hi everyone Aaron here for zollotech and
the iPhone 12 Pro Max has been out
for about two and a half years at this point
I wanted to help you decide if maybe you
should still pick one of these up or
maybe upgrade from this to the later 13
Pro Max or 14 pro Max and so this
currently is available at around 820 new
from what I could find online Apple
seems to be selling it on Amazon
directly from from Apple but they're
selling it for over eight hundred
dollars it's about 600 to 700 renewed
and about 500 used for the 128 gigabyte
variant around 500 I think this is a
phenomenal deal now one of the things I
really liked when they launched the 12
Pro Max was this new color the Pacific
blue color after this they went to
Sierra blue then they went to Deep
Purple like we have here and both of
those are really nice colors but I
personally liked the Pacific Blue as far
as the last one other than the typical
space gray silver or gold color so I
liked this one out of all of them
probably the best the overall design
introduced the squared off design that
we hadn't seen for quite some time when
we went from the 11 to this they squared
off the edges made the back completely
flat and the front flat and it was just
a really nice design of course we still
have the Notch and we'll talk more about
that in a moment but the design is great
to be able to hold it's less slippery
than the 11 Pro Max some people don't
like that as much because it can feel
like it's sharp on the edges but it's
something I personally like as it brings
back thoughts of the iPhone 5S and
iPhone 4 generation
the design is quite nice in that it's
stainless steel around the outside edge
and it does scratch a little bit over
time since the stainless steel is a bit
sensitive to that and it does show
fingerprints but it seems to hold up
pretty well if you were to look at it
maybe under a macro camera you'd see
some little scratches here and there but
in general it seems to hold up well of
course that all goes away if you have a
case on it also with this generation
Apple introduced ceramic Shield so we
have glass on the back ceramic shield on
the front and it seems to hold up really
well much better than the 11 Pro Max so
we do have some scratches here you can
see in the bottom right there's some
here sort of in the middle if we turn
the display back off you can see those
but it's held up really really well a
few very light ones at the top I'm not
sure what they're from whether that's
bumping other cameras from different
phones but in general it's held up
really well all of that can be prevented
by using a screen protector in case of
course when I went to make this video a
couple weeks ago turn on the phone start
using it again and plan to make the
video write the notes and things like
that one thing I noticed right away was
how thin this was compared to the 14 pro
Max initially I didn't think there'd be
much of a difference but the overall
feel is much different at least when
you're hanging on to it it's much
thinner and it's definitely a little bit
lighter so we have 8.03 ounces or 228
grams and with the 14 pro Max it goes up
to 8.47 ounces or 240 grams there's
definitely a weight difference the 12
Pro Max feels much nicer better balanced
and just feels like maybe a nicer more
refined phone because of that we of
course get bigger features with the
newer phones with the bigger camera bump
we have a better camera in theory but in
general I like the overall feel of the
12 Pro Max a little bit better
now as far as the display is concerned
we still have that OLED display it's
quite a nice display but it's not as
bright as today's displays same
resolutions but it's 800 nits and 1200
nits in HDR so if we go into YouTube
we'll go to HDR video you'll see we have
the option here for up to 2160p and this
is one of my videos if I tap on this you
can see how bright it is and because
this video is not in HDR it'll just be
too bright to see but this goes super
bright plenty bright enough for any of
the videos I make anyway up to a
thousand nits and of course outside
you'll you should be able to see it
pretty well it did have a little
tendency to get warm in the summer and
bring the display temperature or display
brightness down as the temperature went
up but that's something that they still
sort of struggle with even today iPhones
have gotten better with it but if you're
in super bright sunlight maybe you'll
want to go with the newer one but this
is fine for most people as far as pwm or
pulse width modulation the way it
controls brightness I've mentioned this
in many of my videos it flashes faster
or slower to control brightness the
newest phones are doing this a little
bit better and at a higher rate over a
certain brightness you can see that here
at 240 frames per second in slow motion
but to your eye you can't actually see
this so it's something that may cause
eye strain for some it's an OLED display
made by Samsung they all use pwm and
it's just something that they have
unfortunately it may bother some people
so if it does you may want to go with
the latest phones as they don't tend to
have this issue as severely it's at a
faster rate over a certain brightness
and almost DC dimming where it's not
flickering at all so it's something that
you really shouldn't have to think about
too much unless you're super sensitive
to it as far as the overall speed while
it has the A14 bionic with six gigabytes
of RAM it still feels plenty fast no
real issues there if we go into
geekbench 5 you'll see 5.57 gigabytes or
six gigabytes of RAM it feels plenty
fast no issues there promotion is smooth
and fast and this one's actually on iOS
15. my brother is using one on iOS 16.
