Design & Build Quality

So, I have owned the iPhone 12 Pro Max for a few months now and I have to say it’s the best phone I have ever use and yes, it is still one of the most powerful iPhones you can buy today. Starting off with the design, the 12 Pro Max re-designed the aesthetics to have the flat sides of the earlier iPhone models that feature a surgical-grade stainless steel band paired with a precision-milled matte glass back. And speaking of durability, there is now an improvement to the glass of the iPhone too, the Ceramic Shield is claimed to be 4x stronger than previous versions which I found to be true to a certain extent but glass is still glass and the 12 Pro Max will still shatter when dropped at slightly above head height, so no worries there. The 12 Pro Max also come with an industry-leading IP68 rating to withstand water submersion up to 6 meters for up to 30 minutes There are two versions of the Pro models and I went with the larger 6.7 inch instead of the 6.1 inch for that extra screen real estate. There is of course the new yearly upgrade of the A14 Bionic chip that is the industry-first 5-nanometer chip that houses a 16-core neural engine. Moving on, the liquid retina display as colour accurate as you expect and there is the same amount of bezels along the top chin. The Super Retina XDR display can produce up to 1200 nits of brightness and supports the P3 wide colour gamut as well as True Tone technology delivering the best true-to-life colours that are highly useful for photo editing and video colour grading. There is also a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating and the refresh rate is still capped at 60Hz, no luck for a high refresh rate of 120Hz this year. Next, the speakers function decently well too with balanced stereo output. They aren't the loudest but the sound is crisp and worth using for video calls or movie watching session. It never distorts at high volume levels and retains the depth and detail with sufficient soundstage and distinct left and right channels. The bass is deep, the mids are crisp and vocals come off with sparkling highs and never sounded shrill to the ear. There are also high-quality microphones that did well in picking up my voice during calls. In my time using it across Zoom, Skype, Discord and Facetime, I never had a single person feedbacked that they couldn’t hear me or I sounded muffled. Moving on to the camera features, the new 7-element lens wide camera with an ƒ/1.6 aperture is the first for the iPhone to provide improved low-light performance, boasting a larger sensor for an 87% improvement in low-light conditions. The Ultra-Wide camera with a 120-degree field of view allows for crisps and clear landscapes photos and a 52 mm focal length Telephoto camera, great for framing portraits, bringing the optical zoom range to 4x. There is now a LIDAR scanner which is the breakthrough new feature that first appeared on the iPad Pro and now it's here on the iPhone 12 Pro exclusively. Now, LIDAR is used to determine distance by measuring how long it takes light to reach an object and reflect back so it could help enhance the experience of Augmented Reality Apps like IKEA Place for furniture placements and the Measure app to take near accurate measurements of lengths and heights without a measuring tape. Overall, the pictures captured were near the top quality of something you would expect from a DSLR. In my opinion, Night Mode was a bit of a disappointment as the pictures I took often came out blurry due to movement. It wasn't a problem if the phone is on a tripod. You can also do 4K video recording at 24 fps, 30 fps or 60 fps with the Dolby Vision. There is also slow‑motion video support for 1080p at 120 fps or 240 fps for the Wide camera and 240 fps Ultra-Wide camera. There is also a Time-lapse video with stabilization as well as the option to take still photos while recording 4K video.

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Performance

Moving on to performance, the 12 Pro Max has the newest A14 Bionic chip and so far, I haven't got it to a point where an app crashes. When gaming intensively, the chassis would heat up a bit. Doing some heavy photo editing, I didn't notice any lag too. When video editing, the footages loaded fine and there was enough power in the processor to drive the processes. I also often use Augmented Reality apps and watch videos on Netflix or YouTube and the experience is as seamless as it gets. Of course, the experience couldn't have been completed without IOS 14 that helps me organize my files and plugin USB drives like what I did on the 16 inch MacBook Pro. Now, with consistent updates, many bugs were fixed and the software is stable. And many were excited about this, widgets. Like IOS, the widgets now compliment the experience though I didn't find it much different since I had been having it on Android for much of my time. If anything, IOS widgets are much more refined and cleaner in its user interface when compared to third-party Android ones. The App Library is a new space that automatically organises all of a user’s apps into one simple, easy-to-navigate view. Onto storage, the 12 Pro Max still doesn't have expandable storage but you have variants to choose from 128GB to 512GB.

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Connectivity & Portability

In terms of connectivity, the iPhone 12 Pro Max supports the latest Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G. Having the speed of 5G made downloads and upload lightning fast and it was a breeze to have the luxury of enjoying on an iPhone now. The battery life is claimed to be up to 17 hours of use and measured approximately 3600mAh, but heavy workloads like gaming or streaming movies will drain it quicker than it should last. The Lightning port is still here on the iPhone 12 models and hope seems bleak for a USB-C iPhone anytime soon. One of the biggest features this year has to be the return of MagSafe. Working in a similar fashion as previous MacBooks, there is an option to buy a separate MagSafe charger that is shaped like a hockey puck and allows you to wirelessly charge the iPhone. There are now magnets inside the phone that aligns with the charger and solves one of the biggest problems of wireless charging. This also opens up a new world of accessories that will eventually flood the market for new ideas in the near future. There is still no 3.5mm audio jack for audio use. Whether you agree or disagree, Apple has dropped the charger included in the box as well. You will need to spend the extra to buy a fast 18W charger to top up the iPhone at the fastest charging speed.

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PROS​

• Modern Design

• A14 Bionic Powerful Chip

• Ultra-wide Camera

• LIDAR Scanner for Augmented Reality

• Up to 512GB Storage

• P3 Wide Colour Gamut & True Tone

• Consistent Stable IOS Updates

• MagSafe Fast Charging

• 5G

• Bluetooth 5.0

• Wi-Fi 6 & LTE

• IP68 Waterproof and Dustproof

 

CONS​​​

• No Expandable Storage​

• No 3.5mm headphone jack

 

The Bottom Line

All in all, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the most beautiful phone I have seen in years. The 12 Pro Max features Dolby Vision cameras, MagSafe, 5G, IP68 protection, it is the best iPhone you can buy with IOS 14 as of yet but also the most expensive. Whether you are a content creator or a power user, the 6.7 Inch iPhone 12 Pro Max does not disappoint with its powerful CPU and GPU performance. The iPhone 12 Pro Max comes in Silver, Graphite, Gold and Pacific Blue colours.