iPhone 12 mini

Got mine 1 yr ago rfurbished with a new battery and 128 GB storage. Still super happy with it. 1,5 days battery life, no heating problems and it has the PERFECT size

[...] Got it refurbished with a new battery 9 months ago. [...] When this one dies in 3 yrs or so I need a replacement !!

Every time I say iPhone is the way to go, someone goes “bro use Android, iPhone is stupid” 😄 I bought my iPhone 12 mini in 2021. Still using it, still works great, and I’ll probably keep it for another 2–3 years or probably even longer. iPhones are just built to last.

i've had my current phone for months now and it still surprises me how long it can go between charges. with my four year old iPhone 12 mini i would plug it in when it hit around 25-30%, but with this one sometimes i let it get down to 5% bc i'm just not worried about it dying

I bought this phone back in 2020 and I loved it. [...] Of course the battery health got a lot worse over time, but I got used to carrying a powerbank when I went out. The camera focus sensor on the main camera stopped working near the end and It was definitely annoying. [...]

I just upgraded from the 12 mini to the 16e. The mini did me well! I had it for four years

My iPhone is all but unusable only four years after I bought it new. An iPhone 12 mini. It’s been laggy and slow for about two years, and no matter how much space I make on it, its battery lasts barely a few hours…this forced obsolescence makes me so mad. Build things to LAST!

My phone is 2021 iPhone 12 mini which I’ll use until it won’t let me lol

Fact: The first iPhone I owned was the 4S, bought new in 2011. [...] My current phone is the iPhone 12 Mini, same small, flat edge design, purchased in June 2021, still going strong. [...]

I’ve had the 12 mini and it is perfect for a 12 year old who doesn’t use the phone too much. It’s been 1 year

I started de-googling a long time ago, part of it was an iPhone (12 mini), 5 years later I really felt like de-Appling as well. [...] I will happily install on devices that have been years without security updates though :s Overall the GrapheneOS experience (base launcher etc) is very clean, fast, minimal, ad free.

[...] I think if you spend a lot of time on the phone, have a lot of apps then it makes sense to upgrade your phone more frequently and also makes sense to have a larger screen and better battery life. [...] I have my iPhone 12mini for 5-6 years now, and I'd upgrade it now if there was a new small iPhone. [...]

I switched to iOS about 4 years ago (want small phone, so iPhone 12 mini), from a OnePlus3 with Lineage. I thought indeed that it was all going to be much better, simpler, more elegant (phone was 2x the price so), but I ran into a lot of issues that I wrote down at the time (some things have been fixed by now): Tried installing Signal 4 times, it failed on the apple account generation and no further clues that it didn't or did install Signal (it didn't) Can't put icons on the bottom of screen, where your thumb is... [...] IDK, it's screaming, there are anime cat girls everywhere; feels cheap. [...]

I've had an iPhone 12 mini for more than 5 years now and it's well overdue for upgrade. Still not ready for the jump to android yet, but that might come eventually, but for the time being I'm getting the iPhone 15 Pro. Gonna miss the small phone size but ah well.

[...] It’s very slow and the battery may as well be dead now. Love its size and the photo quality is fine for me personally. [...]

👆All of this AND buy refurbished! My phone is an iphone 12 mini that I got for around $300 USD refurbished a few years ago. Battery life is not as great anymore and my camera no longer focuses properly, but all the necessary functions work, and I always keep a backup battery pack on me!

[...] I've had my mini for over 5 years and hoping to get another 2 years out of it at least! the battery doesnt last as long, but I've been trying to reduce my screen time anyways so it actually helps me stay off it more. I think I'd rather spend the money I'd spend on a brand new phone on a digital camera and a portable drawing tablet.

I had 12 mini and i will replace the battery soon and I’ve been using 14 pro max from 3 years and also using 12 mini along with that but my 14 pro max is broken ( like the display and also the back glass ) so you suggest me to get the repair done for the 14 pro max or replace the 12 mini battery and should i shift to android for second phone ??

I've been using an iPhone 12 Mini since however long it's been out, never used Siri intentionally either, would prefer to disable it fully, but CarPlay for some reason cannot be used without Siri, even though I never use Siri. I consider it 1st party malware at this point.

