Am I crazy, or can I return to the iPhone 12 Mini?

There was no shade of Apple, on the contrary, when I said that the iPhone did not get a better year to year. They have reached a very high level, and so can survive even the most nerds between us, a very long time.

As regular visitors might read to Applevis, I have pondered the idea of ​​buying iPhone air lately. The funny thing is, this makes me surprised because all the year I was really determined that I did not need, or even wanted, the new iPhone this year. My iPhone 15 Pro, apart from a few battery degradation, is perfectly performing. Even rumors about the iPhone Air before being announced did not really affect me. However, since the Apple event, for any reason, I admit that his desire has grown a little.

This summer I once again took part in the beta testing the new version of iOS, iOS 26. Many people tested on secondary devices, but I decided to do the opposite. I put iOS 26 Beta on my main device, iPhone 15 Pro, and took out my old iPhone 12 mini from the drawer, running iOS 18, to have there as an emergency reserve device if I need it.

Apparently, I didn’t need it, but I did find myself taking it and played with him. That is my favorite iPhone ever, and I think there is still. I like small and lightweight form factors, pockets and easily held and used in one hand. What might surprise me was that I did not feel a significant decrease in speed and performance. I admit that I haven’t tried using it as my daily driver anymore, so maybe I will see more from time to time, but I’m sure this phone can really be used for years if you want. Of course many people do that.

Maybe I just like to have something new, even if it’s something old! So what if I moved from my 15 pro, except not to the new 2025 model that was shiny, but returned to the 12th mini period? How crazy is this idea? What will I actually miss?

Battery:
Okay, let’s overcome this one. 12 Mini does not have a good battery. Even with a replacement battery, almost certainly will be defeated by 15 years of my two -year -old pro. For many people, batteries are a top level priority. Of course I appreciate the battery that is durable, but that is not a breaking agreement for me. I can usually add my cellphone during the day if needed, and for a more active weekend etc., I can bring an electric bank. So unless it turns out to be worse than I expected, the battery is not a stopping event in this experiment.

Dynamic Island:
With the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, Apple introduced a dynamic island to replace notch on the top of the screen. I got it with the iPhone 15 Pro. This reduces the size of the notch, and makes some of that able to display information, including direct activities. I don’t deny it is a pleasant small innovation.
But in practice, I did not find it at all useful. The direct activity that often fills it does not seem to be updated well for me, so I don’t trust the information. Media control functions well, but I don’t use it, instead I usually use a lock screen and physical control on my airpods. A very dynamic island; Obviously not the event stopping.

Lidar:
Another feature that I will remove is Lidar, an additional sensor on the back of the phone, mainly used to assess distance. For me this is something that sounds very promising in theory, but has produced a little or no benefit to me in practice.
Many features that are designed for us lies in the application of recognition and direct enlargement, but in reality I do not use the application. The tools and features that I use such as being my eyes, allies, seeing AI, piccybot and so on don’t seem to need or completely benefit from it.
Although I will also lose the findings of precision, which is very impressive in tracking down or losing water and air. Even though this is not something I often need, maybe it’s something that I can miss one day, right when I really need it. So this one has validity.

Camera:
In related notes, using the applications and tools mentioned above, there is a possibility that I will see the difference in the quality of the camera. I was really not sure how important the camera improvement in the last five years for what I did with my cellphone, including OCR and AI. I suspect I could get well, but I was open to be convinced in this one way.

Action button:
The action button, introduced to the iPhone 15 Pro, replaced the mute switch on the side of the phone with a button that the user can program. Although we might all like Apple to give us more functions with him, such as determining actions for the double press, triple press and long press, it is still a very useful and strong feature. I currently have mine to launch Gemini voice chat and feel very useful. So this is something I miss the most if I turn back to 12 mini.

Ports:
As a 15 pro user, I basically all in USB C now. Kasing Airpods Pro 2 My one is the only device that I left in the daily use of Lightning; And even that can be collected by Magsafe and Filling my Apple Watch. IPhone 12 Mini also supports Magsafe, so I will not be fully dependent on lightning. So the return of lightning will certainly be a real disorder, but what I might be able to live, maybe.

Apple intelligence:
I will not go far into Apple’s intelligence here, we all know we haven’t seen it a full promise. Apple is too promised and less submitted when they launched it, under a lot of public pressure, in 2024. Of course there has been learning machine on the iPhone for years, and honest Apple Intelligence brand features such as writing tools, genmoji, image playgrounds, and email summaries so far have not been useful for me. Even visual intelligence is not true -really doing anything I can’t do, often better, with other applications, even though I sometimes use the “Ask” feature on the screenshot on iOS 26.
I believe it will greatly increase in time, and I will appreciate Apple’s more privacy focus approach, but to this day, this is not something that affects my device’s choice.

Considering it, I must be at least somewhat tempted to try back to 12 mini as my daily driver, but I’m not sure if I will ever do it. Do you agree with my thoughts above, or are there other factors that I haven’t considered? Have I underestimated the performance gap?
Which cellphone do you use now, can you retreat?