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2020 saw a sharp decline in smartphone sales. We all know the reason, the pandemic has unfortunately not abandoned us yet, but if there is a brand that has suffered less from the consequences of the crisis, this is Apple. In the second quarter of the year, the American company was the only one to maintain stable sales, the data from IDC speak for themselves , despite an average selling price significantly higher than its competitors. How is it possible?
Apple has always been criticized for the high prices of its
products, but in the last two years something has changed and today it is
possible to buy an iPhone SE for € 499, but also an iPhone XR for € 619, or an
iPhone 11 for € 719. prices in line with the middle and high range of the
Android world. The expansion of the catalog has allowed Apple to bring its
offer to different market segments, without ever dropping too much with the
price.
iPhone 12 Pro must be contextualized in the current catalog
to be understood, because it is not a smartphone suitable for all budgets and
not even for all users. It is a top of the range in all respects, from design
to the photographic sector, as in the price, which starts from € 1,189. Many,
but this model is aimed at an audience of enthusiasts who want the best that
Apple can offer, for all the others there is no shortage of alternatives and
they are also of high quality.
A design that leaves its mark
Judging the aesthetic aspect of a smartphone objectively is
impossible, we can only give a subjective judgment, based on our personal
tastes, which can be more or less shareable. From our point of view, the 12 Pro
is the most beautiful iPhone we have seen in recent years , thanks to a line
that takes a lot from the past but also from the present. The references to the
iPhone 4 and 5 are evident, as are those to the iPad Pro, Apple has been very
good at creating a mix that can immediately catch the eye.
The line is clearly more cut than in the recent past, where
the front glass is inserted into the body there is not a soft curve, but a 90
degree angle, which offers a decidedly firmer grip. On the right edge is
installed the power key, on the left the volume rocker, the SIM slot and the
slider to activate-deactivate silent mode. At the bottom instead is the
Lightning port, no USB Type C , which remains available once again only on the
iPad Pro.
The screen is characterized by the classic notch, which
includes the Face ID, as always quick in unlocking the phone but above all
safe, there is no other facial unlocking able to match the Face ID in this area
today.
The notch does not bother at all, on the contrary it is one
of the elements that makes an iPhone immediately recognizable, too bad for the
edges of the screen that are too visible, if Apple had further reduced them the
visual impact would have been even better. On the back we find the same design
seen last year, with them triple photographic sensor embedded in a glass
backcover.
Speaking of materials, Apple has used only the best in this
iPhone 12 Pro, starting with the chromed steel frame, which guarantees a high
resistance to shocks but in which fingerprints are also easily imprinted. On
the contrary, the very elegant satin rear glass always remains clean and free
of fingerprints, under this front Apple has used a simply perfect material, on
which it is really difficult to see a finger.
A new technology has been created for the screen, called
Ceramic Shield : Apple has inserted nanoceramic crystals that make it four
times more resistant than the materials used in the past, not only to falls,
but also to micro scratches. We do not know if this is really the case, we will
find out only in a few months, with continuous use of the smartphone. The use
of these materials, together with the IP68 certification, has made it possible
to increase the resistance of the iPhone 12 Pro in immersion, since it can
withstand 30 minutes at a depth of 6 meters.
The weight of 188 grams is not the lightest, especially for
this diagonal of the display, but in recent months we have seen that the top of
the range easily exceed 200 grams, so iPhone 12 Pro isn't among the heaviest
smartphones we've tested today.
Screen and audio
iPhone 12 Pro has a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen,
with a resolution of 2532x1170 pixels, an aspect ratio of 19.5: 9 and a refresh
rate of 60 Hz. It is a high quality display and above all exploited to the best
of its possibilities. thanks to iOS. Apple has embraced the extended color
space and the P3 standard for years now , this applies to both the display and
the applications, just open a photo taken by an iPhone on its screen, and then
on another display, to see the difference.
