- Remember when you evaluated a phone based on how smooth it was when you were swiping
from one page to the next? - [Jono] Yeah.
Which iPhone is that? 4? - The iPhone 4. This was my daily driver for almost three years.
- [Jono] Oh, me too! (laughs) - It's a good phone.
And that is why I'm so excited to check out the iPhone 12.
I mean, we haven't seen an update to Apple's design for the iPhone since the iPhone X.
And before that, it had been, I don't know, about 17 years since they had updated the design
that they originally introduced with the 6.
So here in front of me, I have the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro.
Unfortunately, we don't have the Pro Max or the mini yet,
but surely, we will get our hands on them in due time.
Oh, right! Interesting.
The new Sticker Bomb skin from the one and only dbrand
that is a limited time drop, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,
that you can check out at the link in the video description. Now, what excited me when I watched the Keynote
for the iPhone 12 was this return to kind of a more squared off shape.
I've always liked it, and maybe part of it is just nostalgia.
A lot of people around here assume that I'm some kind of Apple hater,
I hate iPhones or something like that, but the truth is I actually daily drove this iPhone 4
for almost three years. And I've been through everything with it;
I replaced the battery at one point, I had to replace the broken home button at one point,
like I really wanted to keep this thing going. I absolutely loved it.
And part of what I loved about it was the industrial solid feel of the aluminum frame
with the glass sandwich, front and back. It's a design that I still think stands out today.
And so seeing Apple make a return to this squared off design was something
that was kind of exciting to me, even as someone who doesn't normally geek out over like,
"Yeah, like the design, the lines, the phone, you know."
Honestly though, feeling it in my hand, I can't say that I like it as much as I was expecting to.
Part of what worked so well about the iPhone 4 was its size,
like it was very, very holdable.
Remember when the lock button was on the top? Ha-ha, I remember that.
Honestly, this, I find a little bit harder to hold onto,
like it either alternately digs into my palm
or kind of slips out of it. To be clear, there is a sticker on it,
a fancy sticker, but a sticker nonetheless. But I'm just finding it a little bit, I don't know, sharp,
in a way that I didn't find the iPhone 4. - [Andy] Maybe if you have a case.
- I don't know, I'm more of a naked guy. You know, I'm a naked boy.
At most, a fancy sticker. I don't really like a bulky thing around my phone.
- [Andy] Speaking of naked, LTTstore.com.
- Don't be naked. Go to LTT Store.com. (everyone laughs)
Swipe around a little bit here. Okay, I got my news, things that can be paywalled,
so I can subscribe to Apple news for $14
or whatever it costs. Thanks for that. This is cool. Got my App Library.
So this is Apple holding the hands of all the people
that don't know how to make folders. My wife would benefit from this.
For whatever reason, you still can't just put an icon wherever you want.
Ugh! But yeah, I tend to just make folders and then anytime I don't need folders,
Spotlight is so amazing. If you've been living under a rock,
the main benefits of the iPhone 12 lineup are as follows,
and surprisingly, this is really cool.
Most of them apply to both the 12 and the 12 Pro,
which impressed the heck out of me 'cause Apple's been known to do things like,
"Oh, well, you know, well, you don't need a OLED display,"
or whatever the case may be. So we've got higher resolution displays,
they're now calling it Super Retina. Apple has finally given into the pixels-per-inch war
but in a way that I still think is reasonably sensible as long as it's not costing us anything in battery.
More on that later. They've got support for 5G across the entire new lineup.
As long as that doesn't affect battery too much, that should be okay. although word on the street is that it has.
and we're gonna have to wait for the upcoming iPhone 13 lineup
to get a more efficient 5G modem. We've got the A14 Bionic SOC, which to my knowledge,
is the first commercially shipping five-nanometer processor.
So it's got an enhanced neural engine as well as a new image signal processor
which should make the cameras on these better than ever even though they're 12 megapixels across the board,
even on the iPhone 12 Pro. So you've got your telephoto 12 megapixel,
your regular 12-megapixel, and your super-wide 12 megapixel.
