Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max Review: Amazing Camera, Massive Size
"This is the iPhone with amazing battery life and an exceptional camera experience, but it comes at a price that is too big for most people to manage."
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Big and beautiful display
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Excellent hardware quality
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First class camera experience
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Long battery life
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Unbelievably big
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Very difficult
It was frustrating for them in a way iPhone 12 Pro max a month later than the iPhone 12 Pro because we couldn't immediately compare them side by side. However, working in these conditions bought me a lot of time with the iPhone 12 Pro. Now that I finally have a 12 Pro Max in hand, I can take advantage of this considerable experience with the platform.
This way I can evaluate the three big aspects (emphasis on big ones) that make the iPhone 12 Pro Max stand out: the size of the phone, the subsequently larger battery and the improved camera system.
The basics: hardware, specifications and software
The "Max" iPhones have a short history but have gained an extremely enthusiastic following. Some people realized the value of a giant iPhone and never looked back. For these people, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is wonderful – it's another giant iPhone that was introduced into the modern era of Apple hardware design and features.
Andrew Martonik / Digital Trends
If you like the design of the new iPhones, like me, you'll love that you simply get more of them in the 12 Pro Max. The proportions of everything at this size are a bit strange when you really look at it, but I'm not looking – this phone is beautiful. The stainless steel frame and matte glass back feel amazing and look like a super expensive phone.
If you like the look of the new iPhones, you'll love that you can easily get more of them with the 12 Pro Max.
The whole matter is taken to a new level in this gold color that I have referred to as the "Kardashian Special". The hyper-shiny golden pages are just … a lot. They are so reflective that you regularly see strong reflections of light on tables and walls around you which is just amazing. Thank God. The back made of matt glass has a subtle mother-of-pearl color and dampens the overall effect. But I really enjoyed the phone in its absurdly expensive but excellent form Apple leather case. However, those golden shimmering sides still protrude a little bit from the edge of the case!
Everywhere else, you get the same specs and features as the Standard 12 Pro, without a single drawback. The same A14 Bionic processor, 6GB (supposedly) of RAM, 128/256/512GB storage options, 5G connectivity, Ceramic Shield glass, speakers, and a lot more on the list. Face recognition continues to be great (despite our current situation with wearing masks), as is the tactile feel of the buttons, mute, and haptic feedback – these are the little things Apple is so good at. This is just an enlarged iPhone 12 Pro – and that's a good thing most of the time.
If you haven't read all about the iPhone 12 Pro, I highly recommend that you read my full review of the 12 Pro first and find out the details about the 12 Pro Max here.
A really big phone
The iPhone 12 Pro Max's main selling point is the same as ever: you get a huge display. It's now up to 6.7 inches tall, and the effect of this year's smaller frames is enhanced by their size in proportion to the screen area. The OLED panel is absolutely great – incredibly bright, clear and colorful. It is perfectly visible in any lighting, including outdoors, even if the brightness is not increased when viewing HDR content.
Andrew Martonik / Digital Trends
I can't find a bug … other than not having a 90Hz (or higher) refresh rate like the Android competition. Even so, Apple does things with software that makes 60Hz still look good. These are all the same assessments I had of the iPhone 12 Pro's display mind you, but once again I appreciate it in this larger size.
It's not the largest phone display, but it's close.
Of course, it's not the largest phone display, but it's close. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is larger and combines its display with even smaller bezels, but is also a bit larger. Really, you wouldn't notice a usable difference between this 6.7-inch screen and any other large Android device. It is important that you have significantly more additional screen with the 12 Pro Max than with most cell phones in the lower 6-inch range.
Size comparison: iPhone 12 vs. iPhone 12 Mini vs. iPhone 12 Pro max
However, since the "normal" iPhones have gotten bigger and now have up to 6.1-inch displays, they don't feel as tight, making the iPhone 12 Pro Max feel less necessary. And iOS 14 looks and works exactly the same on this 6.7-inch display as it does on the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 Mini.
Andrew Martonik / Digital Trends
You can't multitask any other than any other iPhone, and viewing picture-in-picture video isn't much more useful either. Although you can now place widgets on the home screen, you don't have any extra space to place them. They still have the same grid size of 4 × 6. Apps can mostly only be adapted to the screen instead of keeping the elements the same size and displaying more content. For example, in Gmail, another email appears in the inbox. On Twitter, you might see an extra half of a tweet.
