iPhone 12 mini Battery Life Test: The Results Will Certainly Shock You

Karamchand Rameshwar - Nov 17, 2020

From the test, we can see that the iPhone 12 mini is great for regular users who only use the phone for simple tasks like browsing web.

The iPhone 12 mini is a compact iPhone with great ambitions. It has an extremely small size, even smaller than the smallest smartphones launched in 2020. But inside, the 12 mini is fully equipped with components, features, and dual camera sensors similar to the iPhone 12.

The only downside and also a huge drawback of the iPhone 12 mini is the battery capacity. Apple has done everything, such as shrinking the top sensor cluster, the Taptic Engine, and the bottom speaker, but still only be able to make enough space for a 2,227 mAh battery.

So with such a modest battery, does the actual battery life of the iPhone 12 mini make users disappointed? PhoneArena has conducted real-life tests to find answers for those who are considering buying an iPhone 12 mini.

Watching videos

Watching videos on YouTube is one of the most common activities among smartphone users. According to the actual test by PhoneArena, the iPhone 12 mini can play YouTube continuously for about 5 hours and 10 minutes. That's higher than the iPhone SE 2020 and slightly lower than the iPhone 12.

Iphone 12 Mini Watching Youtube — Its performance in this task is better than the iPhone SE 2020.

However, that seems a bit low compared to a few other Android smartphones. The Google Pixel 5 can last for 8 hours 49 minutes, while the Galaxy S20 topped the charts with 10 hours and 20 minutes. It is clear that the 2,227 mAh battery of the iPhone 12 mini cannot be compared with today's Android smartphones.

Web browsing

This is a pure browsing test. Just go to the website and scroll up and down. In this test, the iPhone 12 mini performed quite well, lasting for 10 hours 56 minutes.

Although the result is still inferior to the iPhone 12, the 12 mini is no longer left behind by Android rivals like in the above test.

Playing 3D games

We have seen how disappointing the actual battery life test results of the iPhone 12 Pro Max are during gaming. And it looks like the same problem is happening on the iPhone 12 mini.

Iphone 12 Mini Playing Game — The phone only lasted 2 hours and 22 minutes when running 3D games. How disappointing!

With the smaller battery capacity, the performance of the 12 mini is even worse. The usage time when playing 3D games on the compact iPhone is only 2 hours 22 minutes, even less than the time required to fully charge the battery.

Meanwhile, the battery life of the iPhone 12 when playing 3D games is only 3 hours, while that of the Galaxy S20 is up to 7 hours 43 minutes, and that of the Pixel 5 is 5 hours 6 minutes.

Overall, the 12 mini won't be a good choice if you enjoy gaming, especially with the small screen size and very limited battery capacity. However, if you need a compact iPhone for basic tasks like browsing the web, checking mail, phone calls, and occasionally watching YouTube, it is not that bad.