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Premium and Powerful | iPhone 12 Pro Review
Apr 30, 2024
Remember the iPhone 5? It was arguably the best iPhone ever. Now, the iPhone 12 Pro is stealing a page from the old winners playbook to unseat the former champ and take the top spot for best iPhone ever. More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com Follow Ian! Twitter: https://twitter.com/ianfuchs Instagram: https://instagram.com/IanRedFox Follow us! Twitter: https://twitter.com/cultofmac Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultofmac Instagram: https://instagram.com/cultofmac/
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What's going on everybody, Enid here for Cult of Mac
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And back in 2012, Apple released what would arguably become my favorite iPhone
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This guy, the iPhone 5. It looked great, felt great in the hand, and it was just kind of a really futuristic looking device
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And it moved us from a world of 3G to LTE. And now, eight years later, Apple is kind of revisiting that same playbook, except now
0:28
with the iPhone 12 series, they're doing the same thing, just turned up a little bit
0:33
Now, I had the pleasure of using this for a little over a week now, took it on my family
0:37
vacation to Disney World to really put it through its paces. And I have to say, I think this may be my new favorite iPhone
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And a lot of it has to come down to the fact that this iPhone looks and feels a lot like
0:49
the old iPhone, except made more modern, made more futuristic, and definitely polished up
0:55
quite a bit. Now, one of the big reasons that I love the iPhone 12 Pro is the overall design of it
0:59
Much like the iPhone 5's sharp, boxy, edgy design, the iPhone 12 lineup ditches the rounded
1:06
bubbly nature of the 6 through 11 lineup, really, and brings us back into this boxy
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squared off design that I've really loved for a long time. The difference being that back in 2012, the iPhone 5 featured an almost all aluminum body
1:21
and those chamfered edges to really make it feel better in the hand. With the iPhone 12 Pro, Apple has ditched all of that in favor of a super highly polished
1:29
stainless steel body, as well as an all glass back with this nice matte texture that really
1:35
feels great in the hand. And for as great as the iPhone 12 Pro looks in pictures and videos, seeing it in person
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and actually holding it in your hand makes it that much better. And whether you want something more understated like the graphite or the silver option, or
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something a little more flashy like the gold model or this specific blue color, which is
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the color of the year in their pro lineup, there's kind of a device that can fit any
2:00
personal taste or personal aesthetic as far as your smartphone goes. Now, regardless of which color option you prefer, the 12 Pro has a very premium feel
2:09
And part of that has to do with the fact that it is a little bit heavy. Now, if you're coming from an iPhone 10 or newer device, or one of the plus models of
2:17
the older phones, the weight of the 12 Pro won't be quite as shocking
2:21
But if you're coming from something like a 6, a 7, an 8, or maybe even the new SE, the
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weight of the 12 Pro is going to be a huge jump. Now, the flat edge design of the iPhone 12 Pro does make it feel a little bit bigger
2:33
in the hand. Compared to the 11 Pro, the 12 Pro actually feels like a thicker device
2:39
But in a true side to side comparison, they're effectively the same
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One difference though, is the fact that the 12 Pro is a little bit taller from bottom
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to top, making the whole device a little bit larger, bringing the screen size up from
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5.8 inches up to 6.1 inches. The fact that the sides of the device are flat also allows the screen to go out a little
2:59
bit closer to the edge, helping to add to that three tenths of an inch increase
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Now, that three tenths of an inch wasn't a huge jump in overall size, but I did notice
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myself stretching a little bit from time to time, trying to reach a button
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The good news though, is the fact that because of the device has these flat sides, holding
3:15
it is a little bit easier, it's a little more comfortable, and I felt a little more confident, which meant that I was okay reaching across the device to tap a button or do something
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on the opposite side of the screen without worrying that I might drop it
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Now, one final aesthetic thing to note is the fact that the 12 Pro has this stainless
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steel band around it, which is a huge fingerprint magnet. So if you're somebody who really doesn't like to see fingerprints on your device, this one's
3:38
probably going to make you pretty sad. The regular 12 and the upcoming 12 mini do have an aluminum side on them, which would
3:46
be better at preventing fingerprints, but the trade-off is the fact that on the back
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of the 12 Pro, you get this nice kind of frosted matte glass, whereas on the regular 12 and
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12 mini, it's going to be a polished shiny glass, which means it's also going to collect fingerprints
4:02
Now, for me personally, I don't really look at the sides or back of my device with any
4:06
kind of frequency, so it really didn't bother me. But one thing on the back of the device that I did notice is the new camera system
4:13
And if you're anything like me, one of the big reasons you want to upgrade your phone
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every year is for those camera improvements. And while this year's camera improvements are only a slight iteration on last year's
4:24
11 Pro, if you're on a device older than an 11 or an 11 Pro, the updates here in the 12
