I phone

 

so

every year like clockwork a new iphone

comes out

that's a little better a little faster a

little stronger than the last one

and as we know apple is the master of

messaging so they give an incredible

onstage presentation with

unreal video production they paint the

simplest prettiest picture

of how this is the greatest iphone

they've ever made the most powerful

fastest iphone we've ever made but they

also do something else

very important standard practice but

they give the phone

to reviewers and they don't have to do

this but they do

and everyone involved will have

essentially some date

that they are first allowed to talk

about their experience with this new

phone now i've been a reviewer for years

we're professionals our job is to take

that week

and do all of our testing and take all

of our findings and

find all the things we like and all the

things we don't like and all the new

features and test all of the new claims

and distill them all down into one piece

and that is a review and if you time it

all right you can publish that review

right when the contract we signed says

we're allowed to you might have heard of

this

it's called an embargo so that's what

you're seeing when you see all this

first wave of reviews and impressions

videos

about a product drop at the same time

the thing is every single one of these

reviews is fundamentally a balancing act

because there's limited time there is no

possible way to meaningfully test

every single new thing about every

incredible new phone that comes out

and even if you do how much time does

that leave for writing down

all these tests and then analyzing the

results of these tests

and that doesn't even leave time for the

production of shooting the video of

editing the video the color correction

the music all the creative choices you

want to make there's just too much

being a video reviewer on youtube today

is like nine different jobs in one so

how do you decide what gets included

in that review and how much has to hit

the cutting room floor so every review

has its own style

some reviews you'll see are 5 minutes

long super dense

some might be 10 minutes long even my

own videos reviews over the years have

gotten somewhere in the 15 to 20 minute

range

but that's in an effort to give you as

much information as possible

in as short as time as possible i'm not

trying to waste anybody's time

and don't forget on youtube we also have

audience metrics and retention to think

about

it's a balancing act so a review is

basically

the art of compressing and distilling

as much useful information as possible

into one piece but because it's an art

everyone's going to cut different things

from different places

and make different pieces but not this

video

in this video there is no time limit

this is everything you could possibly

want to know about my last

five months with the iphone 12 pro

and what i really think

[Music]

all right so now that the limits are off

i'm definitely going to be getting into

the weeds a pretty good amount

and multiple pieces of this video you

know when it's happening but i still

think it'll be pretty fun

when we do it now if you're the madman

or mad woman who's just going to watch

this whole video straight through to the

end

well you can see how long this video is

it's a good one

buckle up grab a snack but if your

attention span isn't quite that long

well you can see there are chapters

below for all these different topics so

if you want to get into the weeds

on a certain topic you're curious about

you can do that too

feel free to click around also this

video is mainly based

on the iphone 12 pro that i've spent

most of my last five months with

but anytime i reference other pieces of

the iphone lineup the 12 mini

or the 12 or the 12 pro max i'll mention

that too

let's get into it

[Music]

