Should you buy the iPhone 12?
The iPhone 12 is set to be released on the 23rd of October, at a price of $799, along with the iPhone 12 pro, priced at $999, and the iPhone 12 mini will be accessible to us 3 weeks later, on the 13th of November, at a price of $699, along with the iPhone 12 pro max, priced at $1,099. Each year, Apple consistently blow people’s minds with the variety of new features and updates that come with their phones. They’ve pulled that off this year once again, with the introduction of 5G in Apple phones, the new ceramic protected OLED screen that is allegedly 4x stronger than traditional screen protectors, and the pro camera system with an Ultra Wide camera that boasts a 47 percent larger sensor for an 87 percent improvement on photo quality in low light areas. While there will be many criticisms of some new features of the new iPhone by competitors and sceptics, for example the environmentally friendly exclusion of chargers and earphones in the iPhone box, this will most likely not affect the success of the iPhone 12, and these competitors won’t take long to follow suit.
As I touched on earlier, the removal of earphones and charger from the packaging makes it notably smaller, allowing 70% more product to be shipped on a shipping pallet. This goes towards Apple’s intention to reduce electronic waste. At first sight, this comes across as a good thing, and sure, I’d agree, if the phone were priced at around $600. You might argue that the price I have proposed is unreasonable, because this phone is Apple’s first 5G phone. Well, 5G isn’t really all that great. mmWave 5G, the version of 5G with 1Gbps speed and under 10 milliseconds of latency, the version that people desire and lust for, comes with many negatives, and may not be better than our good old 4G on immediate inspection. Firstly, it has a range of 150 metres at most, which is a huge inconvenience for anyone on the move, as unless you are surrounded with 5G base stations, you’re not going to be seeing high speed 5G. Even if you are, by chance, within range of a 5G base station, anything can block its signal of high frequency. Glass on windows, for one, can stop the signal dead, meaning you won’t be able to get good signal. Also, if you have a 5G phone and manage to get good service, you won’t see performance far past mediocre. Open Signal reports that US 5G users saw an average speed of 33.4Mbps. This is obviously faster than 4G, but not breathtakingly fast. Not the speeds of the 5G that people were craving for. Long story short, 5G is an incomplete project, and Steven J Vaughan-Nichols, a technology analyst, predicts that it won’t be widely available until 2025 at the earliest. Also, Apple have arguably downgraded their design element of the iPhone. The iPhone 12’s flat edged design is similar to the iPhone 5 and earlier models. What Apple are trying to achieve by doing this is just to keep people attracted with a design change, as they have been following the smooth edge trend for 4 iPhone generations now. However, this is not necessarily a good thing, as instead of coming out with a different, inventive design they just copied one of their old designs, which is slightly boring as people want something different, something new. The flat edged design could also make the phone more uncomfortable to hold and grip for periods of time, as the round edged design provided a soft feel on your hands. So, what exactly sets this new iPhone apart from last year’s iPhone 11, and why is it priced so highly?
The iPhone 12 has an all new ProMotion OLED display, the “Super Retina XDR” screen. This is crafted out of protective ceramic shield material, which makes the screen one fourth as likely to crack when dropped. Obviously, this is a positive, I can’t see anything wrong with the strength of a screen being quadrupled and a high-quality visual experience. This ultimately saves people money as they won’t have to repair their screen as much. Another factor for the price increase is the camera. The iPhone 12 is a photographer’s phone, coming with a Deep Fusion computational photography system and a Smart HDR 3 system, helping you catch every last hue. It also comes with a 12-megapixel f/1.8 ‘wide’ camera. Photos are obviously a big part of the overall iPhone experience, and the fact that Apple have come out with a camera of the highest quality will please many people, photographers or not. Another factor is one for the phone addicts. The iPhone 12 delivers up to 20 hours of video playback on the higher end models, giving iPhones a new kind of convenience, and almost removing the issue of no charger in the packaging. You can now literally spend every minute of the day on your phone, and only bother to recharge it overnight. This is an incredible feature and will entice a lot of people in the long run. As I was saying earlier, all these innovative features are what attracts viewers and customers every year and make Apple a hot topic in the Autumn season, and sales will still be huge when the phone is released, no matter what people say about the product. As a result of this, the same competitors who criticised the phone, will still be quick to follow suit when it is a huge success. Do these features make up a $100 price difference between the iPhone 11 and 12?
In my opinion, yes. These additions are innovative, unique and make for a much better experience than the previous phone, which is everything you want in an upgrade. There are shortcomings, but these can be easily resolved; the battery power makes carrying a charger around with you redundant and you can just switch to 4G if 5G isn’t working. The only one that can’t be resolved is the design, but people managed with the iPhone 5, as they most likely will do with the 12. The iPhone 12 is going to be a big success, and these innovative new features will be popular after the iPhone 12 succeeds.
