It’s an interesting design change from Apple, and one wonders if it’s been done to enable a stronger 5G signal (there is a small gap for the mmWave version in the US). While 5G might be the headline spec for many people looking at the iPhone 12, there’s something else added to 2020’s iPhone that actually has us a little more excited. Cameras-wise, you're again getting the 12MP duo of the wide and ultra-wide cameras here. The former is even better in low-light on this model, and both can now be used with Night Mode. This feature can improve your snaps in a way that’s genuinely staggering; however, it's also available on the iPhone 11, and we would have liked to have seen it upgraded in 2020. The A14 Bionic chipset at the heart of the iPhone is promised to be more power-efficient than before, while still achieving some of the best performance stats of any phone on the market. We had a good play with the video quality in different scenarios – and our main takeaway is that Dolby Vision isn't going to be a key reason for many 'normal' folk to buy the iPhone 12.

iPhone 12 (Blue, 128 GB) - Flipkart APPLE iPhone 12 (Blue, 128 GB) - Flipkart

At launch though, you’re just getting a MagSafe charger from Apple, as well as some cases and snap-on accessories. The charger is neat in that it enables 15W fast wireless charging – that’s twice as powerful as on the iPhone 11. The performance of the iPhone 12 has been upgraded once again: the A14 Bionic chipset is the most powerful in any smartphone, and the benchmarks bear that out as it annihilates the competition - and weirdly, doesn't get outperformed by the theoretically more powerful iPhone 12 Pro. But a look at what was achieved with Moto Mods gives us an idea of what we can hope to see from MagSafe: there was a snap-on games controller, a mini projector, an instant photo printer, and a whole new Hasselblad camera accessory that added a huge sensor to your phone.The results are genuinely startling, with shots taken in complete darkness looking as clear as day – literally. You need to get your framing right and keep the camera very still, though; you’ll find that a degree of blur will creep in if you jiggle the camera too much during the exposure.

iPhone 12 Series | Discover Apple iPhone 12 Contract Deals iPhone 12 Series | Discover Apple iPhone 12 Contract Deals

If you're a fan of video, that's also been into the shop and given a performance boost. Apple has made a huge deal about the fact that its iPhone 12 range can record video in Dolby Vision on the fly, and can also process it before displaying it in HDR (high dynamic range) quality on the display. The IP68 rating has been enhanced in 2020, allowing the iPhone 12 to be submerged down to six meters for 30 minutes before things start to get wet inside – more realistically, this means that general, day-to-day water damage is less likely to occur. The improvements to the build of Apple's engine have clearly contributed to maintaining battery life year on year, with the 5nm fabrication process used to create the chipset meaning the transistors are closer together and require less energy to function, so Apple could therefore (potentially) decrease the battery size and still maintain an adequate battery performance. The front of the iPhone 12 features a new Ceramic Shield to further protect it from shattering, with Apple claiming it’s four times less likely to break in a drop, so Apple is going big on durability with this model. While we’re going to go into the more nuanced upgrades in the iPhone 12 compared to previous models later in this review, there are two key changes for 2020's model that will likely attract your attention.

The results do bear out the claim – low light performance is improved a touch, for brighter shots with more detail. Adding in 120Hz, a faster screen refresh rate that makes for more fluid scrolling on the new iPads, as well as on some Android flagships, would add a level of gloss to interacting with the new iPhone, but otherwise the sharpness, color reproduction and HDR levels look to be pretty good across the board. If you’ve had iPhones for a fair few years you’ll instantly be reminded of the feeling of using an iPhone 4 or 5, both of which had similarly squared sides, but the larger phone does push it into the hands a touch more. For many, that will be a huge plus – having to take a case off a phone every night is a hassle, and eventually it can cause you to just leave it off permanently, which reduces the protection for your shiny new phone. That means we could see some cool clip-on accessories like games controllers, photo printers and huge extra batteries coming soon. If these MagSafe mounts turning your iPhone 12 into a proper camera are anything to go by, the sky's the limit.