You may not enjoy the battery life as that isn't fantastic on the iPhone 12 mini, but if that's your main focus you'll like some of the other phones on this list. We found the design makes this phone easy to hold in a single hand, so if you've been crying out for a smaller iPhone that doesn't lose out on the top-end specs that you get from other Apple devices this may well be for you.Īs with the iPhone 12, the display is also fantastic on this handset too. There are a number of tiny spec differences between this and the standard iPhone 12 - for example, wireless charging is notably slower on the iPhone 12 mini - but otherwise you're getting high-end specs such as the powerful rear camera, 5G support and MagSafe support as well. With the iPhone 12 mini, Apple introduced an iPhone mini for the first time in its history of making handsets, and it's almost exactly the same as the iPhone 12 but it's smaller, making it one of the best compact iPhones.
Read our in-depth iPhone 12 Pro Max review
We found the battery life is better in the iPhone 12 Pro Max when compared to most of the other iPhones on this list, and you'll also find it has a slightly more powerful rear camera than even the iPhone 12 Pro. A lot of what we've said about the iPhone 12 Pro is true here, but there are a few benefits. If you're happy with something that's not brand new, and you want a phone with a mammoth 6.7-inch screen then you'll be happy with the iPhone 12 Pro Max in your pocket. So why is it so low in our list of the top iPhones? The sheer size of this handset means it won't be for everyone, and it's no longer the latest Pro Max model - though that means it's now a cheaper way to get a big screen iPhone. It takes a lot of what makes the rest of the iPhone 12 range so good and just tweaks a few elements to make it even better. The iPhone 12 Pro Max was once the best iPhone you could buy, and we loved everything it can do.
Read our in-depth iPhone 13 Pro Max review
In practice the hyped Cinematic mode and 120Hz screen didn’t impress us as much, and the sooner Apple gets rid of the notch the better, but overall this is a fantastic upgrade for Apple’s Max model, and it's one of the very best iPhones. The camera has also seen an upgrade, with low light shots particularly impressing, and the new macro mode opening the iPhone range up to a whole new type of photography. That said, we mostly know this thanks to benchmark scores – in the real world most users will struggle to truly tap into its potential.
There’s also a whole lot of power here, with Apple’s A15 Bionic chipset providing significantly better performance not just than previous iPhones, but also than any Android phone. This thing can last and last, and while it’s not quite up there with the very longest-lasting phones, it’s easily got the best battery life of any iPhone. The iPhone 13 Pro Max is the best and most exciting of Apple’s iPhone 13 range, with the battery life being an unexpected highlight.