But that price difference …
To avoid those inevitable people in the comments who don’t understand why the apparent difference between US and UK pricing is mostly an illusion, I’m going to use US pricing to discuss this.
- iPhone 12 mini (256GB): $879
- iPhone 12 Pro Max (256GB): $1,199
Let’s keep the math simple and call it $900 versus $1200.
Some people are going to look at that $300 difference and see it as a significant chunk of change. There are a whole bunch of nice things you could buy for $300.
However, I’ve always said that the sensible way to look at price is the cost over time. For example, if you keep the phone for two years and get say 50% back in resale, then the ownership cost for that two-year period is:
- iPhone 12 mini (256GB): $900 – $450 = $450
- iPhone 12 Pro Max (256GB): $1,200 – $600 = $600
So the difference in cost of ownership is $150, not $300. To look at that another way, it’s $6.25 per month.
The question, then, is: is the difference in the feature set worth $6.25 per month to you? To me, that’s an easy yes if I’m getting significantly better photos from it.