IPhone 12 Pro review: future-proof with A14, 5G and good cameras | CNN

For the second year in a row, Apple has a "professional" version of the iPhone.

The iPhone 12 Pro features a triple camera system on the back with a LiDAR sensor for better low-light performance, along with a sleek construction with stainless steel edges and a glass back.

Even with some notable updates, it remains the same price as the iPhone 11 Pro with a starting price of $ 999. This gives you 128GB of internal storage and you can choose from multiple colors: graphite, silver, gold, and Pacific blue.

In our review of the iPhone 12, we determined that it was not a huge upgrade versus the iPhone 11 (those with older models should definitely upgrade).

But does the same apply to the iPhone 12 Pro compared to its predecessor?

After testing it for six days, aside from a slight update to the cameras and a nicer design, there's not much difference here between the iPhone 12 Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro.

And for many looking to upgrade this year, the bigger question is: What's the difference between the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro?

iPhone 12 vs.

iPhone 12 Pro

The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are more similar than any other previous pair of flagships.

And that makes deciding whether or not to go for a Pro a bit more difficult than last year.

The main difference is not the screen, the internal processor, or even the size.

Apple has pretty much leveled the playing field between the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro in those regards.

They are almost identical, except in design and their camera.

The iPhone 12 has just two lenses: a 12-megapixel wide lens and a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens.

The 12 Pro adds a 12-megapixel telephoto lens and a LiDAR sensor to the mix.

That extra lens gives you another way to frame a shot and the ability to zoom in without losing detail.

The LiDAR sensor allows the iPhone to map the scene even in the dark.

Both the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro feature the same 6.1-inch OLED Super Retina XDR display, only with thinner bezels on the 12 Pro. The 12 Pro also features stainless steel bezels, four unique colors, and a premium finish. frosted matte glass on the back;

the 12 has a shiny (but not slippery) glass bottom with aluminum sides.

Both are 5G compatible and work with the A14 Bionic chip.

If you're focused on photography or video, we recommend upgrading to the iPhone 12 Pro. For an extra $ 200, you get double the storage and three lenses that make shooting easier, especially thanks to the LiDAR sensor, which proved to be an essential tool for stunning night mode shots.

Some notes on 5G

In the last six days, we have not only been testing the iPhone 12 Pro, but we have been testing 5G in and around New York and New Jersey.

And we have three great conclusions:

First:

If you are in an area that supports 5G ultra-wide band (also known as mmWave), you will see faster speeds, but you will have to be in direct line of sight with or at least very close to a cell tower.

In our tests on AT&T and Verizon 5G Ultrawide Band that are in a car, walking too many steps to the left, or even across the street, resulted in loss of signal.

It wasn't all the time, but enough to mention it.

When we get the signal on Verizon, we peak at 2,200 Mbps, which is much faster than our gigabit connection.

We were able to easily download an album in just under a minute, and the broadcasts happened almost instantly.

AT&T did not have such high speeds, but we were able to reach 300 to 400 Mbps.

Second:

The 5G nationwide from any of the carriers is not the super fast speeds you expect.

It is the lower end of the wireless spectrum, Sub6 Ghz, which is easier to implement and provides more capacity.

But it doesn't offer extremely fast speeds, and it's the 5G you probably have at your location.

In our tests, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon produced speeds between 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps.

Third:

Some people will be able to take advantage of 5G on the iPhone 12 Pro right now.

For many, however, opting for 5G compatibility is preparing their device for the future.

Bottom line:

The addition of 5G support means you won't have to go out and buy a new iPhone next year or when it becomes a true alternative.

You will have a phone with excellent cameras and fast performance along with the latest network standards.

Three lenses for almost any image

As we have already mentioned above, the iPhone 12 Pro houses three lenses on the rear, which are flanked by an LED flash and a LiDAR sensor.

LiDAR stands for light detection and range.

Essentially, the addition of this sensor allows the iPhone to map what it is looking at.

It can send pulses of light and map through the signals bouncing off the sensor.

(Tesla uses LiDAR for autonomous cars, and Apple previously used it for Face ID on the front of the iPhone.)

The main improvement Apple is touting is faster focus times in low light conditions and better performance with portraits in night mode.

But it's not just this LiDAR sensor: the 12-megapixel wide main lens is made up of a seven-element system with optical image stabilization and a new aperture.

All of this comes into play for low-light shooting.

The lenses let in more light, and the software side intelligently illuminates the shot.

Taking a portrait photo at night, for example, the LiDAR sensor in the 12 Pro can detect where the foreground ends and the background begins.

Everything is processed in real time so that the iPhone can take data and work with it.

And with a lower aperture, more light is allowed into the lens.

The end result is strong background blur with your subject in proper lighting, which means that you can more easily position it in relation to the surrounding environment.

The iPhone 12 Pro maintains the details of the structures, no matter how big or small.

And in the test examples below, you get a pretty good blur effect.

There are some stray hairs, and the lighting in the building in the background doesn't seem overexposed.

Although the photo appears clear, enlarging just a little reveals some blurriness and less detail.

