It’s hard to find small phones these days, so the iPhone 12 mini stands out as a bit special. It crams all the proper iPhone 12 features into a compact phone with a smaller 5.4” display. Despite being the baby of the iPhone 12 range, it’s always been a cracking choice.

Since the iPhone 13 launch, Apple is selling the iPhone 12 mini at reduced prices. So now you can buy an iPhone 13 mini, does a new or reconditioned iPhone 12 mini still make sense? Find out in our iPhone 12 mini review.

Cons

• 64GB version offers too little storage
• No longer the latest iPhone
• Gets warm when working hard

iPhone 12 mini – overview

iPhone 12 mini – design

You can’t miss the iPhone 12 mini. Its smaller screen means that it’s about 1.5cm shorter, and 7mm narrower than the standard phone. At 133 grams it’s quite a bit lighter, too – the standard iPhone 12 weighs 162g. Interestingly, the iPhone 13 mini is slightly deeper, and has put on 7g in weight, so the iPhone 12 mini remains the smallest and lightest iPhone since the first-generation iPhone SE.

At the front, the screen extends almost to the edges of the phone, where it’s protected by a narrow metal edge. The front panel gets Apple’s super-tough Ceramic Shield glass. Testers have shown this to be significantly stronger than standard smartphone glass – but also that the rear panel’s conventional toughened glass is more likely to break in a drop. The iPhone 12 mini comes in six colours: white, black, purple, blue, red and green.

Overall this is a classy phone. While its screen may be too small for those who watch a lot of content on the move, its dimensions are just right for those who fancy something svelte and unobtrusive.

iPhone 12 mini – display

The iPhone 12 mini’s smaller display might not be enough for dedicated gamers and binge-watchers, but it’s not exactly tiny. Apple’s bezel-free design ensures it runs almost up to the edge of the phone, and at 5.4” it’s bigger than standard-sized screens from just a generation or two earlier. Unavoidably, the resolution is lower than a standard iPhone 12, but with 2,340×1,080 pixels crammed into this size screen, the 476ppi pixel depth is actually highest of all iPhone 12s.

In practice, this means the iPhone 12 mini’s display is on the small side for entertainment, but extremely crisp and detailed. There’s plenty of room for day-to-day use, and the overall display quality is as good as – or arguably better than – the rest of the range.

While other iPhones face competition from high-end Android devices, the iPhone 12 mini is something of a loner. Only a handful of Android phones now have a screen under 6”, and those that do invariably have wider bezels. That makes the iPhone 12 mini about the smallest non-folding smartphone you can find. It’s more than a centimetre shorter than the Google Pixel 4a, which often features in ‘best small Android phones’ lists.

The iPhone 12 mini display has a 60Hz refresh rate. Like other iPhones it suffers from an intrusive notch for the front-facing TrueDepth camera, which takes a bite out of full-screen video. Other than that, it’s hard to fault.

iPhone 12 mini– camera and video performance

The iPhone 12 mini has exactly the same camera setup as the standard iPhone 12. On the back, it’s a dual 12-megapixel (MP) system equipped with wide and ultra-wide lenses. While it’s some way from the highest resolution you can find on a phone, a decent sensor size together with a ƒ/1.6 aperture wide lens helps ensure good low-light performance. The system offers only 2x optical zoom, but it’s enhanced with a 5x digital zoom, and everything is kept steady with optical image stabilisation.

At the front, a third 12MP camera takes on selfie and Facetime duty. With a more narrow ƒ/2.2 aperture it doesn’t perform quite as well in low light. It’s also limited to 120 frames per second (fps) slo-mo: the rear camera can shoot in 240fps.

Other than these differences, both front and rear systems share impressive specifications. Both can shoot 4k video, or 1080p HD video, at up to 60fps. Both can shoot HDR with Dolby Vision up to 4k and 30fps. Both offer a Night Mode – and on the rear camera in particular it’s very impressive. The iPhone 12 mini can resolve a decent picture in a small room lit only by another phone’s screen.

The iPhone 12 mini’s solid camera hardware is enhanced by advanced image processing, helping it deliver strong photos across the board. While rivals have it beaten on resolution – and the very best Android competitors beat it outright – it can hold its own against most phones. Images are sharp, with the phone generally coping well with extremes of light and darkness.

Like other iPhones, you can point the iPhone 12 mini at almost any subject in any conditions, and get a decent shot. While the iPhone 13 mini does have a better camera, it’s not a massive step forward in most situations. That said, the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max have both received a major camera upgrade over this phone.

iPhone 12 mini – performance

You’d be forgiven for thinking a small phone couldn’t out-punch bigger rivals, but the iPhone 12 mini features exactly the same A14 Bionic chip as the rest of the iPhone 12 range. While Apple has moved things on with the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 13, its competitors still haven’t caught up with the older chip. In other words, the iPhone 12 mini is faster than anything but an iPhone 13.

In everyday use you simply won’t think about it. This phone will breeze through any app or interaction without noticeable lag or delay. In the Geekbench 5 benchmark we recorded a single-core score of 1,589, and compute score of 9,397. To put that in context, the Pixel 4a never feels particularly sluggish, yet its single-core score was 522 and its compute score just 1,055.

In games and other intensive 3D work, you’ll benefit from extremely high frame rates. The iPhone 12 mini managed an awesome 2,190 in the challenging 3DMark Wildlife extreme benchmark. The Pixel 4a scored 299 in the same test, and even Samsung’s Exynos 2100-powered S21 5G can’t break through 1,800.

The downside is heat: the iPhone 12 mini heats up quickly when working hard, and with prolonged intensive use it has to slow itself down. By the end of 20 minutes’ testing, its Wildlife extreme score had fallen by fully 37%, to 1,383. While this is a common outcome for fast phones, the iPhone 12 mini is slightly worse than the rest of the iPhone 12 range – presumably because it has a comparatively small surface through which to get rid of the heat.

iPhone 12 mini – battery performance

Battery life (movie playback)*

Charge Time (0-80%)