I mean, both are equivalent. But A15 over A14 is a strong selling point. If face id and modern looks is not important especially. Both are considered bad at battery, but se has a bit of advantage. 5g on the 12m is not considered a good feature to use either. So for a mom (person who couldn’t know or care about technicalities), if she does not have a favor towards the modern notch looking face id with straight edges, SE 3 can be the better option in many aspects. Touch id is only annoying when your hands are wet.

12 mini is a lot better than SE on many things except soc, since its lower priced I’d go for the 12 mini.

The se has the a15 chip compared to the a14 on the 12. Compared to the mini id go se all day.

12 mini

I’ve had the entire iPhone 12 series – mini, regular and Pro and used multiple SE 3 as my daily drivers. The iPhone 12 mini is a stunning phone with a design that’ll still feel futuristic in the coming years, but the battery is a turd. Mine had 96% battery health and I could just see it run out of juice whenever I unlocked mine. Across the board, all iPhone 12 models are power-hungry and I blame it on the A14, being a first-generation SoC with 5G.

The SE 3 comfortably lasts me a whole day with moderate use, but I have to note that I turned 5G off as reception is piss-poor in my area. I find it less cumbersome to pay with Touch ID, compared to Face ID. The SE will receive dramatically longer support when compared to the iPhone 12, as Apple decided to use the A15 for another year in the base model iPhone 14 and focused on power efficiency with this chip.

The SE 3 does everything you expect from an iPhone, in a boring, outdated chassis. The only real disappointment is its limited camera feature-set. 4K60 video recording is unmatched and it snaps stills like a flagship phone in daylight, but low-light photography suffers. If your mom values having a reliable camera at all times, I’d get her the 12 mini, which has cameras optimized for nighttime situations on the front and back.

Also, I wouldn’t recommend a 64 GB iPhone in this day and age where even banking apps take half a GB of space. You can find the unopened SE 3 with 128GB storage for around 350 euros. That’s a better deal than whatever 64 GB iPhone 12 you can find, in my opinion.

12 mini

I would go for the 12 mini for the extra screen real estate. Especially the mini physically smaller than the SE, perfect for your mom’s requirements

I dunno, last phone I’ve held was the iPhone 4 and recently bought the iPhone SE 3. Personally I’d stick with the SE, but mom may like the extra screen from the 12 mini. It really depends if your mom has a visual impairment or not that would determine what phone you’d recommend to her.