery life. My advice would be to leave it on 5G Auto; It will definitely improve the battery life a bit.
9to5Mac review
Overall, the iPhone 12 Pro has a lot of nice additions. The potential of MagSafe with future accessories, the incredible hand feel with the updated design, and the updated camera features further refine an already excellent shooting experience. There are still some tests to do. And we have yet to get our hands on the 12 Pro Max, which has some slight improvements that the 12 Pro lacks. Stay tuned for our full review where we’ll take a closer look at cameras, battery life, and 5G.
What’s your favorite feature of the new iPhone 12 Pro? Turn off the sound below in the comments!
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