The Verge‘s Dieter Bohn is of the opinion that the best iPhone for most people is the iPhone 12, but the iPhone 12 mini is his favorite – expect for its battery life or lack thereof.
Despite the smaller screen size, you don’t miss out on as much as you might expect. Compared to the regular iPhone 12 with a 6.1-inch screen, there are maybe one or two lines of text that are cut off. What you actually miss out on is that sense of immersion you can get from a bigger screen when you’re playing a game or watching a movie. Those were the only times this screen felt cramped…
It’s amazing until the battery dies, anyway.
I don’t want to sugarcoat it nor be overly dire about it, but the battery life on the iPhone 12 mini is noticeably worse than on the iPhone 12, which itself was a step down from the battery-champ iPhone 11. For me, it’s good enough, but it does mean I’m already using it differently than I use bigger phones.
Without making any effort at it, I have consistently drained the iPhone 12 mini’s battery by early evening. I’d say it’s fair to expect the 12 mini to clock up something near four hours of screentime with stuff like web browsing, Facebook, and taking photos. Intense games give you a chance to watch the battery percent tick down minute by minute.
So it’s not bad, but it’s definitely not great. My feeling after a little less than a week is that getting through a day requires a little bit of battery management.
MacDailyNews Take: If you pound your iPhone all day long and don’t want to have a “charging strategy” to get through the day, then iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, or, especially, the capricious iPhone 12 Pro Max are better choices.