And then finally, honestly, as crazy as this sounds,
I don't really care that much about a new super advanced SOC these days.
I mean, I am still daily driving a Note9
and finding it to be fast enough for my use. The thing that's blowing me away here is the glass.
On both of these phones, Apple is using a new Ceramic Shield glass technology
that infuses the glass with ceramic
that apparently makes them more shatterproof, just across the board stronger than anything
that we've ever seen before by an order of several times.
I mean, is this the end of shattered iPhone screens?
According to some preliminary testing that I've seen, these puppies are surviving six-foot drops
and just shrugging them off. I mean, bad news for the third-party repair industry
along with all the other things about the iPhone 12 lineup that are difficult to repair,
but good news for anyone who doesn't like replacing their phone screens all the time.
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One other big I-can't-believe-you-didn't-hold-out-on-me feature
is the ability of both phones, the Pro and the regular,
to not only playback HDR content at up to 1200 nits peak brightness,
but also record HDR content. Now both of them will do up to 4K 60 FPS,
but the only difference between them is that the Pro will do HDR recording
at up to 60 frames per second. So I'm actually using the regular one right now
to just try it out. Let's record an HDR clip here.
Whoa! Hey, hold on. Whoa. You could see it just like right there,
switched over into HDR mode. That is mind blowing.
That is absolutely incredible. I don't know how much of this you guys are gonna be able to see
through my camera on your screen, but this is not an ideal scenario for recording video
on phones when I'm unboxing them or whatever. There's studio lights shining in my face
and a lot of really deep shadows out there in the warehouse.
I have never seen anything pick up even close
to this kind of detail in here. Look how smooth that is too.
Holy schnikes, dude. This is crazy.
Wow. This becomes one of those can-I-wait features, you know?
'Cause that's the question Android users find themselves asking a lot of the time is,
well, iPhone users too for that matter is, "Is this worth switching for?
Can I wait to have this?" Android phone makers are gonna come out
with good HDR video recording eventually, but can I wait?
Damn! Sorry, I swear I will stop. Like holy (bleep).
This right here. No, hold on. This diffusion cloth looks so close
to what it looks like in real life here.
I'm blown away. Obviously, when you have a really strong light source,
it'll clip, so you can see my main light here,
but my fill light, that looks like the wrinkles in the cloth.
Here, let's just... Okay, let's pull out a mortal video recorder here.
So there's Andy looking all fly.
Let's pan over here. Oh, looks like garbage.
Okay, check this out. See how the entire scene dims
as I point towards these lights? And how dark that looks, it doesn't look like that.
But on the iPhone 12, look at that consistency.
Even as we pan across these bright...
Like what? Look at that dynamic range!
It captures the whole thing. Isn't that nuts?
- [Man] It's crazy. (laughs)
- [Andy] We should all switch to iPhone. - Oh!
Okay. Sorry, I will move on now. I will move on now.
The notch is still here. Notch is apparently not going away anytime soon
in spite of the fact that we got a global pandemic and without some weird, hacky workarounds
where you hold the mask on half of your face
while you set up Face ID and then an alternate look,
and you do the other half of your face or something like that, really,
Face ID does not work at all with a mask, and Apple has come out and said,
"Well, it's not intended to be used with a mask. You can just use a pin." In spite of that, we're stuck with Face ID.
We're stuck with a frickin' forehead notch in the front of the phone.
I'm not a big fan of that. We're stuck with 60 Hertz displays.
Right, I didn't even realize until I was like... Who doesn't use their phone as a fidget toy?
Until I was fidgeting, swiping between home screens. I was like, "Oh yeah, that looks like garbage".
(laughs) I mean, it really does. 90 Hertz, even 80, 75.
75 Hertz would have been a big difference. That's all you had to do to make me at least happier, Apple.
But I also understand why they didn't. Word on the street is that, and I haven't tried it yet,
but word on the street is that battery life on the iPhone 12 lineup ain't great,
and a big part of it is due to the 5G modem.
