iPhone 12 Pro Max - 5 Months Later Review! BUY NOW OR WAIT? By GregsGadgets

This video is sponsored by Squarespace. The iPhone 12 Pro max has been out for almost half a year now and with the next iPhone, seemingly just five months away. Should you buy the iPhone 12 Pro max now or wait hey what's going on everyone Greg here and when I first took a look at the iPhone 12 Pro max nearly half a year ago I actually defended the phone by saying it was a lot better than I thought it would be, based off a lot of the initial criticism of people, saying that the camera improvements weren't noticeable over the regular iPhone 12 Pro and that the phone was too big with the new flat sided design, with some people saying it made the phone more unwieldy than the iPhone 11 Pro max and although apple's biggest iPhone ever isn't necessarily for everyone? I think a lot of the reasons that I like the phone are still relevant today and I think it's held up pretty well over this past half a year now. Listen I've done these videos before and there's always that guy. In the comment section saying hey, this guy answered the question at the end of the video well duh. Of course, I answer it at the end of the video, but for those of you that actually want information about what I like and don't like about the iPhone 12 Pro max and how I've been using it half a year later and if you then take those opinions relate to them and make your own purchasing decisions with that information, then yeah watch the entire video.

If you have the attention span of your average ticktock video uh well just go skip to the end of my video. You can hear my answer with zero context and get nothing useful out of this video. So I mean you could watch the whole video and get nothing useful out of it too. Whatever now, I've used all of Apple's iPhones at various points since October, from the regular iPhone 12 to the smallest, iPhone, 12 mini and right back to the biggest iPhone 12 Pro max out of all the iPhone 12 models that I have used, I have found that I either really enjoy using the compact form factor of the iPhone 12 mini or the other opposite extreme of using the biggest iPhone possible, the iPhone 12 Pro max. While this isn't a review of the mini.

I love that phone for how small, compact and manageable the phone is with what I still consider a very usable and beautiful 5.4 inch display. The max is on the opposite spectrum. It's unapologetically big, bold and beautiful. The phone has a 6.7 inch, OLED display that is just barely manageable. For me, with my small hands yeah I have small hands, and usually it does require two-handed operation.

The sides of the iPhone 12 Pro max are reminiscent of the older, iPhone 4 and made out of nicely polished, stainless steel and has a matte glass back finish, and the phone just feels premium in the hand compared to the normal iPhone 12 models that use aluminum siding and have a glossy glass back. That premium feeling does come with some disadvantages, though, and the pro max is heavy at 228 grams, that's 64 grams, more than the regular iPhone 12 and almost 100 grams, more than my beloved iPhone 12 mini and after using this phone for a while, the weight and size is just sometimes unmanageable, especially when I'm using it on the go. The max goes all the way to the top of some of my jeans pockets and requires even more effort to remove and use on the go. Listen for some users, it's just going to be entirely too big, but there's also a joy in using such a big phone. The OLED display looks absolutely gorgeous when watching video or browsing through your photos.

Typing is easier with the increased keyboard spacing features like picture and picture. Video are more viewable on a larger display and apps, and other content in general is just sized larger, which is also a benefit in its own right now. A bigger phone also means having a bigger battery, and in the past five months or so that I have been using the pro max. I have yet to meet a day that my iPhone couldn't survive even with an onslaught of web browsing, Twitter usage, audio background, listening, watching videos having the screen, brightness turned up, taking a bunch of photos and videos and even running usually battery inefficient beta software on this device. No matter what I throw at this phone, I can make it through the end of the day, which is something I can't say for apple's normal-sized iPhone 12, and it's definitely not something I can say for the iPhone 12 mini, which, on heavier days, I had to charge halfway through the day and with the pro max.

I really just don't have to worry about it. The battery anxiety is just non-existent and honestly out of all the exclusive features this phone has. I think the bigger battery is one of the biggest reasons to choose this model over all the others, but that's not the only exclusive feature the pro max has, but before we talk about that, I want to talk about our sponsor for this video the best place to build your website. Squarespace! Listen! If you need to build a website, there's only one service. I know of that's going to be able to take you from a website concept in your head to a beautiful website.

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com and when you decide to launch your website be sure to go to squarespace. com Greg's gadgets to save 10 off your first purchase or just click the link in the description to get started on your own website. So listen if you need to build a website, skip the hassle and check out Squarespace and thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Okay, let's talk about the camera because the max does come with some unique camera features that make it the best iPhone for taking photos on the main wide angle camera. Now this works out because the iPhone 12 Pro max has a bigger sensor and better optical image.

Stabilization. So technically, the camera can take better photos in more difficult lighting environments. Basically, if the scene is darker, you'll notice that the pro max might not have to use the night mode feature or if it does, it'll require less exposure. Time than the other iPhone 12 models, this can also help when taking pictures of a moving subject as the iPhone 12 Pro max generally, because it has a larger sensor can use a faster shutter speed. Now an eagle-eyed viewer might be able to spot the difference, but in reality the advantages here are smaller than you'd.

