After being delayed by a month, Apple’s iPhone 12 event has finally happened. With it came four new iPhone 12 devices and we have all of the Australian price, specs and release date information for you right here.
The entire range comes with mmWave 5G that has Smart Data mode. This allows the devices to automatically drop back down to 4G in an effort to save battery. It will be interesting to see how this actually works in practice and what the phones will deem to be 5G worthy.
As for the design, this year Apple has opted for a flatter look (rather than curved edges) that may remind you of the iPhone 4 days, or the newer iPads in market. You’ll also find that most of the devices are slimmer and lighter than previous years but with more screen real estate.
The iPhone 12 range also comes with a new Ceramic Shield tech that has been co-developed with Gorilla Glass, making it tougher and more drop resistant.
Under the hood of the iPhone 12 is Apple’s latest A14 Bionic chip. In addition to 5G and new Night Mode photography features, Apple says the new chipset allows for 50 per cent improved performance. The company has stated that the A14 Bionic has 40 per cent more transistors and 70 per cent faster machine learning capabilities.
Lastly, the rumours were true about wired headphones and power adaptors being removed from the iPhone 12 boxes. We assumed this would be the case back in September when the adaptors were also removed from the new iPad and Apple Watch 7 devices. According to Apple, this is to keep in line with its ‘carbon-neutral by 2030’ policy.
However, you’ll still get a power cable with the new iPhone 12, and it’s a bit different this year. Instead of the classic lightning cable it will be a new USB-C to lightning cable.
Now it’s time to look at some of the differences between the four iPhone 12 devices.
iPhone 12 Specs
First up we have the OG iPhone 12 which comes with 5G and has upgraded from an LCD to OLED display this year.
On the camera front it has a new dual-camera 12MP wide set up and 12MP ultra-wide setup with 120-degree field of view. It also has a new 7-element lens which, amongst other things, Apple says improves its lowlight performance.
Here’s all the key specs:
- A14 Bionic chip CPU
- 6.1-inch OLED display
- 64GB/128GB/256GB storage (no word on the RAM as Apple doesn’t disclose this)
- 5G connectivity
- Dual rear camera: 12MP Wide (Æ’/1.6 aperture) 12MP Ultra Wide (Æ’/2.4 aperture) and 12MP (Æ’/2.2 aperture) front facing camera.
- Up to 17 hours video playback with Qi and new MagSafe wireless charging (Apple doesn’t disclose battery mAH)
- 146.7 mm x 71.5 mm x 7.4 mm, 162g
- IP68 water resistance
- Black, white, project red, blue, and green colour options
The iPhone 12 will start at $1,349 in Australia. Pre-orders will begin on Friday, October 16 at 11pm. Ooft. It will then go on sale on Friday, October 23.
iPhone 12 Mini Specs
This year Apple added a Mini device to its line up. The iPhone 12 Mini has almost exactly the same specs and inclusions as the regular iPhone 12, but in a smaller package. It’s battery is also slightly smaller, offering two less hours of video playback.
Here’s the full list of specs:
- A14 Bionic chip CPU
- 5.4-inch OLED display
- 64GB/128GB/256GB storage (no word on the RAM as Apple doesn’t disclose this)
- 5G connectivity
- Dual rear camera: 12MP Wide (Æ’/1.6 aperture) 12MP Ultra Wide (Æ’/2.4 aperture) and 12MP (Æ’/2.2 aperture) front facing camera.
- Up to 15 hours video playback with Qi and new MagSafe wireless charging (Apple doesn’t disclose battery mAH)
- 131.5 mm x 64.2 mm x 7.4 mm, 133g
- IP68 water resistance
- Black, white, project red, blue, and green colour options
The iPhone 12 Mini will start at $1,199 in Australia. I guess if you wanted a sub-$1000 device you won’t find it here. We’d suggest looking at the 2020 iPhone SE instead.
Pre-orders will begin on Saturday, November 7 at midnight. Double ooft. It will then go on sale on Friday, November 13.
iPhone 12 Pro Specs
If you want to kick things a notch, the pro series is back this year. The real heroes of these devices are the triple-rear camera systems. The Pro has 2.5x optical zoom this time around, with the Pro Max upping it to 4x optical zoom.
Apple is claiming that the iPhone 12 Pro camera features has 87 per cent better low light performance than the previous generation. There is also a slight difference in the telephoto lenses in both phones.
Both the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max have LiDAR support and a new ProRAW image format. The latter won’t roll out until later in the year but it combines RAW photo format with multi-frame image processing through computational photography
This basically means that the layers of photo data are held separately from one another. ProRAW then allows you to have control over and edit this separate elements (such as tone mapping and dynamic range) natively in the iPhone camera app.
And when it comes to video, the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max can now record in HDR and supports Dolby Vision. These phones will be able to shoot in 4K at 60 fps, which is a first.
Here’s the key specs for the iPhone 12 Pro:
- A14 Bionic chip CPU
- 6.1-inch OLED Super Retina XDR display
- 128/256/512 GB storage (no word on RAM as Apple doesn’t disclose this)
- 5G connectivity
- Triple rear cameras – 12MP ultra wide (Æ’/2.4 aperture), 12MP wide (Æ’/1.6 aperture) and 12MP telephoto (Æ’/2.0). 12MP (Æ’/2.2 aperture) front-facing camera
- HDR 4K video recording
- Face ID
- Up to 17 hours video playback with Qi and new MagSafe wireless charging (Apple doesn’t disclosed the battery size)
- 146.7 mm x 71.5 mm x 7.4 mm, 187 grams
- Gold, silver, graphite, and blue colour options
The iPhone 12 Pro will start at $1,699 in Australia. Pre-orders will begin on Friday, October 16 at 11pm. It will then go on sale on Friday, October 23. So it’s going to release alongside the regular iPhone 12.
iPhone 12 Pro Max Specs
- A14 Bionic chip CPU
- 6.7-inch OLED Super Retina XDR display
- 128/256/512 GB storage (no word on RAM as Apple doesn’t disclose this)
- 5G connectivity
- Triple rear cameras – 12MP ultra wide (Æ’/2.4 aperture), 12MP wide (Æ’/1.6 aperture) and 12MP telephoto (Æ’/2.2). 12MP (Æ’/2.2 aperture) front-facing camera
- 4K and HDR video recording
- Up to 20 hours video playback with Qi and new MagSafe wireless charging (Apple doesn’t disclosed the battery size)
- 160.8 mm x 78.1 mm x 7.4 mm, 226 grams
- Gold, silver, graphite, and blue colour options
The iPhone 12 Pro will start at $1,849 in Australia. Pre-orders will begin on Saturday, November 7 at midnight. It will then go on sale on Friday, November 13. This means it will release alongside the iPhone 12 Mini.
This story is updating…
Disclosure: The author owns 12 shares in Apple.
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