iPhone 12 iPhone 12 mini has a scaled screen, but you probably won't notice

[hailey bee]

Similar to iPhone 6-7-8 Plus models, iPhone 12 mini has a screen that is scaled:

Display physical pixels: 1080 x 2340, at 476 ppi
Logical points: 375 x 812
Rendered at 3x: 1125 x 2436
Downscaling: 0.96

It seems that Apple is unwilling to go below 375 points wide. But I don't think scaling would be noticeable at 476 ppi anyway.

Interestingly, iPhone 12 – not mini – will scale up older apps from 375 to 390 points wide, until the app is updated, so you'd notice scaling on iPhone 12 rather than on mini.

 

[Traverse]

Essentially, the mini renders the same content that you’d find on a 5.8” iPhone X, iPhone XS, and iPhone 11 Pro, but it’s actual resolution isn’t quite high enough to display that natively so the systems scales all content down (I believe 9%-ish) in the fly. Essentially, there are three tak:

1. You’ll see the same amount of content and U.I. as on 5.8” phones, it all just be smaller. I think this is the right choice for most people, but may be a tad small for some.
2. Given that the mini renders in 3x and then scales down on the fly to an imperfect divider, there will be a loss in quality, but at this resolution it will likely be imperceptible.
3. The constant scaling will have a GPU hit (there’s no way it won’t), but given the A14, this should again be imperceptible.
   
   We’ll have to see what they’re like with hands-on reviews.