I hope the mini has a long lifetime in the iPhone lineup. However, if Apple were to cut the mini out of its lineup, would you go back to a larger phone, or would you keep your mini and ride it till the wheels fall off?
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iPhone 12 mini Would you go back to a larger iPhone if Apple cuts the mini out of its lineup?
- Thread starter benjaminww
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I think people who are interested in the mini would keep it. Same reason many haven’t upgraded older iPhones in the past. I would probably do the same if as most phones are plenty fast for years to come and the form factor is nice. I’m considering the mini as a secondary device if I can afford it sometime in the future.
I’d have to eventually right ? They’ve never added a model just to remove it though. With 6.1” being the standard there is plenty of room for a mini in the lineup for years to come.
I could see this current iteration become the SE in a year or two when revisions to the mini come out, but they won’t kill off the “mini” any time soon. Also Gen 1 models like the mini need a few years to recoup RD costs.
flat sides should stay for at least 3 years like the X-11pro did. It looks like Apple is now on a 3yr refresh cycle with incremental updates in the yearly releases.
I could see this current iteration become the SE in a year or two when revisions to the mini come out, but they won’t kill off the “mini” any time soon. Also Gen 1 models like the mini need a few years to recoup RD costs.
flat sides should stay for at least 3 years like the X-11pro did. It looks like Apple is now on a 3yr refresh cycle with incremental updates in the yearly releases.
4 years on 6S waiting for smaller phone (I couldn't justify buying the SE that came out 3 months after my purchase). So I'm not giving my Mini up! If I wanted a bigger screen in iOS, I'd buy an iPad. My MacBook does fine with movies and general use so I doubt I'll ever get a big screen iPhone or iPad.
The Mini won’t be going anywhere, not in the next few years at least. Being the cheapest iPhone, sales will be high over the next year, and Apple won’t have released it to then take it away, if it was a cheap option then maybe, but considering they would have done lots of R&D, tooling, accessories produced etc...
I think the Mini line will continue to improve as we move forward, and who knows we might even get a mini Pro one day as the internals get smaller and more advanced.
I think the Mini line will continue to improve as we move forward, and who knows we might even get a mini Pro one day as the internals get smaller and more advanced.
Exactly right. If they can squeeze a third camera module we could see a mini pro with a SS frame.
The 12 mini is my tenth smartphone and that includes the SE 1st generation. After all these years, models and news/rumour articles, I know what I want.
If this happened, the 12 mini would be the one where I would keep replacing the battery or hunting them down on eBay for $150 and hoarding them like people do with the SE 1st gen. This, this is the one they would pry out of my cold, dead hands. *Snarl*
If this happened, the 12 mini would be the one where I would keep replacing the battery or hunting them down on eBay for $150 and hoarding them like people do with the SE 1st gen. This, this is the one they would pry out of my cold, dead hands. *Snarl*
4 years using an iPhone 7 and waiting for a good, small phone, so I'll keep the mini until something better comes out in 3 to 4 years.
This weird fetish for smaller phones is surprising me .. according to report not even 5% from sales are from mini so you can say bye bye to small phones for a while and it would not suprise me if you were forced to have 12 mini for 5 years until next mini generation or foldable or whatever
I honestly can never see myself ever buying a large phone ever again. In a worse case scenario where Apple do not release small phones in the for the next few years, then I’ll just alternate between my 12 mini and my SE 2020. If a 5.8 model is released again then this would be my absolute limit.
12 is much pretty the same size with bigger screen, or 2.7mm taller to be exact lol.
You will see the sales level out this year. Maybe not completely, but with the iPhone 12/Pro having a month head start, once the 12mini gets into corporate hands along with “free” deals on major carries I bet it will be very popular.
I honestly don’t know what I would do. I was perfectly happy with the iPhone X/Xs/11 Pro size (the 11 Pro was a bit heavy but it was fine). When I went to the 12 Pro I almost immediately knew it was too big for my hand. Even though the physical dimensions are almost the same, the volume is significantly larger due to the straight edges. Not only that, the 6.1 inch screen is bigger, which makes it harder to reach with one hand. When I had the 12 Pro I took some pictures illustrating the difference in screen size and my problem with reach(can’t get to the back button for instance). For reference I’m 5’ 11’ with medium sized hands. The mini by comparison is an extremely comfortable phone to hold and use with one hand.
I meant a 5.8 screen in the iPhone 12 design with flat edges. Would be more compact in overall size than the current iPhone 12. I have nothing against large phones or anything like that, I totally understand there are millions of people who like a larger phone for media/social networking or use large screen phones as their primary computing device. I’ve got two iPhone Plus devices which I loved using, It’s just im getting a bit older, so now prefer a compact phone and iPad combo.
Would love a 5.8 inch model again. To me, there’s a huge difference in feel between the 6.1 and 5.8 models.
If worse came to worse, I would buy up all the minis I could afford, sell some of the stock to fellow needy nerds, and be content with a mini for many years.
Imo the mini is just a placeholder to maintain a $699 price point since Apple actually increased the price of the base 12. I’m guessing we will see it trickles down this year to $599 when Apple released the iPhone 13 lineup. Once Apple saw that they can priced the regular iPhone back to $699, imo the mini would be gone or relegated as an SE model.
That is not a crazy thought. Their splash page says:
From $29.12/mo. or $699 before trade‑in.
I think they really wanted to get it down to 699 (or less than $30/month). Therefore the mini, therefore the $30 carrier subsidy. In that case, they might not care too much about how well the mini sells.
Something tells me that Apple wouldn’t have gone to all that R&D trouble to make a smaller phone just to make sure they had something to keep that $699 slot. Getting all those components (especially the mmWave antenna) to fit in a small package definitely wasn’t cheap.