Agree with others: 13mini is best of the 3 considered. Wife and I upgraded just after the iPhone14 availability. Went from OG SE and iPhone7 to two iPhone13minis. Huge performance and battery improvements, especially against the iPhone7. The iPhoneSE still today has an amazingly clear display, great size for smaller hands like ours, and even has decent battery life. Both SE and 7 were no longer upgradable beyond iOS15.n.n. Wife got a red back, mine is green so we can easily tell the difference. We also got different clear cases.
We also bought our two iPhones from Apple with their just-lowered pricing. Base configurations were fine for our needs with 128GB of storage. We never came close to using the 32GB on the SE nor on the 7, and don’t expect to even come near consuming even half of the 128GB as I don’t see our use changing all that much. The 12mini is no longer available from Apple’s website but can be found at some of the provider outlets and others. Our provider, AT&T, had both the 12mini and 13mini but wanted the same price for both so no point whatever in getting the 12mini, at least not from them. Apple also has other discounts (military, education, etc.) that we could take advantage of to further reduce the price.
We checked almost daily for an iPhone12mini in Apple’s refurb’d area and never saw one. That may be different today and with appropriate low pricing could be an option for you on that basis alone. If you can do it though, I’d still strongly recommend the 13mini. We’re very satisfied. Looking forward to updating again to an iPhone19 just after the iPhone20’s are announced, assuming the mini form-factor is available. Sadly, Apple appears to have abandoned smaller iPhones in favor of iPhablets.