so the iphone 12 series has a refreshed

design this year which is always a big

deal

in the phone world and the iphone design

just doesn't change as much

as it used to and i think that's pretty

important design is really what most

people look forward to and what seems to

identify

the iphone forever i mean think about it

most of the time when you see new iphone

leaks

or headlines or rumors it's mostly

design stuff right you're looking at

new case designs or new dimensions or

what is the camera bump on the back of

this year's rectangle going to look like

mostly because

we already know the next year's iphone

is going to be pretty similar to this

year's iphone

but we just want to know what it's going

to look like the look and feel

in the hand is always the last most

exciting unknown

i happen to love the new modern super

flat design

of the iphone 12 series it's still a

rectangle with rounded corners in a few

different colors

but the sides are flat straight up

90 degrees stand up on the edges flat so

the flatness has become this identifying

characteristic of the phone just like it

was for the iphone 4

4s 5 and 5s but it's actually even

flatter than most other flat phones

because instead of 2.5 d

glass that's flat for most of the

surface and then curves over at the very

edges

this is just straight flat glass on the

front and the back

and the flat stainless steel band around

the edges so this has a couple of

effects

first it gave apple slightly more

internal volume in the same shape

second it made the edges a bit sharper

so i happen to like the flatter edges

just because i feel like it gives me

something to hold when i'm picking up

the phone

gripping it some people though dislike

it for the same reason because it can

feel a little sharp

like it's sort of bumping into the

corners of your hand i haven't felt that

with this phone the thing i

like and dislike the most about this

design though is the finishes

so all the new iphone 12 pros have this

sort of matte finish on the back which

is nice it's actually a satin that

doesn't show many fingerprints in any

light which is awesome

it doesn't change much as it wears over

time but then you've got

a glassy finish on the apple logo the

camera bump

and the stainless steel band around the

outside so the logo

that's fine i get it but we know they

could have made the camera bump

matte because that's what they did on

the regular iphone 12 yet they went with

a glossy finish just on this piece

and then combined with the raised sharp

camera rings

this has the tendency to collect a lot

of dust every iphone 12 pro you see

that's been outside of a case

for more than a few minutes or put into

a pocket is going to have dust around

the camera modules

this doesn't actually change the

performance of the camera so it's

actually not a big deal but the dust is

pretty much always going to be there

because of the rings

the most annoying part of the finish on

these phones for me though is the

fingerprints

on the stainless steel rails they are

constant

so much so that it's not even worth

cleaning in the moment when you notice

there's fingerprints on it

like they've nailed everything else

about this rail the power button is

slightly bigger and still very clicky

love that the mute switch is a staple

that still works exactly as you'd expect

it to i'll talk more about the rest of

the button behavior later but

basically my ideal iphone 12 would

actually be a hybrid

between the matte back of the pro and

the matte

camera bump and aluminum rails of the

regular 12. but guess what

most people put their phone in case

and so none of that stuff about the

finishes

about the grippiness about the corners

will really actually matter to you that

much if you cover up all of this

engineering

in a plastic shell of your choice the

size of the iphone

has always been pretty reasonable

although it's slowly crept up in size

over the years

and this is my favorite size iphone ever

because it feels just about as big as it

can get

before i start to have to do hand

gymnastics to reach

the notification shade and the stuff in

the top corner of the screen for

whatever reason apple just refuses to

adjust the software on the gigantic

iphone 12 pro max to really take

advantage of that bigger screen

in a meaningful way so i found the

trade-off in cameras and battery for how

annoying it is

to use just isn't worth it so the iphone

12 pro is a great size

the iphone 12 is an identical size and

the 12 mini

if you can deal with the battery

shortcomings is the best compact

flagship phone out there right now i'll

link my entire video about that

below a couple other things about the

design though this is

a thousand dollar phone let's not forget

that it's a thousand dollars

and so there's a lot of these premium

design industrial design

features and this would be the perfect

video to shout out

a lot of those things that we typically

skip and take for granted so the whole

body is sealed and ip68 certified

i'm not the type to put it under water

and test that but it is able to

withstand dust and dirt

and is resistant to liquid submersion up

to a max depth of

six meters underwater for up to 30

minutes so it's always nice to see

premium phones that would survive a

quick drop in the pool

or a toilet or something like that and

actually i also used to do a lot more

tests if you go back far enough in

videos where i would literally

try to bend the phone and see if you

could hear any flexing or creaking or

anything like that

phones these days just don't do that

anymore and this is no exception so

overall just in terms of raw

industrial design the iphone is exactly

what we'd expected it's great

it works great it looks great and it

still has the widest

most vibrant ecosystem of accessories

the worst part about it is technically

that lightning port in a world of usb

type-c but to most iphone users that's

just a default and we already know

apple's trying to get rid of that

anyway i'll link a video below the like

button or right up here in the corner

to an entire video i made just about

that topic the best part though

i still think is actually the most

underrated the haptics so i'm putting

this in the design

section because this is a consideration

from the very beginning when apple's

laying out the internals of the iphone

there is a massive space set aside

inside for a very large taptic engine as

apple calls it

and it's really good so instead of the

previously typical

rotational vibration motor that taptic

engine is a

linear oscillating vibrator and it can

deliver incredibly precise

convincing vibrations that literally

feel like taps

almost like you're pressing a real

button or your phone is tapping you in

your pocket

and it's better than any other phone's

haptics i've felt right now this one in

the iphone 12 pro isn't necessarily

better than last year but it's just

one of those things that we skip because

we take it for granted but

it's really good apple's gotten so good

at haptics that they're comfortable

replacing

typical buttons like a track pad on a

macbook

with just a flat piece of glass and a

taptic engine underneath it's just

it's that good also do i think that this

triple camera array looks kind of like a

stovetop

yes do i think apple knew that when they

were making this phone

yes but do i think they just went ahead

with it anyway because the memes are

inevitable and

it's kind of also extra press yes

so go ahead put a case on it

[Music]