So it's not perfect, but it's by no means bad.

With general night mode photography, you can now take photos in night mode with the ultrawide and telephoto lens, along with the 12-megapixel front lens.

When shooting in night mode, iPhone 12 Pro takes a series of photos at different exposure levels, mixes it by software, and presents a photo that enhances lighting.

You can make a dark scene much brighter while maintaining detail.

As a whole, this feature remains one of our favorites and presents a dramatically better image that leans a little to the warmer side;

Samsung and Google's respective night modes continue down the cooler path.

When using night mode, the phone will suggest a three-second exposure window, but you can manually adjust the duration of the night mode shot.

We have passed up to 10 seconds in our six days of testing.

The longer, the more shots at different exposures the iPhone will capture.

Theoretically, you can get a richer and more detailed image by opting for a longer window.

And after pressing the shutter button, you still want to keep your hand steady and avoid any movement, since you are shooting images in rapid succession.

For the most part, fast motion like multiple cars in front of what you are shooting offers a stop-motion effect.

As you can see in the gallery below, they range from artistic to, well, just blurry.

PHOTO: Jacob Krol / CNN

Year to year and compared to the iPhone 11 Pro, the shots are quite similar.

It is faster to take the photo and focus.

And, with night mode, we found the experience to be a bit brighter without losing details.

If you're new to night mode on the iPhone, we think you'll be impressed by how good it is.

Take a look at the photo below where we shot through a glass door into a completely dark store.

You can make out some signage and even chairs.

A flash alone will not accomplish that.

In daylight, the iPhone 12 Pro doesn't do a bad job either.

You can see some examples below, but the photo of a pumpkin in direct sunlight with shadows covering the grass and apple below shows how the iPhone can handle multiple light sources and adjust the colors for each part of the photo.

There is also a natural bokeh, or blur effect, in the background.

And along with the LiDAR sensor, the special part of this three-camera system is the telephoto lens.

Not only does it allow you to take close-up portrait mode photos, it also allows you to zoom in 2x optically.

That's nowhere near the height of the 50x spatial zoom (a combination of digital and optical) on the Note 20 Ultra, but it can allow you to get a detail-packed shot without getting physically close.

When zooming using the telephoto lens with the flash on, this photo of a "slippery surface" sign was slightly overexposed.

This lens also clearly focuses on the subject and blurs the background along with a portion of the foreground.

However, it captures the reflection in the granite.

A key advantage of the iPhone 12 Pro is the ability to seamlessly switch between the three lenses.

You get the great luxury of having three lenses that can help you frame and get just about any shot you can imagine.

Year after year, it is harder to notice improvements.

All three lenses are nearly identical to the Pro 11, with some noticeable improvements in terms of low-light performance.

Clearly, the iPhone 11 Pro gave Apple a solid foundation for the 12 Pro.

Later this year, you will even be able to export images in RAW format that maintains computational data information such as Deep Fusion (Apple's method of capturing close-up detail from textures) and Smart HDR.

For the most creative: you can keep this data and use it when editing in other applications.

RAW files are also larger and contain more information than JPEGs.

The front camera, backed by the TrueDepth sensor that enables Face ID, is a 12-megapixel sensor.

It is identical from a hardware perspective to the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, but has the added benefit of Smart HDR3 and night mode.

Selfies look much brighter, even when shot in a dark room.

You will notice that there is some noise around the face, but with one taken outside with a little more light, the noise is muffled a bit.

You can still get a clear image full of details from the front camera.

Extending the screen to the edges

The quality of the Super Retina XDR display (also known as OLED) from the iPhone 11 Pro to the iPhone 12 Pro is the same.

The colors look super vibrant and the contrast points are strong, so you'll get really deep blacks here.

The biggest change is that Apple was thinning the edges of the screen to stretch the screen from 5.89 inches to 6.1 inches.

The 6.1-inch screen has a resolution of 2532 x 1170 at 460 pixels per inch.

HDR support, P3 wide color gamut, and True Tone (Apple's technology for adjusting screen temperature wherever you are) are here.

It's on par with the 11 Pro, except it's bigger.

There is also a notch at the top that houses the TrueDepth sensor for Face ID.

As much as we wish Apple included a Touch ID sensor in the power button, like on the new iPad Air, it's not here.

And unlocking the phone can be a bit frustrating when wearing a mask.

The solution is to type in the pin, but for a modern 2020 smartphone, it feels like a half-cooked experience.

The iPhone 12 Pro looks more like an iPhone 5 or iPhone 4 with flat sides in a rounded case design.

You can even stand the iPhone upright, just be careful not to drop it.

The iPhone 12 Pro features stainless steel edges, which are fingerprint magnets, but they also sparkle when light hits it.

On the rear, like the 11 Pro, it's a frosted matte finish that hides fingerprints quite well.

It remains waterproof, under the IP68 standard, up to 30 minutes in six meters of water.

Some abrasions appeared on the screen

Apple is touting its Ceramic Shield technology, which provides up to 4 times the screen drop protection of previous models.

