Why I haven't reviewed the Apple iPhone 12.... yet - Mini + Pro Max First Impressions
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
2,023 words · ~10 min read
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- I am now two weeks in to daily driving the iPhone 12 Pro.
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And that might lead you to ask the question, Linus, where is your review of the iPhone 12 lineup?
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And the answer is I didn't really feel like I can talk about the iPhone 12 lineup.
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And typically we only do one Linus Tech Tips video
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per new iPhone launch, until I had met the whole family.
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And that is just what I'll be doing today.
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One of these two devices is going to replace the 12 Pro in my pocket.
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And the reason for that, is I found the 12 Pro to be kind of like a, a tweener, you know?
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It's not really small enough for me to totally comfortably use it one-handed,
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but it's not really big enough to satisfy my
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content consumption, you know, urges, so to speak
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because remember guys, the device I came from was actually the Galaxy Fold,
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well the second one, actually, the Galaxy Z Fold 2.
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So going from that kind of a screen to this was like, eh,
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yeah, I guess it's okay, It's all right, I guess. So in front of me then is the iPhone 12 Mini
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and the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Which one you want to see first, Andy?
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- [Andy] The bigger one. - The big one? You want the big one? You got it, I thought we were going to say the chunk is
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for the end. All right, let's go straight to the chunkgest. This is the chungessy,
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chungessiest iPhone that we've ever had.
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Look at the freaking wait, is that camera bump actually bigger?
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No, no okay it just feels gigantic because of probably this
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marble skin from D brand. Of course the phones were sent by D brand
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because Apple does not send me devices, so there you have it.
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Well, it's big all right. I really don't know about the squareness at this size, dude.
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This is a gigantic feeling device, face ID, man.
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I'm going to talk about it more in the full review, but face ID is like not great for a COVID world
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where I'm wearing a mask anywhere from six to 10 hours a day, it's not a great experience.
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Some apps don't handle notifications very gracefully if you don't look at it and have face ID work
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and you have to like swipe away like Twitter mentions, for example, if you use your passcode to unlock, they're just gone.
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You can't just pull down the shade or I don't know what Apple calls it, but what I would call a notification shade.
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You can't just pull it down and be like, oh yo, all those notifications, they're gone.
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So not being able to use face ID all the time. The fact that there's no fingerprint sensor
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in these power buttons is driving me freaking crazy.
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Anyway, let's go ahead and use Apple's super cool painless
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setup system here. I also hate the security or rather the insecurity
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of using my pin, my passcode all the time,
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because you never know if someone's watching, like that's one of the best things about face ID
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is that your second authentication factor is one that you don't have to have on display all the time.
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Like I always feel like I'm at a public pin pad. I should be like going like this.
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Ah, hold your new iPhone up to the camera.
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Apple's probably sitting there going like, what? Who upgrades from an iPhone 12 Pro to a Pro Max?
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As with the 12 pro you get a cable and you get a little look at this,
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got a little SIM removal tool, get that little applet. Hey, they only give one Apple sticker now?
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It's well-balanced. That's something Apple has always done extremely well.
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It is, it makes such a big difference in the handling. Like, especially as devices got bigger,
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it became more and more important for them to be well-balanced because you'd get like a top heavy one
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and you put it in your hand, oh no, what happened to my phone? Don't worry it's not going to be damaged because we got this
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three and a half millimeter thick LTT Northern Lights,
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mousepad lttstore.com, actually it's not available yet. Coming soon though.
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This video is brought to you by Soundcore The Soundcore thankful giveaway
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including to Soundcore Liberty 2 Pros, 30 Flare 2 Bluetooth speakers,
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those things are flipping awesome and more. A great feature if you do happen to win a Flare 2,
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or if you buy one is of course party cast, which allows you to pair up to a hundred, actually,
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I don't think there's a limit, but we did a hundred of them at the same time
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off of a single Bluetooth device, it works absolutely flawlessly. My kids use it all the time.
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So check out the link in the video description to enter the giveaway right away.
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Transferring data, time remaining estimating. I don't think I have a ton of data on here.
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I haven't taken like a ton of pictures and video in spite of how outstanding the camera is.
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All right now let's have a look while this does its thing.
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Let's have a look at the little bitty Linus sized one.
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Where is my iPhone 4? Hey Jono, where's that bin of iPhones?
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This is tiny. Like this reminds me of the first SE
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or like the five, five and 5S or something.
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It's even kind of light too. Especially coming from holding one of these more,
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more chunkesy ones. There's your Type C lightening.
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Ah, yes, good. Here's my iPhone box. Okay.