You can use the "zoom" feature to zoom in on anything on the screen, but you can't go the other way and zoom out, which is what a lot of people want. You can reduce the text size, which I did (by one notch) and that will at least help you get a little better use of the screen.
Andrew Martonik / Digital Trends
This bigger screen is still appreciated when watching videos, playing games, taking and editing photos and videos, browsing non-mobile websites, and typing with two hands. The media experience is only enhanced by this bigger screen, and some people really spend hours a day watching videos on their phones – the 12 Pro Max is a great experience there. There are also people who don't have great vision and appreciate a phone that just makes everything huge.
It seems like a missed opportunity not to give the Max a little more functionality in the software to take advantage of that screen size, especially now that we've been dealing with these Max phones for a few generations, and with developments in the same area on iPadOS .
The media and gaming experience is improved by the larger screen, otherwise nothing changes.
This is especially true because that bigger screen comes at a cost: a bigger phone overall. The 12 Pro Max is about 9% larger, 9% wider and 20% heavier than the 12 Pro. These are serious leaps, especially in terms of weight – at 228 grams, it is one of the heaviest smartphones currently available. This stainless steel frame adds up.
Andrew Martonik / Digital Trends
It's big enough to be awkward in a pocket, especially for weighing down gym shorts and stuffing jeans pockets. And it certainly doesn't fit in most women's pockets – it takes up space in a pocket instead. It hardly fits in my running beltand just without a case. Since it's so hard, I prefer to leave it at home for long runs.
The phone is extremely massive and difficult to use. Only you know if it is worth looking into.
It's downright awkward to do anything other than scroll through feeds or hold the phone to read with one hand. Even with my big hands, reaching across the screen or sliding my finger over the picture is a hassle. Fortunately, you can use the “reachability” gesture (swipe down in the lower center of the screen) to get to the “top” edge of the screen without fumbling with the phone. Most tasks are considerably easier with a second hand, some tasks require it. If you come to terms with this fact and stop even trying to use it with one hand, the overall experience improves.
Battery life
With the first Max iPhone, it seemed like most people bought it just for the battery life. A larger phone offers more space for the battery. If everything else stays the same, this should translate into significantly longer battery life. As usual, Apple does not offer battery capacities or realistic battery benchmarks for its phones. That's why I'm here.
The iPhone 12 Pro Max is a battery champion thanks to a very simple equation: It has a 30% larger (supposedly 3687 mAh) battery than the 12 Pro. If you need a phone that will work all day every day, regardless of battery saving, then this is it. On my usual day with messaging, listening to podcasts via Bluetooth, countless emails and using social media apps, mainly via WiFi, I ended the day after more than three hours of on with 40% battery.
The 12 Pro Max is a battery champion – you don't have to think about it.
The closest thing to low power mode, which triggers at 20%, was a day of three hours of hotspotting on my laptop, including streaming the Apple “One More Thing” event. Even so, I had a little over 20% when I went to bed. I've experienced solid battery life on the smaller 12 Pro, but found that it can get a little tricky if you squeeze it hard. This is just not the case with the 12 Pro Max – it will never lead to battery fear.
Andrew Martonik / Digital Trends
We got used to the fast charging times offered by the iPhone's small battery, but that's not the case with the 12 Pro Max. If you ever run out of battery or miss a night charge, you need to consider how long it will take to charge.
You can go from dead to 50% in just over 30 minutes, which is good enough, but it takes over an hour to get to 95%. And that's if you buy a 20W charger (remember, there isn't one in the box). There are many good options from companies like anchor and Aukeyand it's basically a requirement for the 12 Pro Max. Charging with less is a real pain. The MagSafe charger is approximately 30% slower than a 20W wired charger. Plugging in an older plug under 10W will take several hours to complete – and worse with a generic wireless charger.
Cameras
Apple bifurcated the Pro line with an all-new main camera sensor on the Pro Max, and that's a big change. The 12-megapixel sensor is 47% larger, which means every pixel is dramatically larger for the same resolution. Larger pixels let in more light, which is always good – light is the currency you use to buy sharp photos. The sensor itself is also physically stabilized, much like the way dedicated cameras provide stabilization that is different from the OIS on most other phones (including the 12 Pro) that have the lens stabilized.
The advantages are immediately apparent when taking photos in poor lighting conditions. With larger pixels, the camera doesn't have to rely on long night mode exposures as often, which means you'll have less softness and blurring from handshakes or moving objects in your scene. This means that photos of people and pets are more likely to be crisp, even in difficult lighting conditions. But that's more of a side effect: the real impact is that every single photo you take with low or mixed flash is brighter, sharper, and more colorful.