There are no major steps forward from the past simply
because it is difficult to improve excellence. The excellent general definition
therefore remains, after all 460 PPI on a dimension like this makes the image
truly perfect, and the high peak brightness, which can reach 1200 Nit if
necessary, to facilitate viewing under direct light from the Sun.
However, we do not agree with the criticisms received regarding
the absence of a high refresh rate . iOS has an animation system that already
conveys a great feeling of fluidity, all combined with a high-level hardware
that makes the phone very responsive. We also used a Note 20 Ultra in parallel
with the iPhone 12 Pro: switching from one to the other never made us miss the
120 Hz.
The high refresh rate makes the animations even smoother,
but it has a steep price to pay, we have seen it in all the top of the Android
range that we have tried this year: even in the presence of larger batteries
than that available on the iPhone autonomy has dropped a lot.
If Apple had implemented a 90 or 120 Hz screen, iPhone 12
Pro would hardly have reached enough autonomy to cover a day of use.
For charging we have always used the MagSafe wireless
charger , which hooks magnetically to the back of the phone, and is also
compatible with the official Apple covers. The recharge is at 15W, the
anchoring to the phone is very firm, it is impossible to detach the iPhone from
the base simply by taking it, the other hand must also be used to keep the
charger on the support surface.
In the past we used the 18W fast charger, now absent from
the box, which also lacks headphones. A choice that no one will like, this is
beyond doubt, but in reality it is the daughter of a change that we will see in
the near future, perhaps as early as next year, with a gradual transition to
wireless charging compared to wired charging, probably with the abandonment of
the Lightning standard. The next iPhone may not have a charging port at all ,
today it seems difficult for Apple to switch to the USB Type C standard.
On the audio front, iPhone has been offering for a couple of
generations the best stereo sound we have heard in a smartphone, with good
maximum volume and without distortion. Even when calling, the interlocutor's
voice is always clear, coming from an iPhone 11 Pro Max however we noticed a
slightly lower maximum volume of the speakerphone , however nothing that could
affect an audio section that stands out for its quality.
Performance, Autonomy and 5G
Apple has chosen the new A14 Bionic processor for this
iPhone 12 Pro, made at 5 nanometers and with an external modem for 5G created
by Qualcomm. The increase in power compared to the past is there, but it is
really difficult to see it, simply because already with the iPhone 11 the
smoothness of the operating system was at the highest levels. Except for
specific operations, such as video rendering, noticing the difference is
practically impossible, the fact remains that Apple has done a great job,
bringing even more brute force into an already perfect system.
In general, it is the combination of hardware and software
that is perfectly optimized, iPhone 12 Pro returns performance, in relation to
consumption, decidedly convincing, especially if you think that it does
everything it is able to do with "only" 6 GB of RAM (the internal
memory is available instead in cuts from 128, 256 and 512 GB). The operating
system runs smoothly and even applications that are very heavy to manage, from
gaming to photo and video editing, are processed without the slightest problem
(at this link all the news of iOS 14 ). All while maintaining temperatures
that, even in the worst case, never reach levels that can be annoying during use.
If you think that the battery is only 2815 mAh, the work
done by Apple is even more satisfactory, in fact the autonomy has nothing to
envy to that of the Note 20 Ultra, which however has a 4500 mAh battery. With
Note 20 Ultra we have never gone beyond 4:30 hours of screen, while with iPhone
12 Pro we have also reached 6 hours . The day is always brought home, even the
most demanding ones, with a more moderate use and under Wi-Fi network, going
beyond the day of use is widely within reach.
iPhone 12 Pro is also the first to support the 5G standard ,
very important for the future but still not very widespread in Italy. The proof
is that a city like Novara, with over 100,000 inhabitants, today offers
practically no coverage in the area, which is why we have not been able to try
it. The versions sold in Europe do not have mmWave antennas , instead present
in the American models, a choice that does not set any limits today but which
could do so in the future if the 5G network were to expand suddenly (we have
strong doubts that this could happen. ).
