iPhone Buying Guide 2021 — Which iPhone is for you?

Best Case Ever
Mac O’Clock
Published in
14 min readMar 1, 2021

In the mobile phone market iPhones are well known simply for their quality and higher price. There is no doubt these phones do justice for their price they deliver high-end technology with a rich elegant appearance. Since 2007 Apple Inc did not disappoint iPhone users they had released vast series of phones.

iPhone 12 Pro

This phone is the 3rd iPhone of the 12 series with 128GB or 256GB or 512GB storage. The color code of this phone is special because this is the only phone that comes in Gold and this specific Pacific Blue color apart from these two colors there are Graphite and silver. The finishing of this iPhone is quite special it has two types which are you can choose mat iPhone with glossy sides or glossy iPhone with matt sides, the downside of this stainless steel sides is it gathers more fingerprints and give this expensive phone a dirty appearance. The big fact with this phone is that you are not getting any headphones or power adaptor as usual. When we talk about the camera system of this phone it has a Primary Sensor and Ultra-wide sensor same as iPhone 12 but besides, there is a 2x telephoto Zoom Camera.

If you are looking for a better camera system iPhone 12 Pro comes out due to the fact it has a bigger primary sensor for the first time in a while for an iPhone and it has sensor-shift autofocus this makes some improvements in low light shootings, handheld shooting and maybe video stabilization. There are pretty massive benefits for AR ( Augmented Reality) for example you can measure someone’s height instance with the measure app. iPhone 12 Pro got a ceramic shield to protect the display and has an A14 Bionic CPU inside work with 6GB RAM. It has 1170×2532 resolution when we talk about this $1000 flagship the display is stunning it get efficiently bright outdoors and color reproduction is perfect. iPhone 12 got a new MagSafe animation which is elegant and the MagSafe strength is noticeable you can swing the phone without any problem while it has attached to the MagSafe it ensures 100% faster charging with up to 15W power.

Check the price

iPhone 12

Even the specs are not impressive as iPhone 12 Pro or 12 pro max this phone still manages to make iOS users happy with camera tech, gaming performance, battery life, etc. This phone is the smallest iPhone released in this year with a 6.1-inch display apart from the Google pixel phone even the phone is small durability of the screen is high due to the fact it has the ceramic shield intact. One minus point here for this shield is that even this has 4x protection it is not completely scratch resistance it easily gets scratches. Because Apple Inc used the very best cellular chips in the market for the iPhone 12 you won’t have to face any signal issues or the internet connection dropping. You will deficiently get signal where you did not receive signal and where the internet is super slow it will change to fast internet connection.

This phone has more 5G bands than any other phone which means it guarantees to work once you get 5G. There is a new Smart Data Mode which you can manually change the connection type when talking about 5G the most important thing is it drains the battery so you can charge 5G to LTE by using the above new option. 2815mAh battery will get most of you through a full day without needing to top off. This phone can stay 20feet underwater for 30mins so you don’t have to worry about dropping your phone in the bathroom or a pool. You can use a MagSafe charger to charge your phone and small fact here you can charge your iPhone with other wireless chargers and you can charge other phones with MagSafe without a problem. iPhone 12 got an updated dual-camera system with standard and ultra-wide cameras. You can choose your phone from Black, Blue, Green, Red, and white.

Check the price

iPhone 11

Released on 2019 September 19 in colors Black, Green, Yellow, Purple, Red, and White with iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max so this phone is the middle man of the i -11 family. Purple and green are the new colors for this year. If started from the very beginning you got your iPhone 11, Earpods, 5V power adaptor this is not the faster adaptor you got from the iPhone 11 pro and the USB cable with the getting start guide. As usual, you can purchase this phone in different storage limits which are 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB price range is $699 to $849. The difference anyone will notice from this phone is Apple Inc made sure you see the phone first rather than the getting start guide and another fast there is no plastic protector in the rear as usual. Soon after your eyes catch the phone you will notice repositioned apple logo now which is in the middle of the phone rather than up high and the iPhone text also missing. One good thing about iPhone 11 is even it has more features and a new camera it is the same size and weight as iPhone XR. 6.1 inches display and 194g weight are a rather reasonable and manageable size and weight.

If you want to compare this phone with iPhone XR this gives 1-hour extra battery life which is in number 346mAh this is a significant feature because XR was the 2018 best battery life iPhone. A13 CPU is inside the iPhone 11 as well as iPhone 11 Pro so that means the baseline iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro are going to perform the same from a CPU performance perspective. Apple U1 Ultra Wideband chip appearance for the first time in this phone and 11 pro. According to Apple inc, iPhone 11 has the fastest Face ID. If you are a person who loves to watch movies on your phone then this phone is a piece of good news for you guys because iPhone 11 supports Spatial Audio. There is a good network enhancement with this phone you get Gigabit-class LTE with 2×2 MIMO and LAA 802.11axWi-Fi 6 for upcoming Wi-Fi 6 enabled routers. iPhone 11 provides 30min water resistance up to 2m depth with an ultra-wide camera which is perfect for a photographer when the phone capture a wide-angle shot it collects ultra-wide data so when you are editing a photo you can pull those data from the ultra-wide sensors. You get a brighter True Tone flash which is brighter in both flash mode and the flashlight mode.