Think, especially after reading that impressive spec page and harder to appreciate, and if you're just taking you know, two photos in a well-lit area, you probably won't see any difference between a regular iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro max they're, probably going to look the same in most lighting environments, where you would take these photos. The max also has an extended zoom range of 2.5 x compared to the regular pros.2X camera, basically apple changed the focal length from 52 millimeters to 65 millimeters on the max aside from just extending the zoom range on this lens, which is a little nice. The lens can also give you a different look for some shots and produces images that look less flat with more natural both thrown into the mix. Here's a photo session. I did a little while back with the iPhone 12 Pro max during the sunset that I really think does an excellent job, showing you how the camera does in this more challenging lighting setup, exposing the red sunset beautifully and capturing the details of the gradient in the sky.

I was much more confident shooting with the pro max's camera here and the extended 65 millimeter zoom on the focal length was useful for capturing far away wildlife. There's also new photo features that weren't available when I first reviewed the iPhone 12 Pro max, and that is the new apple pro raw mode. Listen, I'm no pro photographer and I don't even like shooting raw when I'm using bigger cameras, but I decided to give this feature a spin, because apple said it would preserve the computational photography data. The main reason that makes smartphone photos look as amazing as they do, but still give you the flexibility of editing, a raw photo and preserving all of that detail. First, if you want to use this feature, you do have to toggle it on in the camera settings on the settings app not in the camera app, and it takes a lot of storage.

So make sure you have a high storage phone, or you have a big iCloud plan, because each photo can take up to 25 megabytes. After that you can just toggle on apple pro raw in the camera app and then, once you start taking pictures in this apple pro raw mode, you'll notice, the pictures look really flat. That's because you need to bring these over to a photo editing app that supports editing raw photos from there. It's up to you to edit the photos and take advantage of this extra raw data. So you can push the highlights, bring down the shadows, increase the saturation or vibrancy and so on, if you've ever edited a photo before.

Basically, the raw data is theoretically supposed to give you more data to work with, so you can influence the look of the photo more again, I'm not a pro photographer, but I did take a few sample images here and here are some before and afters that I think turned out nicely I'll, actually link a video to lee cavity in the description below the covered apple pro raw a while ago, and he can give you a much better explanation of the pros and cons of using apple pro raw overall, I like the pro max's camera, but it's also something that's easy to give up when I'm switching between phone models, don't get me wrong. The max takes beautiful shots, but so do the other iPhone 12 models, and while there are some advantages in edge cases, they're minor enough that I wouldn't choose this phone just for its camera and I have no problem. Switching back to the two camera setup on my mini I'd say again. The bigger reason to get this phone for photos is actually the battery life, because you can shoot photo and video on this device all day long without worrying. About battery life, and that's just great because taking a lot of photos can zap the battery on it.

Oh, I should also mention the video quality on this device is insane for a smartphone. It can shoot up to 60 frames per second with Dolby Vision, video, and it looks great. The iPhone 12 Pro max just takes beautiful videos and if you watch them on the big 6.7 inch OLED display, you can appreciate how good the dynamic range is in these Dolby Vision. Videos. However, half a year later, the same initial problems that I had with Dolby Vision are still here and that's basically that these videos are only really enjoyable on your iPhone.

What I mean by this is that the places you go to upload and watch these videos like YouTube, twitter and tick-tock. I guess none of these services support Dolby Vision and, while services like YouTube, support, HDR, you would also need a HDR capable display to truly watch these videos in their intended HDR quality and a lot of HDR capable displays or true HDR capable displays are pretty expensive. So for me, I really couldn't enjoy any of these videos unless I was watching them on my iPhone recently, I did buy a lg OLED TV this year, which does support HDR and Dolby Vision. So you know I could enjoy HDR content there, but a lot of the places where I watch my videos like uh, you know my laptop or my computer monitor still don't support, true HDR, so just sharing these out is still kind of a problem. Also, as a creator importing Dolby Vision, content into final cut projects still requires me to fix them before I'm able to show them on my own YouTube videos.

I have to bring down the highlights or correct the HDR footage before I can incorporate them into a normal project. Okay enough about the camera, because we could go on about cameras for like so long uh. But let's talk about some of the other features that the iPhone 12 Pro max have now. This one isn't exclusive: this is MagSafe and that comes on every iPhone 12. When I first reviewed these phones, MagSafe was still in its early days in terms of accessories, but I've used a few for a while.

