For some reason, everything keeps getting bigger.
Oh my God, this thing is crazy. Everything's up here?
And people, they love it.
Look how big trucks have become. But I'm not the type who thinks bigger is better.
Sometimes the less popular choice is the best one.
I've always been a small phone person, but when the 14 Pro came out,
I wanted to try a truly premium experience.
It's got better cameras, better battery life, better screen, really everything.
And yet, I think I want to go back.
Am I wrong for wanting the cheaper, smaller, older,
less popular phone? No, no, it's you guys who are wrong.
We've only seen two generations of this mini iPhone, and yet it's the only small premium phone
you can get, period. It delivers the same experience you'd expect
from a full-size iPhone just scaled down 20%,
which it does beautifully. Sure, you give up on some battery life,
but just hold the thing. It fits in the palm of my hand like a phone should.
I can reach any part of this 5.4 inch screen with one hand,
which is something that most people don't seem to care about
since large phones are the norm now.
But it's not only about screen size. Years ago, I created this weird rule
where I would not buy a phone that's more than 70 millimeters wide.
I've had an iPhone 5 and SE, which I think are great,
but a touch too narrow. I've had an iPhone 6, which despite being
only 67 millimeters wide, was still
a little too cumbersome for me. Okay, so I'm starting to sound
like a bit of a Goldilocks here, but when Apple announced the iPhone 12 mini
two and a half years ago, I was ecstatic because the perfect phone finally existed.
Oh, man, this is great. It was lightweight.
I love the symmetry of the stacked camera lenses. I love the available mint green color.
And even though the notch took up most of the top of the screen,
it did so with a certain proportionality. Many of these things changed with the 13 mini,
less notch, larger diagonally placed camera sensors
from the 12 pro and a bigger battery.
But other than battery capacity and obviously screen size, the 13 mini matched the non mini spec for spec.
Regardless whether it's the 12 or the 13, I'm happy with any of these as long as it's a mini iPhone.
And I know I'm not alone. I think I prefer the 12 mini.
What phone do you currently use? The iPhone 13 mini.
Got an iPhone 12 mini. I have the iPhone 13 mini.
I have an iPhone mini 13. What do you love about the iPhone mini?
In terms of just physicality, this is by far the best phone I've owned, hands down.
It's cheaper and it's the right size. It's effectively it. Like, you know what I mean?
It doesn't leave me wanting anything else, which I think is important.
Yeah, I wish I had one, a phone that I can just hold it in my hand,
like one hand, not two hands.
It's compact. Second of all, it's still very much competes
with a lot of the regular devices you'd find.
At like a very good price point as well. And with, I feel a camera that is
acceptable for a phone camera.
Even though there's no 14 mini, I still don't think it's too late to get a mini iPhone.
At $600, the 13 mini is incredible value.
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you are spoiled for options. But the iPhone 13 mini is the best bang for the buck.
Yes, you can try and save more money and opt for an SE,
but you'd be giving up a lot. If you go for the full size 12 for the same price
as the 13 mini, you lose a ton of new features, improvements, and storage just to get the larger screen.
In every way, it's a lose, lose for me.
And even for the large screen loving person,
I don't think the trade-offs are worth it. You could of course go for the 6.1 inch iPhone 13,
but at that point, you're so close in price and performance to the iPhone 14,
you might as well go for that. But if you really want a big phone, you could get a plus.
And at that point, well actually you're kind of close to the iPhone 14 Pro. So maybe you get that.
Oh, but then you can get the iPhone 14 Max. It's a super slippery slope.
And in deciding what iPhone to spend my money on,
it's super easy. But it is worth considering some of the downsides.
What do you not like about the iPhone mini?
The iPhone, this kind of like, it's the iOS. You know, like I use the phone because it's comfortable,
because it's well-designed in spite of the software.
As far as the hardware goes, I miss having a rear fingerprint sensor.
Yeah, but I mean, also I don't like the fact that you use a lightning cable.
I mostly charge it with, what's it called?
It's not a great phone though, for calling though.
I will say that, it doesn't sound great,
you know what I mean? And the battery life was not entirely there.
Like for example, if I am like going on a road trip
or something where I'm going to be using my phone for most of the day,
then that is very much something I have to be super aware of.
The main thing is the battery life. Let's say if I'm like traveling and stuff,
like I will definitely bring a Mexico charger.
So I just put it on here. That gets rid of the disadvantage
of like the battery life for the smaller phone. Our gripes aren't the biggest issue with the mini iPhone.
The complaint everyone else has with this phone is the thing we all love about it.
It's size. All things considered, the mini line accounts for just two to 3% of iPhones sold
during their life cycle. That's still millions of devices,
but not enough to be considered popular.
This and the opportunity to sell higher cost phones
seems to be why Apple decided to swap the mini for a plus this time around.
And that has me quite worried because there's now a possibility that we may never see a mini iPhone again.
And then what? That's it. The reason I am on iPhone is because of the form factor.
If that goes away, there is nothing compelling to me about staying on an iPhone.
Probably go for a 13 mini or find a used 13 mini.
Like I don't want this to come across as cheap. I just don't value the high end stuff.
I'll probably still go out and just buy this one because it's cheaper than the new one
and the old new fancy feature I probably don't really need.
If I really had to, just for the sake of convenience,
I would end up switching to the current generation
regular iPhone that is available.
The prognosis is not good when you step outside the Apple ecosystem.
All of the normal size Android phones,
I find to be quite large and all of the best features are saved
for the largest among them, which can be better described as monolithic.
I've searched high and low in the Android sphere for an alternative and the best I've been able to find
is the ASUS Zenfone 9.
At first things look promising. This 5.9 inch phone has a surprisingly strong battery life,
flagship specs and would you believe it, a headphone jack.
The wins keep on going. It also has a 120 Hertz refresh rate,
which easily bests what the 13 mini offers.
The news isn't all good though. It lacks wireless charging and the cameras are rough.
What's going on with my hand here? You can find a better camera on a cheaper phone
and compared to the 13 mini, it's not even close. Look at how the Zenfone messed up this jacket.
These haptics feel as bad as phones from 2010
and carrier support isn't even ubiquitous. Verizon, for instance, doesn't support this phone.
And although it did eventually receive Android 13,
OS updates aren't timely. There are times when it is a couple of months
behind on security patches and it only just got its latest one recently.
You'll also only get two years of updates, which was bad a decade ago
and is now inexcusable for a phone of this price.
I'm still glad a small phone alternative exists, but this is a low bar.
There should be better options. And with the 14 line dropping the mini,
we might be at risk of losing one good choice entirely.
But I wouldn't worry just yet. We thought that the 5S would be killed for good
and yet we got the first gen SE. And when that was replaced with the 4.7 inch SE,
we thought that an all screen design that's this small would be impossible.
And yet we got the 12 mini. We are a minority wanting this, but we're a vocal minority.
And Apple has so far been able to fill this niche.
It's not surprising, Steve Jobs was on our side.
Now with the current SE getting long in the tooth,
I think that line is primed for a new model,
one which could carry on the legacy of the mini.
When the iPhone 15 comes out, give me the body of a 13 with updated internals.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't dead yet. It'll still get OS updates for years to come.
And even when it stops getting major iOS releases, it'll likely continue getting security updates,
just as old versions of iOS do. But eventually there will come a time to replace it.
And when that time comes, I hope there's an option for people like me.
Thanks for shrinking this Mac Address down to size. If you like big phones, give this video a like.
And if you like small phones, you might as well subscribe. I'm curious, what is the perfect size phone for you?
Do you cope with a measurement policy like I did?