Check the price

iPhone XR

This phone goes from $749 to $899 so the storage goes as 64GB , 128GB, and 256GB and the cool thing is that you can double your storage just for $50. It means you can jump from 64GB to 128GB if you are willing to spend $50 more. The phone comes with a 6.1-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 828×1792 pixel along with an A12 Bionic processor. You get an enhanced camera with a larger sensor due to the fact there are larger pixels that can gather more light which results from better Low Light performance. You can choose your phone from six White different colors, Black, Blue, Yellow, Coral, and (Product) Red you can choose new Bubble Wallpaper from your iPhone XR which matches your phone color. Pay attention to the display it is a Liquid Retina LCD Display which is pretty impressive, It has a backlight which you can not get in any old iPhone phone and colors are super accurate in iPhone XR it supports white color. This phone has really impressive battery life, Wireless Talk time up to 25 hours, Internet use up to 15 hours, Wireless Video Playback up to 16 hours, Wireless audio playback of up to 65 hours. Another cools thing about this phone is that it works with the jesters you should have noticed that this phone has no home button so you have to swipe to close a window and so on. You can get Tap to Wake in an LCD which is super cool and there is Haptic Touch which works on specific areas on this phone.

Check the price

iPhone SE (2020)

This phone has a 4.7 inch LCD display with True Tone which changes the colors depending on the light along with a classic home button with the fingerprint sensor. This phone made of Gorilla Glass with an aluminum frame and it is super small, light, and comfortable to wield in a hand an It is IP67 waterproof with an elegant glass-covered back. The specialty of this phone is it has the same processor as iPhone 11 Pro Hexa Core. This phone comes in colors such as Black, White, and Red with 3GB RAM and an 1821 mAh battery. The cameras of this phone are pretty good for $400 it iPhone SE 2020 has a 12MP wide camera in the rear with dual-LED dual-tone flash and the front, there is a 7MP which features HDR, Face Detection, and Panorama. For your audio iPhone SE (2020) has pair of stereo speakers it is a hybrid setup with the bottom-firing loudspeaker and air piece acting as the second one. They are balanced enough and the loudness is very good the quality is impressive too.

Check the price

iPhone 11 Pro

Apple really focused on few major things for this new iPhone 11 pro, so the design is barely changed and the new display is a slight upgrade, the battery life, and these new cameras are the major breakthrough of this phone. Apple said they’ve improved face ID to be up to 30% faster in the same space and work at a larger variety of angles. they’ve also upgraded the water-resistance a bit. it’s still IP 68 certified and this phone is very slightly thicker and heavier. that’s perfectly fine because battery life is back to being excellent on this phone as a result this is also achieved by getting rid of 3d touch. the battery is bigger so that’s why the battery difference from the 10XR to the 11 was one hour, that’s just A13 Bionic improvements but the improvement from the 10XR to the 11 Pro was four hours because of getting rid of that 3d touch. there’s also something new about the display specifically that it can hold a higher 800 nits of brightness and at small points for brief moments can peak up to 1200 nits which is incredible on a smartphone display and also it’s up to two million to one contrast ratio. It has triple cameras now three new sensors so you have the primary 12-megapixel sensor a 2 telephoto camera and a 0.5 X ultra-wide camera with about a 120-degree field of view. Apple’s greatest strengths I actually considered to be the greatest strengths from the whole Apple ecosystem is their software you can run their latest and greatest iOS version on much older hardware. you can run iOS 13 on the iPhone SE three-and-a-half-year-old phone with two gigs of RAM and it’s stable and smooth that’s Apple. The basic phone costs you $999 (at launch) for the iPhone 11 Pro 64GB version. Instead, pay $1,149 for the 256GB version, the ideal size for most iPhone 11 Pro shoppers, or go all-in for the 512GB size at $1,349. Finally the iPhone 11 Pro comes in gorgeous Midnight Green, Space Gray, Silver, and Gold.