ah the screen of the iphone always an

area of great debate

just because how much do people actually

care about the display this has always

been one of the most controversial areas

of the iphone

you remember the iphone 10r this is a

phone that launched at

749 dollars and had a notably

low resolution slightly above 720p

lcd screen right and part of the

internet went nuts at this like how

could apple of all companies

be shipping such a garbage screen on

paper in a 750

phone when pretty much every other

android phone at that price even some

cheaper ones

were 1080p at least and even i was one

of them just holding that phone

watching a video on youtube that i knew

was 4k

max out at 720p just felt borderline

unacceptable but it turned out

it was fine it was fine people bought

the phone they enjoyed it

there were blind tests it passed so it

felt like all those

articles and headlines about this screen

were for nothing because apple knew

that people didn't really care about

this sort of thing

as much as we thought they should but

this is the same apple that turns around

and ships the iphone 12 pro

with an incredible screen on paper with

dolby vision a slightly higher

1200 nit max brightness and a

world-class color accuracy

that i guarantee those same people don't

notice so the question

might not be how good this iphone 12 pro

screen

is as much as it's how much do people

really care about its most controversial

traits

and to me that's a more fun angle so on

paper the iphone 12 pro rocks a flat

6.1 inch diagonal display like i said

it's not too huge

it's a 2532 by 1170 resolution which

puts you at an

awesome 460 pixels per inch it's an oled

display that maxes out at 1200 nits max

brightness

which gives it hdr certification and a 2

million to 1 contrast ratio

it supports the wide p3 color gamut true

tone automatic white balance adjustments

and it's coated in a fingerprint

resistant oleophobic coating so

here's where it gets interesting there's

a huge notch at the top

so this gigantic cutout stolen from the

top of the screen by

the biggest notch in any new phone out

right now

do you care like functionally we all

know why the notch is there it's for

face id

which hasn't really improved over the

years as much as i was hoping

but it uses an infrared dot projector a

receiver

and there's an ambient light sensor

along with a seven megapixel selfie

camera

and an earpiece speaker and a mic it

feels like this huge notch has sort of

faded into our peripheral vision like

other phones added notches around the

same time as the iphone 10

and then over the years they've all

shrunk in their notches doing everything

they can to minimize the interruption

to a smaller notch than to an even

smaller notch and then to a hole punch

and then even to developing tech to put

the selfie camera behind the display

itself

so the iphone's notch is still

exactly the same it's massive this is

one of those things that

personally i hate it every time i'm

looking at it

but i've gotten used to it and apple's

done the calculus clearly that

most people have gotten used to it and

don't mind it

and it's just part of the way the iphone

is and rumors point to it getting

slightly smaller

next year but it's not going away

anytime soon even if we do get touch id

behind the glass in the next iphone

we're going to continue to have face id

so my take is

fine i get it but i would really like

face id to start working

better specifically at more angles so

like when my phone is

in front of me on a table or on a desk i

wish you could recognize me from that

angle and unlock without me moving it or

leaning over it because other phones

with the fingerprint reader on the front

let me do that alright so then there is

the refresh rate

it's 60 hertz this is as far as i know

the

most expensive new phone that

doesn't have a high refresh rate display

yet

do you care so my take and you might

have seen this coming is

i love me some 120 hertz absolutely it's

the best thing about

a lot of the newest phones coming out

makes everything feel smoother and more

responsive

and once you go 120 hertz it is really

hard to go

back to 60. except for the iphone

the iphone is the smoothest 60 hertz

phone

so i can kind of feel like the best of

the worst or the worst of the best

depending on how you look at it so a lot

of this has to do with the overall

performance of the phone which is great

but i'll get into that later

but most of this has to do with the 120

hertz touch sample rate meaning the

layer beneath the display that

tracks the touch input from your finger

and tells the display to respond

is refreshing twice as many times per

second as a normal 60hz display

so it feels very responsive and really

tight to the way your finger moves on

the screen

and this is what iphone users are used

to so that being said

the iphone can still benefit massively

from 120hz display and i know this

because the ipad pro has had 120hz

display

since 2017 and it's incredible so

i'm bummed that the iphone 12 pro

doesn't have a higher frustrated screen

and i would be even more bummed if next

year it also doesn't but something to

note is that ipad pro is an lcd display

and one of the main reasons cited by

iphone defenders for why this phone

doesn't have 120hz display

is because they wanted to go oled too

and apple couldn't find a supplier that

could make as many high quality

120 hertz oleds as they'd need to

satisfy their

high quality control requirements and

millions and millions of units for the

iphone

so maybe next year i'm really hoping

but you know what else they made some

