Today, we're doing a Day in the Life review of the iPhone 12 mini in 2024, so we're going to take this phone through a typical day of usage on a summer day in New York while we discuss and review it along the way. We're also going to take some photos and videos on the phone and overall just see how it holds up in 2024.
So the 12 mini was released back in Fall 2020, and it was Apple's first mini-branded iPhone. It features a 5.4-inch OLED 60Hz display, flatter aluminum sides, and a glass back design with two 12-megapixel main and ultra-wide cameras. Just like the regular-sized iPhone 12, the 12 mini is quite literally a mini iPhone 12. Every feature and spec of this phone is the same as the regular-sized iPhone 12 except for the smaller 5.4-inch display as opposed to the 6.1-inch display that the regular-sized iPhone 12 has, and the smaller battery capacity of 2,227 mAh as opposed to the 2,815 mAh that the regular-sized iPhone 12 has. But literally, everything else about this phone is the same, which is the wow factor for the mini-series iPhones—the fact that you can get the full experience of the regular-sized iPhone option in such a portable and small package.
It's powered by the Apple A14 processor with 4 gigs of RAM, which is still plenty snappy and well-optimized on the latest iOS 17, and of course, this phone is going to be supporting the next major iOS version, iOS 18, which is coming out this fall. As I mentioned earlier, the 12 mini has a pretty small battery capacity of 2,227 mAh by today's standards, and battery performance certainly isn't the 12 mini's strongest characteristic. Most users will probably experience below-average battery performance using this phone.
And the cameras on this phone are quite good. It features a main 12-megapixel lens with an f1.6 aperture and an ultra-wide 12-megapixel lens with an f2.4 aperture. In just a bit, we're going to head out and take some photos and videos on this phone and I don't know about you guys, but I have been inundated with spam calls and texts the last couple of years, a lot of which are dangerous phishing scams. This is a result of our phone numbers and other sensitive information being exposed in data breaches within well-known companies that occur shockingly often. Recently, AT&T revealed that a considerable portion of their customers' call and text records had been exposed in a massive data breach. This breach also included records of every phone number AT&T customers called or texted, expanding the group of exposed people well beyond just AT&T customers. And just a few months ago, they revealed that some of their users' Social Security numbers ended up on the dark web.
And all right, we're going to head over to Little Island, which is a park along the Hudson River, to take some photos and videos on the 12 minis and also on the iPhone 13, 14, and 15 for comparison. So as you'd expect, the 12 mini here gets the same camera system that the regular-sized iPhone 12 has, and ever since around the iPhone 11 series, iPhone cameras have almost plateaued a bit in terms of the difference that the average person would pick up on with the naked eye. They've just all gotten so good. So of course, the 12 mini, having that ultra-wide lens, you're able to get five-time shots as well. Honestly, the biggest camera upgrade we've seen recently on the iPhone came this past year with the iPhone 15 and its 48-megapixel main camera lens, which outputs sharper 24-megapixel shots that have more detail, especially noticeable when you zoom in on a photo. But you can see for all the past generations—the 14, the 13, and the 12—there's not that much difference even when you zoom in quite closely, at least for the average viewer.
And for those who like to zoom in close before taking a photo, your maximum digital zoom for photos on the 12 series, the 13 series, and the 14 series is five times, whereas the latest 15 series has a max digital zoom of 10 times thanks to its 48-megapixel main lens. The 12 mini has a 12-megapixel front-facing camera with an f2.2 aperture and it'll work fine for any video calls or front-facing photos or videos. The 12 mini shoots beautiful 4K 60 frames per second video, again very impressive for the very compact nature of this phone. Your maximum digital zoom for video for the 12 series, 13 series, and 14 series is three times, while for the 15 series, it's six times. So the cameras on the 12 mini get a big thumbs up from me—crazy impressive camera tech packed into such a small package.