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In terms of size, especially with the case on it's actually not that far off.
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It is bigger though. God, that notch looks unholy big
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on a phone this small though. That's like more notch than Minecraft, you know?
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Know what I'm saying? I won't to try my passcode, but like, wow,
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this is one handable. Like if you don't do a ton of content consumption
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on the go with your phone, boy, is that ever handleable.
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I like it. And what's great is unlike what we've seen happen
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with Android over the years, Apple hasn't crippled this thing.
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They didn't go and put like a crappier processor in or anything, this is a full fat iPhone 12,
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like it doesn't get obviously the same triple camera setup
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as the iPhone 12 Pro. So there, there is,
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there are definitely some compromises here, but they're small ones, they're small ones.
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And I would expect because they're all running the same processor that you would see support
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last for a similar amount of time compared to the other iPhone 12 family members.
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- [Jono] How much is the Pro Max? - Pro Max? I don't know, if you have to ask you can't afford it.
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You know how it is. Should I try and daily drive this thing? - [Andy] Yeah, you should try the Mini.
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- You're going to miss the screen size. Do you watch any TV or movies on your phone?
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- [Andy] No. - Nothing? - Nothing. - Oh, see, I'm a big mobile mobile media consumer.
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Like it. - I would do that while I am popping. - It'd be really tough to have.
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(laughs) (beep) - Wow. - You know what really has been bothering me too
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in the last couple of weeks? The fact that you can't just put anything you want
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in command center. And also why the (beep) is there not a settings
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command center doodad? And what is with the arbitrary sorting in here?
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Like why is camera in like where's camera again?
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I was looking for camera, it took me like ages. Yeah there.
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Why is camera in with like photos and Apple TV
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and like game center? And they don't have headers.
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So there's no like clear rhyme or reason
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behind how these things are grouped here. Why is App Store and wallet and,
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(high pitch buzzing) Okay, sorry, sorry. This is not, this is not my review of the phone.
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I just want to watch a movie on a big iPhone screen because boy is the screen ever gorgeous with chunk.
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It's not even thicker. It's just it's squared off.
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You know, I thought I wanted this, which is what's really funny about it. Like that was one of the first things that I said
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I was excited about yet actually using it daily,
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really just not as comfortable. So here's the 11 Pro Max for comparison.
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Very similar width, actually a touch, no, it feels really big, 'cause it just is really big.
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Okay. They really haven't done much about how thick those bezels are either, have they?
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Touch thinner total. And I guess the squared offness helps with that.
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So it does mean that the screen is larger.
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I am so disappointed that the notch, A continues to be there at all
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and B continues to be so darn good. Wait, Andy, I initially said they didn't look different.
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Wait, is that camera bump actually bigger? No, no okay.
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But I was totally wrong. No, they're totally different. Look how much bigger the one on the 12 Pro Max is.
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So that's, that makes sense. 'Cause it does have a longer telephoto lens.
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Well, that's one compelling reason to carry a bigger chunkgus phone in your pocket.
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Having up to two and a half X optical zoom is pretty nice too.
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Let's fire up YouTube for some content consumption.
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Man, that is really small.
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And look at this. Oh my God, look what they did.
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When you're watching full screen 16 by nine content,
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you're not just dealing with the rounded corners, you get a little bit of notch.
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Oh, why did you do this? Your Apple, you can create a display in any aspect ratio and form factor
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you want, all you had to do was make the phone one millimeter taller.
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- Oh to be fair, our aspect ration is 2:1. - Oh, oh, that's true it is, it's 2:1, you're right.
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It's on us, it's on us. Why couldn't we just make our video one millimeter narrower?
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You know what? The more I play with the Pro Max and the Mini,
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the more I'm like yeah, the 12 and the 12 Pro are probably the right size.
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And given that the features of the 12 Pro, so you get the LIDAR scanner as well as the third camera
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are like not going to make a huge deal to the vast majority of people,
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the 12 looks like the winner, doesn't it? Unless you absolutely must have a tiny iPhone
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because you're still rocking the like 5S or something
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and you, you can't let it go. If that's you, if you're one of these,
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this is going to be wild, woopsie daisies, this is going to be real comfortable.
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(deep voice mumbles) The screen is broken or not the screen, the,
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the protector that was on it. All right then. So what's stronger?
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What's stronger traditional tempered glass or the ceramic glass?
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We, we, we mashed iPhones together until we knew for sure.
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All right, Andy, I'm gonna do it. I'll try the 12 Mini.
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I'll put my SIM in this and what you guys should try is getting subscribed to ShortCircuit for more first impressions
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and quick looks and all that kind of stuff.