Apple recently announced its new iPhone 12 series consisting of the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. While Apple mentioned that the iPhone 12 Pro lineup is waterproof in its presentation, it didn’t specify the same for the vanilla iPhone 12 series.
Hence, one of the questions is – is the new iPhone waterproof? The answer is yes. Here are the specifics.
Water-Resistant vs Waterproof
Water-resistance denotes the lower level of water protection out of the two terms. A device labeled “water-resistant” means it can repel water, and resist the penetration of water to a certain degree, but not entirely. Usually, a water-resistant device comes with a coating of thin-film nanotechnology, which makes it hydrophobic. The coating could be on the inside, outside, or both.
On the other hand, the term ‘waterproof’ means that the device is impermeable. The closest thing currently available to measure waterproofing on a device is the Ingress Protection (IP) rating.
What does IP68 rating really mean?
Devices backed by an international standard rating of IP68 are deemed fit enough to withstand dust, dirt and sand. Plus, these can happily be submerged in to water up to a maximum depth of six meters for up to 30 minutes.
Coming to the technicality, IP is the Ingress Protection scale. Basically, it means how good is a device rated at stopping stuff from getting inside. The ‘6’ is the particulate rating while ‘8’ is the liquid rating.
The former means it is dustproof and that solid particles like sand can’t enter the phone even in a vacuum. Further, the particulate rating only goes up to 6, while the liquid rating can go up to ‘9’. In the case of the iPhone 12 series, it goes up to IP68, which signifies that it is dustproof, and it can survive 6 meters of water depth up to half an hour.
Is the iPhone 12 series waterproof?
Despite Apple not mentioning it in the presentation, the iPhone 12 mini is rated IP68. It can be submerged in water to a maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes. The same goes for the iPhone 12. Apple is calling it the former the smallest and lightest 5G-ready phone out there. It is almost 11% shorter, 20% lighter, and 10.76% narrower compared to the iPhone 12. Meanwhile, the iPhone 12 is 11% thinner, 15% smaller, 16% smaller than iPhone 11.
Apple iPhone 12 Mini
The iPhone 12 mini is smaller and lighter than the iPhone 12. It weighs just 133 grams, and Apple is calling it the smallest and lightest 5G-ready phone out there.
iPhone 12
The iPhone 12 features a 6.1-inch OLED display with the Super Retina XDR technology and a resolution of 2532×1170 pixels alongside packing new camera features.
Is the iPhone 12 Pro series waterproof?
The answer in one word is Yes. The iPhone 12 Pro as well as the iPhone 12 Pro Max are waterproof. Similar to the iPhone 12 series, the Pro models are rated IP68 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes) under IEC standard 60529.
Hence, you need not worry if you take your iPhone 12 to the swimming pool with you or to the beach. The sand won’t gent into it, thanks to the ‘6’ particulate rating, and it can survive water up to 6 meters for 30 minutes, courtesy ‘8’ liquid rating. You must however, be aware, to not exceed the 30 minutes mark or the 6 meters depth.
iPhone 12 Pro
The iPhone 12 Pro is smaller variant of the iPhone 11 Pro Max. It gets a slew of camera updates, and support for Apple Pro RAW that offers benefits of multi-frame processing and combines them with a raw format.
iPhone 12 Pro Max
The iPhone 12 Pro comes with a host of new features including a bigger display, better cameras with support for Apple Pro RAW alongside a LiDAR Scanner. It is the first camera smartphone with iPhone 12 Pro that can record Dolby Vision HDR.
How’s the drop performance?
Apart from being dust and water resistant, these iPhones are built on Ceramic Shield that makes 4X better drop performance. According to Corning – a glass-ceramic manufacturer – which Apple worked with on Ceramic Shield, the material excels because it’s tough, lightweight, and “virtually impervious to heat and electricity.”
The company says, Ceramic Shield is “the world’s first transparent and color-free glass-ceramic,” which is why is is suitable for a smartphone screen. It consists of nano ceramic crystals embedded in the glass matrix. These are interlocked structures that result in high flaw resistance and resist cracks. Therefore, you should be fine with minor drops with your iPhone 12.
The iPhone 12 series is powered by the Apple A14 Bionic chipset, which is built on the 5nm process. It features 11.8 billion transistors that offer an increase of over 40% vs A13 processor. The 6-core GPU is 50% faster than the competition. It comes with a 16-core NPU that is 80% faster. Further, the chipset has 2nd gen ML accelerators that are up to 70% faster. It is teased to be a huge leap forward in iPhones.