Lowlight shots have great detail, texture, and sharpness, and for the most part, do without a fake, over-edited look. In some cases where night mode is used for a 3 to 4 second exposure, the contrast and saturation are a little over the top, to the point where it actually looks better to revert to a 1 second exposure. Other times, I just turn off night mode for a natural shot and the sensor easily pulls in enough light to keep things from getting loud or grainy. I think Apple could actually tweak more to really take advantage of the big sensor and rely even less on the night mode.
As the lighting improves, the 12 Pro Max's camera benefit diminishes. Most of the footage is indistinguishable from what you get with the 12 Pro's camera. But that's not a bad thing. The 12 Pro takes great photos. In the edge cases where you have shadows or mixed lighting, you will notice that the large sensor is working again – not to brighten these areas, but to get them right and without noise.
You'll see the big sensor in play again with close-ups of macros and portraits. Because the sensor is so large and has a f / 1.6 lens, you can get incredible natural bokeh (background blur) if you know your way around your goal of focusing. If you are strategically focused on a good focus, background defocusing is great. The effect is so far that I really didn't bother with portrait mode, which still has quirks and problems far too often. Natural bokeh is always better than fake, and this camera does it incredibly well.
The ultrawide camera is identical to the other iPhone 12 models – really good for ultrawide conditions and ideal for confusing the perspective of your recordings. The telephoto camera has a 25% longer focal length than the 12 Pro, but I still wouldn't call it "telephoto" with only 2.5x zoom over the main lens. Even so, any improvement is good, as the whole point of a telephoto camera is to get the specific look of a narrower field of view. It gives you that change of perspective and you can use it to get great zoom shots.
The Dolby Vision HDR video, which Apple is making a big deal of this year, remains unchanged on the 12 Pro Max as well. Recording with a larger viewfinder could be a bonus to your budding film career, but HDR video really shouldn't be a determining factor in your buying decision – and of course, it's available on all iPhone 12 models. Yes even the $ 699 mini.
The selfie camera is the same too; If you have good lighting, it will take great shots but will stall in darker scenes and rely heavily on the on-screen flash. The selfie camera's night mode is a hit-or-miss mode considering that you really can't get over how small a sensor and lens you're working with – and it's harder to keep your hand steady hold when arm is extended.
Our opinion
The iPhone 12 Pro Max is characterized by three things: its enormous size, its long battery life and its more powerful camera. If you buy it, it should be because of the first feature, not the latter two. I really believe that only those who want A big phone with a big screen and extra space to work and play should buy one. Anyone who buys the iPhone 12 Pro Max because they expect longer battery life and camera improvements even though it is bigger than they can be will be disappointed.
Yes, the battery life is exceptional, especially better than the iPhone 12 Pro. And the camera is more powerful at night, even by the high standards that Apple set with the iPhone 12. However, the phone is just too big for most people to comfortably use in one hand, and it's big enough to prevent your person from walking. This is not a situation to put yourself in if you don't immediately see a benefit in the size of the screen. No battery or camera improvement is worth constantly being upset that your phone is too big.
If the big phone is your thing, the starting price of $ 1,099 is reasonable. You pay just $ 100 more than the iPhone 12 Pro and get a lot more phone.
Are there any better alternatives?
There are few phones in this size class to compete with each other. Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is the obvious choice, with a huge display and great features that can go head to toe with the 12 Pro Max. It also has a built-in pen which is a real differentiator. However, most people don't regularly switch between iPhones and Androids, so it may not be an option.
The other obvious choice is to step up a notch to the iPhone 12 Pro. It is a “normal” size phone that is easy to use with one hand and never feels like an administrative burden, but has all of the core features of the 12 Pro Max. It's really a question of whether you can handle the weaker battery life (which is still fine by average phone standards) and a smaller display and come to terms with not having the best camera Apple makes. The size is a personal preference, but we're talking about minor improvements on the front of the camera. The 12 Pro's main camera is great too.
How long it will take?
Apple has had an excellent track record of supporting and updating its phones for several years. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has the hardware to run the next four (or more) versions of iOS without errors. The hardware with a stainless steel frame and IP68 water resistance should also hold up.
Should you buy it?
Yes, if you have two qualifications. The first is that you want or can manage such a big phone. Second, you expect to push the limits of the camera system. If you're not here for both things, you're better off with that one Base iPhone 12 Pro.
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