Apple iPhone 12 5G Refurbished

Apple iPhone 12

Cupertino's latest packs plenty of power and a revised crowd-pleasing design

With the new iPhone 12, Apple's gone back to an older style of 'square edged' design that we haven't seen in its flagships since the iPhone 5 – and it's a reversion that's seemingly been received well, with the new iPhone 12 range proving to be exceedingly popular.

Along with that change in shape, the other factor that almost certainly helps the iPhone 12's appeal is a new range of brighter colours – you can choose one of five shades: black, white, blue, green and red. 

Powering the iPhone 12 is the new A14 Bionic SoC, Apple's in-house architecture which packs six CPU cores and four GPU cores, and is indisputably the fastest smartphone (and tablet) hardware platform currently available. The A14 is found across all four new models of iPhone 12, so they're all equal when it comes to performance: the Pro and regular phones are identical in this respect.

The other big hardware addition this year is support for 5G mobile networks, and in Australia that basically means Telstra or Optus; Vodafone is slowly rolling out its 5G network, but it's only available in very limited regions as of the end of 2020).

Of course, the iPhone 12 ticks all the other essential boxes when it comes to premium specs too, with a 6.1-inch OLED display, dual 12MP camera system (combining wide and ultrawide lenses), a solid all-day battery life (around 8 hours screen-on time), unibody aluminium chassis, and super-tough and scratch resistant 'Ceramic Shield' glass, which covers both the front and back of the phone. All the new iPhones also support wireless charging and work with a new range of MagSafe charging accessories and cases, and are water and dust resistant to the IP68 standard.

In short, there's heaps to like with the new iPhone 12 beyond just looks, making this a compelling and easy-to-recommend upgrade – or even a reason to switch over from Android.

Score: 4.5/5

Verdict: This year's iPhone refresh is one of the more exciting ones in recent years, so if you're in the market for a new phone then the iPhone 12 is an excellent buy.