Now that I really enjoy one of them being the infamous MagSafe wallet which granted is a bit overpriced in my opinion, but the reviews showing the wallet falling off were grossly exaggerated. I've been using the iPhone 12 Pro max and other iPhones slapping the MagSafe wallet on the back of them for over half a year now- and I haven't, had the wallet fall to the ground once, and obviously I didn't lose the wallet you just saw it on my phone, so the connection is strong enough, and then it's also weak enough. So you can take off the wallet when you need to. Overall, the MagSafe wallet itself is still in good condition. I would say the leather is starting to get worn, and it has a darker appearance than when I first got it, but structurally the wallet is still in tip-top shape.

I've also had a chance to use other charging accessories like the original MagSafe charger, the new MagSafe charger duo and my new favorite charging dock. So far, this three-in-one wireless charger from welkin it charges your Apple Watch, your air, pods and, of course, your iPhone 12. And the MagSafe connection on this is strong and secure, and your iPhone just floats here in either a vertical or horizontal position. I said from the start that MagSafe was a cool feature, and I was just waiting for more accessories to come out and after seeing the strong accessory support in the MagSafe ecosystem, it makes it a feature I would miss tomorrow if they took it away with the iPhone 13. So I am really happy overall with MagSafe.

I think it's a great feature, there's also the a14 processor. This comes equipped on every iPhone 12 model, but it's important to state that the phone has been pretty much rock solid and smooth since launch apps load fast. The display is super responsive, even though it doesn't have a 120 hertz display scrolling is smooth with no stuttering and on the pro models. Apps seem to stay active longer, which I think is largely in part to the extra 2 gigabytes of ram. There's plenty of times when apps like YouTube, would stay open for hours, sometimes even saving the session in the background overnight.

As for updates to software overall, every update has been smooth. Even the beta updates, which my iPhone 12 Pro max is currently on. With iOS 14.5 14.5 adds one of my favorite features to the iPhone, which is it letting. You unlock your iPhone with your Apple Watch when you're wearing a mask and face ID is unable to scan your face. It works really well and the only real downside is you're required to own an Apple Watch, but I do, and I'm glad that apple took some time to solve an issue that a lot of us have been facing this past year, while we're trying to stay safe, so 14.5 is cool. It also adds some new Siri voices, new emojis, app tracking transparency and a ton of features and 5g dual sim support.

Speaking of 5g, it's its useless. I'm done video's over okay seriously, though 5g was one of the biggest features at Apple's iPhone announcement and half a year later. The 5g infrastructure, which I've been testing on at t and T-Mobile through the mint mobile network yeah. It's still not that great 5g either offers very similar speeds to 4g and believe it or not. It can actually be slower all while having negative effects on your battery life.

If you think you need to buy an iPhone 12 now for 5g, just don't 5g isn't ready. Yet it's! I don't think it's close to being ready at this point, and you can afford to miss out on the 5g feature right now. There's no reason to have photo over 5g uh. It's its been quite frankly disappointing. I was hoping to get speed improvements in my area, maybe in other areas there are speed improvements.

I guess that's, maybe something you have to take with a grain of salt, but I live in a pretty populous area play a place where 5g would be rolled out extensively and uh yeah. The speeds are just sometimes they're a little faster, and sometimes they're slower, so 5g, it's its kind of useless, and that brings us back to the larger question of this video. Here's the deal I like the iPhone 12 per max. I like it a lot. It has a great design, a big, beautiful, OLED display and an all-day battery life that won't quit fast performance and some unique camera features and if you're drooling after watching this video- and you just have to buy it, I say: go for it.

Five months is a long time to wait for a new phone if you desperately need an upgrade today. So if you really like this phone, you think you want it go get it. However, I think that if you can wait those five months and your current phone is still going strong, like there's no reason to upgrade, then the benefits of waiting for the next iteration of the iPhone, the iPhone 13 max, I think, is actually going to be worth the wait, because, while you might think the new design year is the year to get a new phone s, your upgrades, like the one we are expecting with the next iPhone, usually carry the best feature upgrades, and we're expecting a lot of them in the rumor mill from a faster 120, hertz LPO display better cameras, larger batteries and the return of touch ID as an option to unlock your phone and hey even a smaller notch, for a small shake up in the design. Those all sound like features that is well worth sticking it out with your current phone and waiting, but hey enough about what I think I want to hear from you in the comments below. Should you buy an iPhone 12 Pro max now or wait? Let me know what you think.

I'm I'm really interested to hear. Also, if you like this video, is sure to give me a like, if you want to see more from my channel, well make sure you're subscribed if you want to help the channel out in any way like buying some of those iPhone 12 accessories. I mentioned I'll leave some affiliate links in the description below and as always, thank you so much for watching. I honestly hope this video really helped you out in making a purchasing decision, and thank you so much for watching again. You know I don't want to get sentimental here, but it's the end of the video, and I'm looking at the camera time.

This was a long video, so if you actually made it to the end thanks a lot- and I will see you all in the next video take care, everyone.

Source : GregsGadgets