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Pro are huge. Now, the camera system is one of those things that I definitely noticed over the course
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of our vacation. Sometimes when I wanted to take a photo inside where there was a little bit lower light
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the iPhone 12 Pro performed amazingly. It was quicker to take photos, low light shots took less time to actually take the shot
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so instead of being like a three second night shot, it was now a two second or a second
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and a half night shot, meaning that I was going to get better photos with less time
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less blur, and less grain. Now, some of those improvements are thanks to the slightly wider aperture on the main
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lens, as well as the new LiDAR sensor, which helps for faster focusing and depth sensing
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in lower light situations. The improvements to the ultra wide sensor are also another thing that I definitely noticed
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in this year's camera. With last year's 11 Pro, taking a photo with the ultra wide in anything other than bright
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sunlight basically resulted in really dark, kind of vignetted images with lots of noise
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lots of grain. On the 12 Pro, the sensor is both improved and it now supports night shots, which allow
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you to take pictures in much lower light and actually get something that's usable and with
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much better color, much better overall clarity and accuracy, and just something that looks
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much more appealing. Now, the third lens on the back of this, the telephoto, is one thing that really differentiates
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the 12 Pro from the regular 12. Even while there weren't many significant differences between the 11 Pro's telephoto
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lens and the 12 Pro's telephoto lens, having that option there in itself really made it
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nice to have that new perspective, that different perspective when taking shots
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It also enables you to do some other things with portrait mode to get two different portrait
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mode zoom levels, depending on what your needs are. And portrait mode is definitely improved on the 12 Pro, with the LiDAR sensor helping
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to kind of sense where things are in a scene, so you don't end up with weird cutouts around
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glasses or arms or in hair. And instead, you end up with a really, really satisfying, really, really well done portrait
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mode shots, unlike what we've seen in some of the past years, which is a huge benefit
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for people who take a lot of photos with their phone. The final major camera improvement to discuss has to do with video, and that's because the
6:44
iPhone 12 Pro now supports Dolby Vision HDR. Now, without getting into all the technical details, what it really means is you can shoot
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video with the iPhone 12 Pro at 4K, 60 frames a second, and enjoy the benefits of HDR, like
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brighter brights, darker darks, and overall, a wider range of colors. This makes things look that much more lifelike and that much more realistic
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Compared to last year's iPhone 11 Pro, you can definitely see the difference, especially
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when you're shooting things that have bright lights or the sun in them, or a really deep
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shadow, you get a lot more detail on the iPhone 12 Pro than you have in any device
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in the past. Now, outside of the new design and the updated camera stuff, a lot of the things that changed
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with the 12 Pro are actually fairly marginal. First off, there's the fact that now the starting storage capacity is 128 gigabytes, meaning
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that if you were to compare it to last year's 11 Pro, or even this year's 12, you get double
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the storage at that base tier, meaning you have room for more photos, more videos, or
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more apps. On top of that, the iPhone also continues to get faster, this year rocking the A14 Bionic
7:51
chip, but in reality, I never felt like the A13 in my 11 Pro was any kind of slouch or
7:57
couldn't handle things, so the fact that the 14 is faster and has a better neural engine
8:01
really just means it can do more processing on device for things like photos and videos
8:07
than for any other really heavy intensive type tasks. Another relatively minor change this year is the addition of Apple's new MagSafe technology
8:17
in the iPhone 12 lineup. Now, while I don't necessarily love the fact that Apple has taken the MagSafe name, which
8:23
I love from their old laptops, and repurposed it into a wireless charging technology, the
8:28
fact of the matter is, it's kind of cool to have a really easy, really convenient way
8:32
to wirelessly charge your device without having something plugged directly into the lightning
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port, freeing that up for things like headphones or microphones if that's something you're
8:41
into, and also allowing you to still use your device while it's wirelessly charging
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and not put as much strain on those cables. MagSafe is pretty simple to use, you just take the wireless charging puck, stick it
8:53
on the back of your device, and thanks to a ring of magnets in the back of the phone, or in Apple's cases that support MagSafe, things will just automatically line up and