Check the price

iPhone XS

iPhone 10XS did come in a few different colors. you could get this in Space Gray, Silver as well as Gold. the iPhone XS weighs 177 grams so it’s a little bit heavier even than the newer larger iPhone 12 series. the iPhone XS is still very fast because of the a12 bionic that’s a seven-nanometer chip and a phone you have four gigs of ram most people will never be able to even stretch the limits of what this processor is capable of. it doesn’t have a wide-angle camera but It has smart hdr and 4k 60 on the rear, which was very sharp. You can do slow-mo up to 1080 240 fps so this camera still packs an excellent specification. on the front though you can only go up to a maximum of 1080p 60 so this is not going to be a pros favorite when it comes to matching the camera on the front. This phone has a Stainless Steel frame, Reinforced Glass Front as well a rear along with IP68 certified for water resistance dust resistance. iPhone XS has a pretty good battery which is 2658 mAh with wireless charging (QI Compatible)

Check the price

iPhone X

iPhone X comes with major changes such as no Home button, there is no fingerprint sensor, you unlock it just looking at it and there is all kind of jesters for navigating. When you are looking at the phone you also notice the large black border around the display which is pretty polarizing. Apple Inc also gives us two different colors for this model which are Silver and Space Grey. This phone uses a 5.8 Samsung manufactured display. When you are holding the iPhone X it is really comfortable due to the fact the phone is in a cool size Stainless Steel sides because of these sides phone looks more shinny and makes it slippery. For the 1000$ smartphone, it has pretty good speakers, Water Resistance, and has wireless charging. The significant feature of this phone is the notch which is at the top of the display, this part has two cameras. Due to the fact that there is no home button, no fingerprint there so Apple had included face recognition.

Check the price

iPhone 8

The major design change with the iPhone 8 can be found on the back of the phone there is a glass rear that allows wireless charging. The display measures to 4.7 inches and have a 720p resolution now featured with True Tone Resolution. This phone powered by the All Bionic chip and it has a 12MP f1.8 camera sensor in the rear and a 7MP f2.2 selfie camera. iPhone 8 comes in few colors such as Silver, Space Grey, Gold, and Red. With the stereo speakers, it blasts music to your face. The batter itself 1821mAh which is 7% smaller than the iPhone 7 battery, it still water resistance and has touch ID along with all the other main features of the iPhone 7

Check the price

iPhone 7

This is still definitely a very familiar and very incremental upgrade to the previous iPhone again. it’s a familiar iPhone same rectangle with the rounded corners for the design, the same big forehead, and chin with the home button, the same seamless unibody metal industrial design again, and the same scrolling pages of icons for iOS. Touch ID is at the holy grail. it’s like a no-brainer whether you should use it or not you set it up once right when you get your phone and it’s faster and more secure than typing in a password every single time so touch ID a lot anyway aside from just the home button this is the second generation of the iPhone with 3d touch. iPhone 7 is ip67 rated which means you don’t have to worry about dropping it in or near water anymore and you can just take underwater photos and videos if you want basically the phone should survive water exposure now but other than that you know the displays on the iPhone 7 are still pretty good. it still has great color reproduction.

Check the price

iPhone 6S

Apple’s used 7000 series aluminum which makes for a stronger body which means it won’t bend as easily it’s even reinforced internally around the volume buttons. it’s there overall, button placement headphone jack mute switch, etc. all the stuff is in the same place but it’s also the rounded shape of the last model. something to note, this new iPhone is thicker taller, and wider than the iPhone 6. The new fingerprint sensor is ridiculously fast. you can basically unlock touch ID with just a tap now in not holding the home button. so the next big upgrade with the iPhone 6s is when the 3GS first came. Apple said the S stood for speed. this phone is insanely fast it’s rocking Apple’s new a9 chip technically a dual-core chip but two very powerful cores near 2 gigahertz and 2 gigabytes of RAM which is plenty for iOS. iPhone 6s is down to 1715 mAh hours and the iPhone 6s plus down to 2750 mAh the battery life however is still about the same meaning the iPhone 6s battery is okay it’ll probably last you a full day normally but heavy days you might find yourself needing to plug in before the end of the day.

Check the price

iPhone SE (2016)

The original launch price is 399USD. This is one of the lightweight(113g) iPhone that has ever shipped. all housed this 4.0 inch IPS LCD display which is aged fairly well I’d say viewing angles could be better compared to modern phones, the bezels are gigantic and yes the design is very much an old type of design but it did allow for that front-facing touch ID. It has the Apple a9 with 2GB of RAM. The cameras are 12 megapixels single back camera F 2.2 and a front 1.2 megapixel capable of 720p but the rear camera was actually capable of 4k 30fps which is pretty impressive at the time.

Check the price

If you are looking for the very best iPhone there is iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro is there but if you are a person who needs a great iPhone then the iPhone 12 is the best bet. If you just need an iPhone but it should be good so go for iPhone 11 but iPhone XR works too. With the details given above, it will be a piece of cake for you to decide what kind of iPhone you need.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

--

--