To be honest, the phone is probably the piece of tech that most people use the most so per hour of use it's not that expensive. [...] I'm still rocking my iPhone 12 mini but am planning on getting an 18 when the normal one is released :-)

[...] Seems I’ll have to eventually replace my iPhone 12 mini with a 13 mini, or ditch Apple entirely. [...]

I really liked my iPhone 12 mini. But Apple also makes a lot of money from app sales, so I wonder if there’s a connection between screen size and app purchases. Maybe users with larger screens spend more time in apps and are therefore more likely to buy apps or make in-app purchases. The more screen real estate people have, the more they might engage with apps, which could translate into higher spending.

Well it may work, cause at some point Apple permanently messed up how the iPhone keyboard works. I cannot spell anything on the iPhone 12 mini I use every day, but if I pick up my old 5 that's been sitting unused for years, it feels fine.

Word of caution, it seems kind of difficult, I had Apple replace my iPhone 12 Mini and they broke the screen in the process (so got a free screen replacement too), so seems a lot harder than it used to be, think I did it myself back in the 3GS days last time and seems its way more brittle today.

Then I guess there is me with my iPhone 12 Mini. Replaced the battery some months ago, Apple techs broke the screen, so got a free new screen too. It's starting to get very slow though, every update it gets worse. [...]

[...] When it comes to playing music from phones in cars, connection type seems to matter more than the source, and iOS has some weird built-in sound normalization only for CarPlay that drives me crazy. In my Audi A3 (2018), if I connect my iPhone 12 Mini via AUX or Bluetooth, sounds works perfectly fine. [...] However, if I play music via CarPlay (Spotify [lossless], YouTube, on phone .flac files, etc) some built-in sound normalization seems to kick in and suddenly it ruins the music when playing even slightly louder. I've tried for years to figure out what the hell is going on, tried every setting under the sun, but cannot get it to work so only thing left is some built-in sound ruinification ("normalization") that Apple does, only when played via CarPlay, not when playing via AUX or Bluetooth. [...] So right now I'm choosing between being able to have GPS or listen to music properly, as I cannot do both at the same time...

iOS is also going into this direction, just open the AppStore, it’s all the cheapest most horrible apps. [...] When my iPhone 12 mini dies it’s /e/OS or GrapheneOS for me. [...]

It’s amazing this runs perfectly smooth on my iPhone 12 mini That is indeed a very cool scene being about to wander around and still have decent resolution

Liquid Glass is ridiculously ugly. I have two iPhone 12 minis still on iOS 18 one that is off as a backup device. I can mitigate some security risks with NextDNS on device.

Agree, been using Apple on-off for decades, seems to get worse every time. try to do my own manual photo backups As a Linux desktop user but Apple phone user, I do the same thing, so I can save the photos to my NAS, using ipairdevice/libimobiledevice/ifuse et al. [...] Apple still spams me that my photos aren't backed up, because I'm not using iCloud. [...] It really does seem like nobody at Apple is actually using any of the software they're releasing. [...] Since I got my iPhone 12 Mini, up until yesterday when I last used it, CarPlay still feels like it's worth risking my life every time someone calls me while I use the navigation. Not a single person could have tried this at Apple, because who would think it's a great idea showing a large avatar across the screen, over the navigation, as soon as someone calls? [...]

[...] Just tried it in Safari, Firefox and Chrome on a iPhone 12 Mini and I can read all the text? [...] Actually, trying to load that previous platform on my phone makes it worse for readability, seems there is 10% less width and not as efficient use of vertical space. [...]

The thing that amazes me most is that everyone on the teams responsible is probably using their Apple devices and running into these same bugs! [...] I've had my iPhone 12 Mini for so many years now, and this is still an issue, the only conclusion I can take from this is that people at Apple actually all have Android phones.

My iPhone 12 mini was bugging me about it the other day. [...] I don't want liquid glass and whatever else it does to make that phone feel slower and less usable. [...]

[...] Same here, used to have a Samsung, moved to Moto G which was the best phone I had so far, currently on a iPhone 12 Mini, and want none of these phones anymore. [...]

My iPhone 12 mini is my iPhone Pocket. Still using it and holding onto it as long as I can.