9:00
allow you to charge it up to 15 watts. Now, the only drawback to that is the fact that the charger in the box for the iPhone
9:07
12 and 12 Pro is a USB-C to lightning cable, meaning you're going to have to drop at least
9:13
40 bucks to get in the door on the MagSafe technology, but it does kind of add a little
9:18
bit of convenience if that's something you're into. Now the final kind of tentpole feature of the iPhone 12 lineup is the fact that they're
9:25
once again giving us some new cell capabilities. Now, back with the iPhone 5, they basically added LTE to a 3G world, and it took a few
9:34
years for that to really catch on. Now with the iPhone 12 this year, they're doing the same thing, but they're moving us
9:40
from LTE to 5G. And the promise of 5G sounds really great
9:47
Faster speeds, less latency, things that make using the mobile connection on your device
9:51
that much better. Unfortunately, in the US at least, 5G is just really not there
9:58
Over the course of our entire vacation, it would have been great to have a better, more reliable cell phone signal, but instead I was stuck with LTE the entire time
10:05
And that's at Disney World, where a cell connection really is kind of imperative for things like
10:10
ordering food, making reservations, checking the status of wait times at different rides
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and even looking at different photos that have been taken over the course of the day
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In fact, I wasn't even able to test a 5G connection with this phone until I made it back home
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to Chicago. And when I did, the results were actually pretty surprising
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Most of the time in my tests, I was able to get at best the same speeds as an LTE connection
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and oftentimes significantly worse. So while I think the promise of 5G is definitely there, and having 5G available in the future
10:41
is really nice, I definitely would not buy a 12 or 12 Pro based on where 5G is now, but
10:48
instead maybe buy it as something to future-proof yourself if you're going to hang on to this
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phone for a couple of years. Now one other thing worth mentioning as far as the 5G connection is that on the US models
10:58
of the phone, there's this pill-shaped cutout, and that's for the millimeter wave antenna
11:02
And the millimeter wave is basically a really short range, really high speed connection
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that's really kind of designed for implementing in very small areas. Things like baseball stadiums, airports, or really big tourist locations like a theme park
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And the idea here is they can offer this crazy fast speed, but again, it's only in spots
11:22
where there's a lot of congestion and a lot of people possibly using their device, and
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that speed is really critical. One side effect of 5G in most phones on the market right now is the fact that it takes
11:33
a huge toll on the battery life of those devices. But Apple's done some really great hardware and software integration to make 5G on the
11:41
iPhone 12 lineup really not have a huge impact on the battery
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And in my testing, I've been able to get all-day battery life time and time again
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Now in the past, I've often found that using my device while on vacation led to needing
11:55
to charge midday or bring a power block with me so I could kind of top my battery up
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With the 12 Pro, I was able to use it all day, every day, in full sun, bouncing between
12:06
GPS-heavy apps and the camera, and never really have to worry about the battery life impacting
12:11
whether I was able to do something later on in the day. In fact, of the six days that I was there, I only had one day where I plugged in before
12:18
the day was out, and that was really just to top it up because I knew we were going to be out a little bit later
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Now ultimately, the iPhone 12 Pro to me is an absolutely incredible device
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After three years of the iPhone 6 style design, followed by three more years of the iPhone
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10 style design, which basically looked like the 6 style design, the refreshed industrial
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look of the iPhone 12 Pro is just really, really welcoming. And for a device that's considered kind of a premium device, the iPhone 12 Pro is just
12:47
about as premium as you can get when it comes to a smartphone
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Now for me personally, I just prefer the look of the iPhone 12 Pro. I love the shiny body with the frosted glass over the aluminum body with the shiny glass
13:00
I think it just looks really, really good. On top of that, I really like having the option for the third camera
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It's something that you can't get on the 12, but you get on the 12 Pro
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Even if that third camera isn't as impressive as the other two, it's nice to have that option available
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On top of that, the fact that you can do 4K 60 with the Dolby Vision HDR is really nice
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because I do a lot of video stuff. And I also am really excited to see what ProRAW looks like on the Pro devices later this year
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when Apple finally launches that. And all those things together really make the 12 Pro just worth that extra little bit
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over the iPhone 12. Let me know what you guys think in the comments down below
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While you're down there, be sure to give the video a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel if you're not already, hit the notification bell so you don't miss any uploads
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Until next time, I'm Ian for Cult of Mac, and I'll catch you in the next one
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