As promised, Apple today has officially announced the new iPhone offerings for 2020. True to the rumours we have been hearing for months, the new iPhone 12 series will indeed support 5G connectivity.
During the “Hi, Speed” special event today, Apple claimed that the new iPhone 12 family covers the most 5G bands in the market. Paired with custom antennas and radio components that focused on sensitivity and efficiency, the company also stated that the iPhone 12 series is able to hit 3.5Gbps download speed in ideal condition with up to 4.0Gbps in mmWave.
The iPhone 12 also comes with Smart Data Mode which dynamically switches the phone’s connectivity from 5G to LTE when users don’t need the speed. In general, the mode is said to help lower down power consumption which equals to longer battery life.
Alongside the standard-sized iPhone 12 which features a 6.1-inch screen, Apple has also officially unveiled the iPhone 12 Mini which carries a smaller 5.4-inch screen but still larger than iPhone SE’s screen despite having a smaller body. Regardless of the screen size, both models still feature Super Retina XDR custom OLED display that is being protected by a layer of Ceramic Shield that Apple has co-created with Corning and provides up to 4x better protection against phone drop.
Both the standard iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini are powered by the 5nm A14 Bionic processor which features 6-core CPU with 2nd generation ML accelerator, 4-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claimed that the chip delivers 50% faster performance in both CPU and graphics as well as 80% faster machine learning.
They also feature the same dual-camera system on their back which includes a 12MP ultra-wide f/2.4 camera and another 12MP f/1.6 wide camera alongside the front-facing 12MP f/2.2 TrueDepth camera. Apple claimed that the camera on the iPhone 12 series has 27% better low-light performance than their predecessors, mainly due to the faster lens on the wide rear camera.
Also making its debut through the iPhone 12 series is the new MagSafe feature which is essentially an integrated magnetic mounting system surrounding the phone’s wireless charging coil. The new mounting system can also be used with other accessories such as cases and snap-on wallet.
Apple stated that MagSafe chargers can deliver up to 15W of charging power which is double the maximum power rating that the iPhone 12 series can support for Qi wireless charging. In terms of battery life, the standard iPhone 12 model can last up to 11 hours for continuous streaming video playback while the iPhone 12 Mini is not far behind at 10 hours.
The new iPhone 12 will be made available to first-wave markets such as the US, UK, China, Japan, Germany and Australia on 23 October, followed by the iPhone 12 Mini on 13 November. In the US, the iPhone 12 has a starting price of USD 799 (~RM 3310) while the iPhone 12 Mini goes for USD 699 (~RM 2896).
Apple has yet to reveal the launch date of iPhone 12 series for Malaysia though, but we already have the pricing for our market which is something that we are going to cover in our follow-up report shortly (UPDATE: Here are the Malaysian pricing!).
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