Same... back in my day, people worked to reduce the size of mobile phones. Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer small phones, which is why I still have an iPhone 12 mini.

good enough to be a daily driver Are they, though? [...] (Although USB 3.0 w/ DP is a very nice addition.) That’s not to mention the general bulkiness and the fact that, afaiu, the software doesn't support either Bluetooth or GPS — which are the most important functions my phone provides. P.S.: writing this whine, I've realised Purism is not far off from the point where I'd make a happy switch — if they offered something smaller [2, 3] with an OLED display of at least 300 PPI [4], I’d buy it asap. [...] [3]: I understand why the current models are so bulky, but personally I don't really care for modularity and hardware switches. [...] [4]: My current iPhone 12 mini is almost 500 PPI, and it's gorgeous, but I admit that's probably overkill.

iPhone 12 mini here, I replaced the battery last year, and still going strong. Actually, I fear the day I'm forced to upgrade due not having the mini size available anymore...

[...] I don't need software freedom preached to me, thanks ...and we don't need to hear kvetching about self-inflicted punishment. [...] Suffice it to say: at the time I bought this iPhone 12 mini, there weren't really good options when prioritizing {small form factor,good privacy posture,good security posture,software freedom}. [...] Mentioning something iOS together with software freedom is as oxymoronic as it gets. There is no software freedom on iOS, you accept what you're offered and say thank you Sir may I have another [1]. [...]

So, if you have money, you can throw away as much as you can, right? [...] I have a few iPads 3 (the first one with Retina display), and it’s perfectly fine display, but VLC is the only app that works with it. [...] My perfectly good iPhone 12 mini is already at its last legs (I bet a couple of years), thanks to iOS 26 and the liquid ass. [...]

I’m in a similar position, but also I am so angry that none of the bugs from iOS 18, those I encounter daily with, none of them were addressed. [...] I am so sure there would be a proper release one day, but the plebs with once perfectly working iPhones, won’t get that bug fix and optimisations release. [...] I remember my iPhone 4S was almost perfect, but the iOS 7…9 made it slow and not very usable in comparison to iOS 6. Same thing I see with my perfectly good iOS 18 iPhone 12 mini, which just brought me back to these 4S times I forgot about. [...]

On iPhone 12 mini, the battery life is incredibly worse. I was charging once a day, 30 → 70% usually, and now I’m charging all the time I have a chance. I’m not very active user, but each session of screen time reduces the battery significantly. Before that I felt that despite the small battery, the device works forever. [...]

[...] But there is no way these days I will spend that kind of money for functionalities I don’t use. Even an iphone 12 mini is an overkill for what I do. [...]

I just had my iphone 12 mini battery replaced. This thing performs as well as the day I bought it. It will be a sad day when I have to "upgrade".

It's greatest quality seems to me that the whole screen looks accessible with one hand. I own an iphone 12 mini. Not sure what to replace it with when it dies.

On an iPhone 12 mini, wishing I hadn’t upgraded to iOS 26 because now my phone is notably laggy. [...] I use swiping for input and would consider it now unusable due to extreme lag. [...] Time to go find out if there’s even a way to downgrade, oof this is slow.

My dream phone has a body like iPhone 12 mini (which I currently use) without the protruding camera. Sounds similar to the iPhone 4, still my favorite of all the form factors in terms of "hand feel". [...] If they refreshed it to reduce weight and extended the screen to the borders I think it would be amazing

The iPhone minis were the first one to not sacrifice on those things, except for battery life compared to other iPhones. Same great display tech as the normal sized iPhone of that year, same SoC, same camera. Even with the smaller battery, iOS is so aggressive with background tasks anyway, the iPhone 12 mini was my first iPhone and I got better battery life with it than any of my Androids I used over the span of a decade, even giant ones like the Nexus 6P, despite obsessively trying to install background task killer solutions and whatnot that were supposed to save on battery. [...]

Took my iPhone 12 Mini a whole of 0.1 seconds to pass it. What hardware/OS are you using?

[...] I got a case for only minutes after I bought it so it would have a chance of survival. Currently on an iPhone 12 mini and happy both that the clean straight edges came back, and that Apple's still making the occasional small phone.