Don’t Buy The Apple iPhone 12 Pro, Here’s Why

A couple of months ago, Apple released the redesigned iPad Air, blurring the line between its flagship iPad Pro models by offering what the Pro variant can do at a more affordable price point. Months after that, Apple again blurred the line between the iPhone 12 and the 12 Pro. In this article, we’ve listed why you will lose nothing by getting the regular iPhone 12 over its Pro sibling.

Table of Contents

Build Quality

Apple has the reputation of producing well built and designed products, and this year’s iPhones are no exception. The regular iPhone 12 and the Pro models share the same footprint — except for the Mini and the Max, of course. Both the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro have a 6.1-inch screen with the exact dimensions. The only difference is the materials used. The iPhone 12 Pro is milled out of glossy stainless steel material with a matte glass finish at the back, while the regular iPhone 12 has an aluminum body frame with a glossy back finish.

Personally, I think it doesn’t matter too much because both of these devices look and feel equally premium. Also, even though stainless steel sounds a little bit tougher than aluminum, you’ll end up protecting your iPhone with a case anyway, so getting the regular iPhone 12 is a wise choice.

Display

Unlike last year’s iPhones, there are many differences between the regular iPhone models vs. the Pro models, one of which is the display. Last year’s regular iPhone 11 sports a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display, which is just a fancy term for an LCD with a 720p resolution display. Jumping to today, the regular iPhone 12 now shares the same Super Retina XDR OLED panel as the Pro models. You wouldn’t see any difference when you look at the display on both of these devices. However, the Pro models’ display has a brighter panel, coming in at 800nits on a typical brightness, compared to 625nits on the regular iPhone 12. But you can still manage to see what’s on your display when using the iPhone 12 under direct sunlight.

Processor

Like before, all iPhone 12 models have the same A14 Bionic chipsets, Apple’s latest and greatest processor. It can withstand any task you throw at it, may it be just regular multitasking between your apps, up to playing graphics hungry games, all iPhone models can handle it pretty well. So when it comes to performance, both the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro has the same processing speeds.

Cameras

One of the significant key differences between this year’s iPhone 12 is in the camera department. We still got two camera setups for the regular iPhone 12 model consisting of 12MP wide and a 12MP ultrawide sensor. We have four new camera setup on the Pro models, namely a 12MP wide, a 12MP ultrawide, and another 12MP telephoto lens, plus a new LiDar scanner for an improved portrait mode and AR capabilities. If you find yourself in need of a telephoto lens and a LiDar scanner, get the iPhone 12 Pro, or probably you might need a larger camera sensor, go for the iPhone 12 Pro Max. But if you’re just like me, who’s contented with the wide and the ultrawide sensors, the regular iPhone 12 can serve you well.

Price

The regular iPhone 12 will set you back at PHP 49,990USD 852INR 72,216EUR 811CNY 6,204, or if you want a more compact beast of a smartphone, you can opt for the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini for PHP 43,990USD 750INR 63,548EUR 714CNY 5,459. You still have the same design, camera, build quality, and processor as the regular 6.1-inch iPhone 12. All regular iPhone 12 models start at 64GB of internal storage and are also available up to 256GB.

Suppose you want a more sophisticated look, a telephoto lens, and a LiDar camera. Well, in that case, you need to spend a little bit more on the iPhone 12 Pro, which is priced at PHP 62,990USD 1,073INR 90,995EUR 1,022CNY 7,817. But if you want the best and most expensive iPhone with a larger camera sensor and screen real estate, you can also check out the iPhone 12 Pro Max, which starts at PHP 68,990USD 1,176INR 99,663EUR 1,120CNY 8,562. All of the Pro models got 128GB as the base storage and are available up to 512GB.

Conclusion

Choosing the right iPhone is more complicated than before because there’s only a tiny difference between the regular iPhones and its Pro siblings. You can buy the cheapest iPhone 12 but still have an iPhone 12 Pro features and capabilities. It’s just a matter of design and a couple of additional set of features. Understandably, most people think that the ”Pro” name after a smartphone means better than the regular ones because that’s what most Android smartphone manufacturers are doing and even Apple in the past.

However, this year, it is a different story. You get the same processor, display, design, and cameras (almost) in the standard model but at a more affordable package. As always, at the end of the day, it is your choice that matters. These are just my two cents.

So, what do you think? Are you still getting the iPhone 12 Pro if you are on the market for one? Or is the regular iPhone 12 enough for you? Let us know in the comments section.