Review of the iPhone 12

Today, we're doing a "Day in the Life" review of the iPhone 12 in 2024, so I'm going to go through a typical day of activities using the phone, taking some photos and videos on the phone, and periodically checking in on the battery percentage throughout the day, all to give you an idea of what it's like using this phone in [Music] 2024. The iPhone 12 was originally released in Fall 2020, and it has a 6.1-inch OLED 60Hz display and features the current style iPhone design with the flatter aluminum sides that every iPhone generation since the iPhone 12 has had. The design of the iPhone 12 series iPhones set the blueprint for the overall design of every iPhone generation since has been for the most part, which results in the iPhone 12 still looking and feeling very modern. It's powered by the Apple A14 processor with 4 gigs of RAM, which is quite fast and responsive to this day, as is the case with all semi-recent Apple silicon processors. Speed and performance over long periods aren't an issue at all. Now, the bigger factor to consider when buying an older iPhone with an older processor is the long-term longevity of major software update support. This phone is a little bit past the middle of its lifespan, but we'll touch a little bit more on what this means later. This phone has solidly okay battery life, it's not particularly good or bad, just solidly okay. For those curious about the specs, it has a 2,815 mAh battery inside. The iPhone 12 features two rear-facing 12-megapixel cameras that take very solid-looking photos. And speaking of the cameras, we're going to walk over to the park and take some more photos and videos on the iPhone 12, and also on the iPhone 13, 14, and 15, and compare them. So honestly, the camera quality on all four recent iPhone generations here looks quite good with no shockingly apparent differences between the generations at first glance. The iPhone 12's cameras hold up impressively well four years later, even when compared to the newest iPhone 15's cameras. And while Apple has continued to improve the cameras on each generation of the iPhone as they've released them, I'd say the biggest upgrade out of these four devices that I'm showing right now came this past generation with the iPhone 15, where Apple bumped the main camera lens up to 48 megapixels, resulting in the iPhone 15 being able to output 24-megapixel shots as opposed to the 12-megapixel shots on all the previous iPhone generations that I'm showing here. This results in more detail and sharpness, which is most noticeable when zooming in on a photo that you've already taken. But the quality is still more than passable on all these iPhones and honestly isn't going to be that noticeable for the vast majority of people. It's nice to see things improve over time, though. Of course, here's a digital two-times photo taken on the iPhone 12, 13, and 14, and the newest iPhone 15. It can take optical two-times photos as a result of that 48-megapixel main lens that we were just talking about, but the digital two-times zoom on all the older iPhones here still looks quite good. Now, the absolute maximum digital zoom for photos on the iPhone 12, 13, and 14 is five times, while the max digital zoom for photos on the newest iPhone 15 is 10 times, again as a result of that 48-megapixel main lens that it has. Ever since the iPhone 11 series devices, iPhone cameras have gotten so, so good for any typical photo taking or video recording you'd need as an average person, and arguably for many professionals as well. The absolute maximum digital zoom for video on the iPhone 12, 13, and 14 is three times, and the absolute maximum digital zoom for video on the iPhone 15 is five times. And here's some 4K 60 frames per second video shot with the front-facing camera as well, nothing to complain about here. The front-facing camera on the iPhone 12 will serve you just fine for any video calls or front-facing videos. So I have nothing but good things to say about the cameras on the iPhone 12, they've held up incredibly well over the past 4 years. But all right, time to head over to the coffee shop to get some work done. I have around 4 hours of work to knock out, so I spent the next 4 hours or so at this coffee shop just getting some work done, and as usual, I did take a 30-minute break in the middle just to use the phone to catch up on social media, Instagram, and Twitter. I mean, this good of an iPhone experience for under $300 is pretty incredible. And as much as this phone does provide a fantastic experience for under $300, the main downside to getting an iPhone that's going on four years old is the not-so-great longevity. This phone is powered by the Apple A14 processor, which still performs quite well, but considering Apple typically gives iPhone processor chips around six or seven years of major software update support, and the fact that the iPhone 12 and the A14 chip powering it are already on their fourth major iOS update with iOS 17, you'll likely only be getting two and maybe three more years of major iOS update support, which is not that long of a lifespan if you're about to buy this device right now. Of course, you can still use an iPhone for years after it doesn't get the latest iOS updates, but the experience starts to worsen over time as you'll become out of sync with other people in the Apple ecosystem using the latest iOS features, and also some features that may become commonly used by most people, you won't be able to get. But again, it's very likely that you'll be getting at the very least the next two major iOS updates on the iPhone 12, so this won't be an issue for at least a couple more years. But again, for under $300, a more limited lifespan is to be expected. Something else to consider is that you can get the one-generation newer iPhone 13 in the used market for around $350 to $380, so a little bit more than $100 more than what you'd pay for the iPhone 12. The iPhone 13 is powered by the one-generation newer A15 processor, and I think if you can spend that extra $100 or so more, it's worth it to go for the iPhone 13 instead of the iPhone 12, mainly for the reason of longevity as it'll probably end up being a better investment long-term and is still on the cheaper side, at least in comparison to getting a brand new iPhone. This being said, though, the iPhone 12 still provides very solid value, and honestly, it's hard to predict how different the lifespan of the iPhone 12 versus the iPhone 13 will be for sure. But generally, the newer the processor powering the device, the more iOS updates the device will get. Just to let you know, the iPhone 12 we're using at 100% battery health capacity. This iPhone is a device that I have dedicated for review purposes, so it hasn't been put through that many charge cycles, but most iPhone 12s circulating in the wild probably are not going to have 100% capacity, as most of them have probably been put through a decent amount of charge cycles.