So in theory, when an iPhone 12 Pro is dropped, the chances of the screen breaking are less.

But, as we've seen in recent years, as glass and screens build resistance to deep cracks and scratches, the level of pressure or toughness required to cause a micro-abrasion or light scratch has decreased.

We noticed scratches on the screen of our iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro units within a few days of starting to use them.

Our current theory is that when the 12 and 12 Pro were stacked together with the lenses in front of the screen, it resulted in a series of hairline scratches that cannot even be felt with a finger.

At first we thought they were deep stains and tried using cleaners and microfiber cloths to clean them.

But they are certainly there.

Scratches don't really cause any problems for the device;

it's most annoying when the screen is off and the light hits it.

Bottom line: Opt for a screen protector to protect your investment.

Let's talk about charging and battery

Apple ships the iPhone 12 Pro without a wall socket, which means you need to find or purchase a USB-C wall socket.

Apple sells a 20-watt USB-C wall socket for $ 19, but there are plenty of third-party options as well.

If you have Apple's classic 5-watt wall socket that features a USB-A port, even pairing it with the included Lightning cable won't make you charge quickly.

It will be a slow charge that, in our tests, requires a full night of being connected to go from 0% to 100%.

Simply plugging it in a little at 5 watts will only give you a percentage or two of extra juice.

So in short, you will want a faster charger.

With a 20-watt or higher plug, you'll get a 50% charge in about 30 minutes.

So while Apple is trying to reduce emissions, there is a good chance that you will need to buy a new wall charger.

The iPhone 12 also supports Qi wireless charging of up to 7.5 watts, but the real story is MagSafe.

And MagSafe is quite a good idea.

It is a circular wireless charging disc that combines a Qi coil with a variety of magnets and an NFC sensor inside.

Essentially, it will fit the back of the iPhone 12 Pro or a MagSafe case that features magnets for alignment.

You will hear a click and then you will see a nice graph that tells you that it is receiving charge.

It solves the problem of putting your phone on a wireless charger and waking up the next morning with no charge because it was misaligned.

And it also raises the charging speed up to 15 watts.

However, you won't get that from an ordinary Qi charger, even if it can give it to other cell phones.

And MagSafe doesn't come in the box: Apple sells MagSafe for $ 39, and you'll need a USB-C wall plug of at least 20 watts to get those fast speeds (not included).

Although Apple promises up to 17 hours of video playback in terms of battery life, that's an hour shorter than the iPhone 11 Pro. Unsurprisingly, after initial setup, the iPhone takes some time to index.

You need to reload your photo library, cloud messages, and even music libraries.

The point is, it takes a few days to get the iPhone to full capacity;

once ours did, we were able to get a full day of use with eight hours of screen time on on the 12 Pro.

We also put the iPhone 12 Pro through the CNN Underscored battery test.

We replayed a looped 4K video with the volume set to 30% with the device in airplane mode.

We also make sure that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are turned off and the brightness is set to 50%.

We replay the video until the battery runs out and we monitor it with two cameras for redundancy.

The iPhone 12 Pro lasted 12 hours and 10 minutes.

Lastly, while the iPhone 12 Pro supports Qi and MagSafe-enabled wireless charging, there is no reverse wireless charging here.

So you can't load another device like AirPods or AirPods Pro on the back of your iPhone, a feature we expected.

Incremental improvements in performance add up

Apple's latest chip, the A14 Bionic, is very powerful, with a six-core CPU, a quad-core GPU, and a neural engine.

By design, it's efficient from the start and can learn to improve over time.

You will also manage the different inner cores to choose which one is the best for whatever you are doing on the phone.

Year after year, speed improvements from iPhone 11 Pro to iPhone 12 Pro are a little harder to detect;

in terms of real-world performance, both devices are quite on par with each other.

Exporting a high resolution raw image in Photoshop on the iPhone 12 Pro vs. 11 Pro will render it a second or two faster.

In daily use, however, applications open quickly, you can easily keep more than 30 applications open in the background without any slowdown, and you can easily perform tasks.

We also played a bit these last six days:

.

All of these, and a few others, worked quite well, and we didn't notice any pauses.

We also didn't find much latency with the graphics when testing the ability to connect to a PC for remote gaming.

conclusion

The iPhone 12 Pro is a 2020 flagship smartphone with just a few things missing, like a 120Hz display and reverse wireless charging.

But Apple offers a lot here.

But aside from an additional camera lens, LiDAR sensor, and sleek design, it's pretty much on par with the iPhone 12. And for many, that device isn't just cheaper, it's the best option.

For anyone obsessed with photography, we would go for the iPhone 12 Pro as it offers a slightly better photographic experience compared to the iPhone 12 and especially the older models.

If you currently have an iPhone 11 Pro, you may not really need to upgrade.

Lastly, for those with an older iPhone, we think now is the time to upgrade.

A14 Bionic is a powerful chip that will get you three to four years off the device, the camera is one of the best on the market and it is future proof with 5G support.

Note: The above prices reflect the price at the time of publication of the article.