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The iPhone 12 Pro Max camera is better, but not by that much – buy it for the large screen and longer battery life

  • All four iPhone 12s sport very powerful cameras capable of capturing some of the very best photos and the absolute best videos on the market
  • Consider the 12 Pro Max if you want a large and beautiful screen to read, type and watch content and the model with the best battery life

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From left to right: the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, 12 Pro, and 12 Mini. Photo: Ben Sin
Ben Sin

Apple announced the arrival of four new iPhones last month, but they only released the middle two models, leaving the more exciting devices – the biggest iPhone ever and the smallest one they’ve made in years – for this week.

Although the iPhone 12 Mini is generating buzz for its petite size and 5.4-inch screen (you’d have to go back to 2012’s iPhone 5 to find a flagship phone this small), the reality is that it is just a shrunken down iPhone 12 – meaning there isn’t much to test that’s new.

The 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max, however, adds a new camera system that Apple promises will be the brand’s best yet.

Apple has improved the cameras of the other iPhone 12s this year by giving them a minor hardware upgrade (faster aperture) and major software upgrade (applying computational photography – AI-driven software that helps capture properly balanced photos – across all three cameras).

From left to right, the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, 12 Pro, and 12 Mini. Photo: Ben Sin
From left to right, the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max, 12 Pro, and 12 Mini. Photo: Ben Sin

The 12 Pro Max features three more hardware upgrades – a larger image sensor for better light intake; an IBIS (in-body image stabilisation) system to compensate for unexpected movements; and a longer telephoto zoom lens with a 65mm equivalent (around 2.5x lossless zoom).

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