Apple’s iPhone 12 line is finally out. We spent the day testing the new iPhone 12 Pro Max, and wanted to see its best new features and how they work in the real world.
New design
Everyone has seen the design of the new phones, and even the lateral rows of the iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. They all share essentially the same aesthetics even though they are different sizes.
Pro models get the new Pacific Blue color option with every phone gaming iPhone 5-style flat pages and a ceramic armor on the front.
The iPhone 12 Pro Max is the largest iPhone ever created by Apple. It takes the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s 6.5-inch display and extends a touch to hit 6.7 inches in the diagonal. It does not look big, it does not look big even in use as long as you are side by side with the previous Pro Max model.
What we love are some other subtle design changes made by Apple. Both the side button and the volume buttons are always slightly changed. This makes them easily accessible while holding the phone, and this is definitely a noticeable and welcome change. The phone is absolutely huge, but this change makes that size a little more interesting.
Battery life
Since it is the largest iPhone, it is not surprising that the iPhone 12 Pro Max has the largest battery, although the 11 Pro Max beats it in terms of sheer capacity (14.13 Wh vs. 15.04 Wh). We will have to explore the battery life under stress, but we have to point out this as one of our favorite new features not only how long the battery lasts but also how many ways it can be charged.
Today we started by using the device and connecting it to the lightning bolt outside the box, and then used the Maxoff most days before finally throwing it in the Qi charging pad while sitting down to edit.
Many ways to charge will make the battery feel even more efficient. The Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max is rated for the same battery life – 20 hours of video playback, 12 hours of video streaming and 80 hours of audio streaming – but if you do not use 5G, we should not be surprised if it extends a little further. The phone made it through a ton of tests without compromising battery life.
For comparison, the iPhone 12 Pro only gets 17 hours of video playback, 11 hours of video streaming and 65 hours of audio streaming. We will take extra battery life.
Wide camera image sensor
Big deal camera with iPhone 12 Pro Max. We haven’t started testing this thing, we’re already excited. This plus-size phone includes a 47 percent larger sensor than Apple, which definitely pays off.
Physically, you can see the difference. The camera volume on the iPhone 12 Pro Max is large and slightly longer. Everything to handle the new big sensor and the enhanced sensor-shift stabilization that goes with it.
Thanks to the new large sensor in the wide-angle camera, it is able to capture more light, resulting in less noisy photos when we test in low light. This is supported by increased ISO. The iPhone 12 Pro has the best ISO of 5,808 and the 12 Pro Max has 7,616 ISO. Improved light sensitivity again indicates better displays in low light.
The ultimate advantage of that new sensor is that the depth of field is increased compared to the iPhone 12 Pro. In a couple of quick shots around the office, we notice more bokeh blur on the front and back, which creates excellent material solitude and overall happy scenes.
Tele lens
The wide angle camera is not the only upgrade. Apple also took the liberty to move the telephoto lens from 52mm to 65mm. It offers a 2.5x optical zoom compared to the 2x optical zoom on the iPhone 12 Pro only.
You see this in any shot you take, whether it’s a casual photo or a portrait. It will also increase the maximum digital zoom, which can go from a maximum of 10x to 12X. When shooting video, you can get a 7X digital zoom rather than covering the 6X.
We took some shots to play with the cameras and it makes a nice difference. We don’t usually try to catch objects that are too far away, but we go to the tele from the wide angle lens. With the 2.5X zoom, we get a little closer without any loss of quality.
RAM
We last noticed the increase in RAM from 4GB to 6GB. The iPhone 12 Pro Max is not the only one with 6GB of RAM, but this is what we noticed the most. Coming from our iPhone 11 Pro Max, we sometimes notice that when a lot of work is done, the background apps reload as soon as they open. This is almost non-existent on the new device.
We tried to open as many applications as we could and allowed them to load. We slowed down the processor by exporting 4K HDR video. We went back to trying to reopen all of those apps, to see if they should reload themselves. One did not. It’s not very scientific in experiments, but it’s like the real world. We often jump between so many functions and applications that it feels like magic to be ready to go immediately.
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