With the iPhone 12 Mini, you get an OLED display and 5G. But what about battery life – how does it compare to the iPhone 12’s and Apple’s older iPhones like the iPhone 8?


The iPhone 12 Mini is the smallest iPhone in Apple’s 2020 iPhone 12 lineup. In fact, it is the smallest iPhone Apple has created in years: the iPhone 12 Mini is smaller than the iPhone SE 2020.

How small is the iPhone 12 Mini? It’s closer in size to the original iPhone SE than the iPhone 11. So, yeah – it’s pretty darn small. And if you want a small iPhone, the iPhone 12 Mini is definitely the one to go for.

It has 5G, an OLED display, and a dual-lens camera. It’s essentially the same deal as the standard iPhone 12, just smaller. But what about its battery?

iPhone 12 Mini Battery Size

Apple NEVER talks specifics about the batteries it uses in its iPhone at launch. We always have to wait until there is a tear-down done on the phone. However, we do now know that the iPhone 12 Mini uses a 2,227 mAh battery.

Rather than dealing in the universal language of mAh and numbers, Apple prefers to talk in “user-based” metrics – number of hours of video playback, how many hours of streaming music it’ll do, etc.

And this is what it said about the iPhone 12 Mini’s battery life: Up to 15 hours video playback, 10 hours streamed, 50 hours audio playback.

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How Does That Compare To The iPhone 12 & iPhone 12 Pro Models?

iPhone 12 Mini Battery Size: How Big Is It?Pin

Here’s a breakdown of Apple’s “ratings” for the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max battery performance:

  • iPhone 12 Pro Max – Up to 20 hours video playback, 12 hours streamed, 80 hours audio
  • iPhone 12 Pro – Up to 17 hours video playback, 11 hours streamed, 65 hours audio
  • iPhone 12 – Up to 17 hours video playback, 11 hours streamed, 65 hours audio

As you can see, the bigger the iPhone, the better the battery performance. That’s because larger iPhones, like the iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Pro Max, have larger bodies and can accommodate larger batteries.

By shrinking the size of the iPhone 12 Mini, Apple is limited with what it can do with battery sizes. Because the iPhone 12 Mini is, well, so mini, it HAS to run a dramatically smaller battery than the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro.

This is why its battery performance will not be as good. The iPhone 12 Pro Max, for instance, offers 20 hours of video playback – five hours more than the iPhone 12 Mini.

Still, the iPhone 12 Mini is still better than the iPhone SE. Given the developments Apple’s made to its A14 SoC, it is now based on a 5nm process, I would expect the iPhone 12 Mini to have boosted battery life over both the iPhone SE 2020 and the iPhone 8.

Even if the battery is the same size as the iPhone 8’s, or smaller, the efficiency savings Apple will make with its new A5 CPU should translate into better battery life. As always, the proof will be in the pudding, so it is impossible to say for sure until we’ve tested the iPhone 12 Mini.

Either way, I’m sure plenty of Apple users will be really pumped about the prospect of being able to buy an actual small iPhone again. I know I am!

And this isn’t a phone born from concessions either; it is more or less identical to the iPhone 12, save for the size and battery differences. And that, at least for Apple, is a significant move and most definitely a step in the right direction.