Apple has decided to manage 5G differently from other
manufacturers, with a decidedly smarter approach and designed to reduce
consumption.The new standard is used only when needed , i.e. when the
application used has very high data traffic requests, or requires the lowest
possible latency, otherwise, even in the presence of 5G, 4G is preferred.
Today, there are very few applications of this type, think
for example of streaming gaming services, so we believe that Apple has done
well to limit the use of 5G via software, but we would have preferred to also
have mmWave antennas, to make iPhone 12 Pro even longer.
The new LIDAR
The term LIDAR is not new to car enthusiasts, it is in fact
often used to detect what surrounds the car, measuring its distance. Seeing
such technology on smartphones is quite surprising, especially for the level of
miniaturization achieved. There are practical applications today but they are
reserved for a very limited niche of users.
The LIDAR is used to perform three-dimensional scans of the
environment in real time, using light to measure distances : based on the time
taken by the light to return to the sensor present in the phone, iPhone 12 Pro
is able to map environments and objects that it observes in the real world.
Some Android smartphones have similar technology, thanks to
ToF sensors, but these cannot perform a continuous scan of the environment,
stopping at the one obtainable in a single instant. Thanks to this tool you can
perform 3D scans in a few minutes, with an accuracy that may seem approximate,
but which in reality hides a small miracle , especially if you think that it is
not an expensive workstation with professional tools, but a telephone to do it.
The practical applications are different, for example, you
can insert objects in an environment with a very high level of precision, using
augmented reality, or scan a room to see it represented on the screen in three
dimensions., as in the example images, where we mapped two domestic
environments in 3D, or even take very accurate measurements of what surrounds
us. Not least the possibility to apply advanced filters in real time to images.
We are only at the beginning, but the only limit is the
imagination and creativity of the developers, who have a unique and very
powerful tool in their hands if used well
Photo and video
The photographic sector of the iPhone 12 Pro is in some ways
similar to that seen in the previous model, it will be the Pro Max variant to
have the greatest number of innovations. We therefore find a 12 Megapixel main
sensor, with aperture f / 1.6 and a lens formed by 7 elements (against the six
elements and the aperture f / 1.8 of the iPhone 11 Pro), which can take
advantage of the new Smart HDR 3 algorithm, available now on all cams. The main
camera remained excellent, but above all it was quick to shoot and very easy to
use. It is really hard to go wrong in taking a picture, iPhone under this front
remains a real security. Day or night it changes little, the yield is always
excellent, with an HDR effective in recovering details but never too invasive.
The portrait mode manages very well to create a believable blur effect.
The wide-angle cam, also 12 Megapixel with f / 2.4 aperture
and 120 degree field of view, is excellent in maintaining the same color
calibration compared to the others and thanks to the distortion reduction
algorithmthe images are less warped on the sides. Finally there is the
telephoto lens, again 12 Megapixel, to obtain a 2x zoom without quality loss or
a digital 10x.
In this case, in terms of magnification we are below the top
of the Android range, but it must be said that even with the most advanced
sensors, such as the one we saw on the Note 20 Ultra, above a certain level of
zoom the quality quickly decays. . Also in this case the color coherence with
the other sensors is excellent, moreover the images taken with this lens offer
an excellent blur effect.
Honorable mention for the front camera , from 12 Megapixel
with aperture f / 2.2, which thanks to the technologies integrated in the Face
ID is able to take selfies of much higher quality than the average, for this
use iPhone 12 Pro has an edge over the competitors, as well as for videos.
This year the novelty in the videos is the presence of Dolby
Vision, dynamic metadata and 10-bit color depth are enabled by default. The
devices compatible with Dolby Vision are few in the mobile field, which is why
the metadata necessary to show them in HDR or HLG are also included in the
videos saved on the iPhone 12 Pro, there are no problems from this point of view.
The rendering is simply outstanding on the phone screen, with very high light
peaks and very good stabilization. Obviously by taking these videos to an
external device, not compatible with Dolby Vision, something is lost, but
iPhone remains the best phone in this field, without a shadow of a doubt.