they seem to be nice and fast going into
different apps loading wait for this to
give me a little splash screen here
loading scrolling going into browse
again we'll wait for it to load it seems
to be nice and smooth no issues here I
haven't seen any issues on iOS 16 and it
seems to be keeping up just fine so no
real issues playing the latest games of
course the latest processors may be a
little bit more efficient maybe faster
but there's not as big of a difference
as you might think and that is carried
across to the camera where if maybe you
want to go into the camera and take a
picture quickly it's nice and fast if
you want to zoom you can do that and it
looks great you've got 4K 60 you've got
Apple Pro raw you don't have prores for
the video that's something that came a
little bit later but you still have 4K
HDR video so it looks great it does a
great job and I have a lot of different
videos recorded with this in HDR
reviewing the 12 Pro Max when it first
came out so it does a great job if you
want to use it as a camera and the
microphone is pretty good as well so
we'll go back into the camera spin it
around and let's hit record now we're
recording with the forward-facing camera
of the 12 Pro hacks now we don't get
auto focus on the front camera like we
do with the 14 pro and 14 pro Max but
it's still pretty good audio should
sound pretty decent compared to this
microphone here that I'm not using at
least for this part of the video and it
should get the job done it records in 4k
HDR and definitely looks pretty good
especially for not having full auto
focus control
and so I think the cameras are doing a
great job they're definitely usable for
YouTube videos and more they may not be
as good as prores on the newest phones
but they're still decent overall as far
as battery life well depending on what
you read depends on how battery life is
Apple says 20 hours of video playback
three hours more than the regular iPhone
12. I went to my brother who still uses
a 12 Pro Max full time and had him send
me some screenshots so let's look at
those and you'll see he has 91 percent
of battery capacity left on his 12 Pro
Max he's been using it for about a year
or so and then if we go back here you'll
see yesterday he actually had four hours
and five minutes of screen on time at 3
hours and 10 minutes of screen off time
so he used about 60 percent of his
battery at that point so he should get
another four hours or so give or take
maybe three hours depending on how he's
using it but at 91 battery capacity it's
getting in through the day he's not
really having any issues however he
would like like something maybe that
would last even longer such as a 13 Pro
Max or 14 pro Max but it definitely gets
them through the day this is also the
first phone where Apple introduced
magsafe so magsafe incorporates a magnet
ring around the back to help center it
for charging and this is just magnet
paper that you can see the magnetic
field from anything with a magnet and so
you can see the ring there with the
little centering lines and if we put on
the magsafe connector it just holds it
in place and you can even hold the phone
with it it's strong enough so that's
something they introduced that they
still have today and a lot of people are
copying even on the Android side so if
you've ever wanted to use magsafe
accessories this has it and it's where
it was introduced this is also ip68
water and dust resistant up to six
meters for 30 minutes and really seems
to hold up well whether you're getting
rain water on it maybe you dropped it in
some dirt it seems to hold up pretty
well over time
now also we get software updates for
quite some time now Apple doesn't
guarantee the software updates this one
has iOS 15 on it but we could get 16 and
probably up to iOS 18 or 19 at this
point we don't really know as Apple
hasn't guaranteed it however we do know
that they've pushed out security updates
to phones that are much older than that
so we could get seven years of security
updates maybe even more and it just
depends on the device so hopefully this
will be supported for many many years
but typically at least five years of
regular updates with new features and
then maybe some security updates after
that so it's great that it will be
supported one last thing I wanted to
mention is the notch now this is the
original Notch that's a little bit
bigger they shrunk this a little bit
later with the iPhone 13 series and now
they've gotten rid of it all together
with the 14 pro Max and 14 pro with the
dynamic Island now the dynamic island is
something I get asked about all the time
and to me it's really nice to have but
it's not a necessity so when you're
playing music it goes to the top press
and hold and then you can sort of see an
interactive menu here for it you can
interact with it tap on it go back into
music it's not something that's
absolutely necessary I know some people
don't like it and it's hard to reach if
you're on the pro Max so you either have
to use reachability and then interact
with it so it's multiple steps or just
move your hand to the top so that's
something that I think is really nice
but not absolutely worth upgrading over
and if you're wondering if maybe you
should update to the 12 Pro Max and
you're on an older phone well that
really depends on if someone's either
handing it down to you or you can get a
great deal on it if you can get it for
five to six hundred dollars I'd say it's
probably a pretty good deal however
there's a lot of different deals on the
latest phones so if you can get a
similar price I would get the latest
that you can get however if you can get
this used for a few hundred dollars
that's absolutely worth doing as it's
going to get updates for years now if
you're on a 12 Pro Max and wondering if
you should update to a 13 Pro Max or 14
pro Max I would say that depends on how
happy you you are with the device as
typically every September we get a new
one and every three years we get a
slight redesign so this year it's said
that we're going to get more rounded
Corners still a flat display that rounds
into the sides of a new device where
it's a little bit more comfortable to
hold similar to an 11 but maybe not
quite as rounded as that more squared
off there's been a lot of different
rumors about it we don't know a hundred
percent but it seems like it will be a
slight change as Apple changes it every
three years it should have a dynamic
Island and a few other features which we
don't really know yet maybe improved
cameras and more bigger battery upgraded
chip but we're still waiting to find
that out but if you're wanting the
latest and greatest I would say wait the
next nine months for the upgrade if you
don't care and you can get a great deal
on a 14 pro or 14 pro Max I would do
that either way I think it's still a
great phone but it really depends on
what's available currently where you are
it's definitely one of the better deals
in 2023 for a high-end phone it feels
very modern and still because it's
squared off and of course without the
dynamic Island you can tell that it's a
little bit older but some people really
don't like that so it doesn't make much
of a difference everything else is good
about it reception and everything else
so I really have no complaints other
than maybe that it's a little bit less
battery life it's a great phone let me
know your thoughts about the 12 Pro Max
in the comments below and of course if
you'd like to get your hands on this
wallpaper I'll link it in the
description like I normally do if you