pretty big claims about for this iphone

screen

this new thing called ceramic shield so

the front of this new iphone has a layer

on top

apple's calling ceramic shield which

isn't ceramic but it is kinda shield

it's actually still glass but with a

sort of crystallized reinforcement

and apple's big on stage claim for this

was four

times better drop performance so like i

said in my original review

video i'm not the one who's gonna go out

and drop the phone over and over to try

to see if it somehow hits that 4x number

but what we did find out is it still

scratches out of level six

with deeper grooves at a level seven and

it will still shatter

when dropped it's not some magical next

level solution glass is glass

and you know the rest thanks zack but if

there is any observable improvement in

drop performance of the iphone 12 it's

most likely result of the new flat

design

since these phones are so flat the rails

are much more likely to take some of

that impact damage

when you drop it unless the phone lands

completely flat on the face which is

unlikely

so with that stainless steel rail it's

gonna absorb a lot of the impact or it

could just be whatever

screen protector or case you have on

your phone not the magic of some ceramic

shield

so while i do appreciate the effort to

trying to make

better more resilient glass on the front

of the iphone

it's not magic oh and speaking of screen

protectors this is officially

unofficially but officially the easiest

new phone

to apply a screen protector to because

of how perfectly flat it is

in case you're into that fun fact so the

iphone's display

incredible on paper great color accuracy

flat plenty bright and sharp but also

still has a huge notch at the top

still stuck at 60 hertz and still

scratches as easily as ever

it's glass par for the court

there is a lot that goes into the

testing of

a set of new smartphone cameras and it

usually ends up being the longest

section of the review just because so

many phones have gotten so good

that it feels like the camera is one of

the last things that really

differentiates them but here we are with

the iphone 12 pro

and its triple camera system so these

are all top of the line cameras

but you probably already knew that and

honestly i could probably have just

ended it there like you know you're

getting good

consistent point and shoot photos high

quality videos

and a good mic you're set but that's not

what you came here for

is it so there's a lot more to say about

these cameras so first of all the

iphone's cameras

haven't really changed all that much

since they started getting really good

a few years ago if it ain't broke they

definitely

don't fix it here which is funny because

the headphone jacks also weren't broken

but i guess they didn't feel the same

way about that

but the point is there's not going to be

some huge year-over-year difference with

the iphone cameras because

they don't have much to change the

sensor size is going to stay about the

same it's a 12 megapixel optically

stabilized sensor

this one has an f 1.6 aperture letting

in plenty of light and it's flanked by

a 120 degree 12 megapixel ultra wide at

f 2.4

and a 2.5 x optical telephoto at

f 2.0 a lidar scanner a mic

and a flash to finish off that stovetop

the thing about the iphone camera though

that we sometimes forget when we get

super into the technical weeds

is it's designed to be as simple as

possible

as easy as possible to use while still

achieving results

that are very difficult to get any other

way so when steve jobs

unveiled the original iphone back in

2007 stay with me

this was one of the slides he showed on

stage it's a graph of

ease of use versus how smart something

is and of course he absolutely trashes

all the competition talking about how

they're not very smart

or they're not very easy to use and the

iphone is going to be way up in the

corner

just a classic extremely scientific

apple chart on stage so while the rest

of the competition is definitely caught

up on those axes

when you just look at the camera just

the camera

the iphone still squeezes further up

into that corner

than any other phone out there right now

this camera app is

dead simple and it has been forever

everyone knows how to point and shoot

tap to focus if you really need to and

if you need any extra controls they're

typically hidden away

maybe one swipe and a tap away and when

you point and shoot the software does a

lot of heavy lifting thanks to smart hdr

thanks to multiple exposures thanks to

computational photography

and thanks to a great image signal

processor that makes it all happen very

quickly

it would be really hard to get the

results that the iphone gets

from any other camera system with just

plain point and shoot

and that is what the iphone is so good

at so i give it all the credit in the

world for point and shoot

but what about the few times when you

actually do

want to get a little more custom what

about the times when you do want a

little bit more

manual control that is when

the apple way can sort of bite you

because

there isn't a whole lot of that in the

stock iphone

camera app there actually isn't a pro

mode in the iphone 12

pro's camera now fortunately they have

gone ahead and added

pro raw which can give you a lot more

flexibility in the editing process

and there are some apps in the app store

that can help the shooting process

for you but i guess what i'm trying to

say is

there's a lot of really good smartphone

cameras and i think if you were to do

some sort of

blind smartphone camera test with a

bunch of different phones