But all right, it is extremely hot out, coming up on 90°, so I figured some ice cream and some shade would hit the spot. Something that always impresses me about the mini-series iPhones is that they're physically smaller than the iPhone SE phones, which is the cheapest iPhone version in Apple's lineup. However, the display on the mini iPhones is larger, as the mini iPhones have little to no bezel, while the SE iPhones have large bezels on the top and bottom of the front panel. The craziest comparison for me is the fact that the mini iPhones are almost the same size as the over 10-year-old iPhone 5 and that all the modern iPhone tech of the iPhone 12 series is available in basically the same mini format that was offered over 10 years ago with the iPhone 5 design. And as much as the mini iPhones are appreciated by many, it's sadly not a large enough group of people, as the sales for both the 12 mini and the next generation 13 mini were quite low in comparison to all the other iPhone models sold alongside them. So with the latest two generations of the iPhone, including the 14 and 15 series, Apple completely stopped making mini iPhones, replacing their spot in the lineup with the larger plus models, making mini iPhones a dying breed, unfortunately, as the vast majority of people seem to prefer larger iPhones.
But after taking some time to grab some real food before we head over to the gym, we're going to stop off at my apartment for a little bit and talk about the overall value of the 12 minis in 2024, the price, and where you can buy it. So the 12 mini still provides a close-to-perfect mini iPhone experience in 2024. From the great cameras to the smaller but still very good-looking almost edge-to-edge OLED display to the still very responsive and snappy A14 processor to the overall modern design, it's a great iPhone to use in 2024 if you prefer smaller phones. And again, it's likely one of the last iPhones to do so for this.
We’re ever going to see released, and you can buy a good used unlocked 64 GB iPhone 12 mini for around $200 to $220 on used marketplaces like eBay or Amazon, and it offers a very solid iPhone experience for that price. I will say, though, if you want to ride out the mini iPhone wave as long as possible, you can get the one-generation newer iPhone 13 mini for around $300 to $330 on used marketplaces, and it gets you a one-generation newer iPhone that’ll probably get iOS updates for a bit longer. But again, if your budget is around $200 and you're looking for a mini iPhone, the 12 mini is perfect.
Next up, I headed over to the gym for a 1-hour workout and I streamed music from the 12 mini to my Bluetooth headphones using Spotify throughout this time. On the way back, I took some photos in a darker environment using night mode on the 12 mini and also on the iPhone 13, 14, and 15, and the night mode on all these iPhones brightens up the shots quite nicely. I then headed back to my apartment and knocked out a couple of hours of work. I capped off the day by using the phone for a little over a couple hours, taking a 20-minute FaceTime call, and then using the phone for a few hours browsing Instagram, and Twitter, looking at some emails using the Gmail app, and watching some YouTube.
The iPhone 12 mini provides a stellar mini iPhone experience in 2024. It’s a shame Apple doesn’t make these mini iPhones anymore, but for better or worse, the market has spoken and unfortunately, the vast majority of people aren’t interested in mini iPhones in 2024. I mean, we just consume so much content on our phones nowadays that I think people have just become accustomed to having much larger display sizes than 5.4 inches, for example.
At the very end of the day, I’m sitting at 7%. I had what I consider to be a pretty moderate day of usage, and my overall impression of the battery performance is yeah, it’s not very good. But, you know, again, that’s to be expected with such a small package. Of course, keep in mind that battery performance is very subjective. It entirely depends on how each person uses their phone, and it also depends on the condition of the battery in each specific iPhone. The battery in the iPhone 12 mini is at 100% capacity, but most 12 minis circulating out there in the wild are probably not going to be at 100% battery health capacity as they’ve probably been used for several years and put through many charge cycles. So if you’re going to buy one of these iPhones used, definitely make sure you know the battery health capacity before buying it. I would recommend only buying one with around 90% battery health capacity or higher just to ensure you’re getting an iPhone with somewhere close to the full battery capacity of the device.