So if Apple had gone and gone, "Okay, we're gonna add 5G, we're gonna add a higher resolution display,
we're gonna throw a high refresh rate display in there,"
they would have had endless complaints about battery life unless they sucked it up
and put a big battery in the iPhone, which I don't think they're ever going to do.
One thing they did do though is throw a ton of RAM in these puppies.
So there's a really good test over on EverythingApplePro
where he shows that basically, with 6 gigs of RAM,
that slow task switching that has plagued iPhone users
when you have a lot of apps open in the background is pretty much resolved.
And that's the kind of thing that I also, like the battery thing, was sure that Apple was never going to address
because it dramatically increases the cost of every single unit they sell.
Whereas software optimization is something that only increases the cost of writing the software;
the handsets themselves can remain cheap. So you've got the fastest SOC, you've got a ton of RAM,
you've got a beautiful display even if it only runs at 60 Hertz
and they actually didn't raise prices for a change.
What do you think, Andy? iPhone 12, 12 Pro, winners?
- [Andy] Look at my T-shirt. - Oh my God, he's wearing an Apple logo.
(staff laughs) You're buying one, aren't you?
- [Andy] I bought one for my wife. - "I bought one for my wife." - Yeah. - All right.
- Not for myself. - You're gonna test drive it for her though, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, that makes sense.
Which one should I daily drive, the Pro or the regular? - [Jono] Pro. - Just go Pro?
I mean, the difference is so small. You got stainless steel frame on the Pro,
aluminum frame on the non-Pro, like, hmm, okay.
It's a little bit heavier. You got the extra camera which honestly,
I probably won't use much, ugh. They both have wireless charging.
Obviously, I think Apple is trying to phase us out of the whole plugging things into your phone thing,
one connector at a time here. MagSafe charging, so let's go ahead
and try out the MagSafe charger. Personally, I'm not expecting to be...
What the hell? What is this packaging? Oh, very funny, dbrand. (laughs)
Okay, there, that's an example of the Linus face drop that you can find link down below.
Personally, I'm not expecting to be very compelled by MagSafe charging, but who knows?
Maybe I'll be surprised. Personally, I got one of those multi-device things
that Apple never manage to release. I'm a little bummed that this isn't detachable
'cause that means when this wears out, and you can tell just looking at it that it's gonna wear out, it's gonna be a bit of a drag.
Which way does it go? Oh, there you go. Yeah, okay, so what's the key benefit of this
compared to just a regular wireless charging pad?
I guess just that it aligns properly in place. Okay, I mean, that's cool.
Oh yeah, we could try the LiDAR thing. What did I say that app was called? Canvas!
How many things are called Canvas?
There we go, Canvas: Pocket 3D Room Scanner. Confirm the side button.
Oh, got the camera right there. - [Man] Keep it up, Linus.
- [Linus] You sound like my wife. - Hold it up. - I'm working on it.
"Preparing to process your scan," this is where your A14 Bionic is gonna come in handy.
Oh, dang! That's cool.
Now there's a lot of obstructions 'cause this is a film set, but check out the enhanced scan.
- [Both] Whoa! - [Linus] Neat!
Go away, I'm trying to... (clicks tongue) I'm trying to look at things.
Okay, I don't... Don't show this info anymore. Go away.
Stop! I just wanna look at it. (staff laughs)
Don't show this info anymore. Okay, there, if I click it, then will it go away?
Okay. Oh, no. Here we go.
- [Jono] I mean, it's kinda like a panorama. - No, it's not 'cause it has depth to it.
See? - Oh, that's true. - Now there's a lot of like...
It's doing a lot of guessing, obviously. You'd need multiple scans to get a really proper room scan,
but that's still really cool. Yeah, it really doesn't like this plant.
Ooh. That's all I really have to share about the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro for now.
I'm gonna do a full review, I'm gonna daily drive it. I guess we'll do the Pro then?
- Yeah. - We'll do the Pro and you'll have to find that over on Linus Tech Tips.
I might never use the Lightning port again,
and that's Apple's plan, isn't it?