this last september i chose to ditch
apple's large max model phones and for
the first time since i can remember go
with the smaller 6.1 inch model and now
that it has been four months was it
worth trading in that large gorgeous 6.7
inch screen and the much larger battery
for a more reasonable phone or did i
make a mistake and wish that i got the
max model like i did last year and the
previous years before that in this video
i will go over what my concerns were
finally making the jump and ditching the
max if those came to light and if the
iphone 13 pro is worth buying or if you
should just get the max let's start out
with why i wanted a smaller phone in the
first place but never bought one and how
the phone world has changed so much in
just over a decade when apple announced
their iphone the three and a half inch
display was considered a large screen
bigger than my first smartphone the
google htc g1 but shortly after that
android manufacturers started making
screens larger and larger my second
phone was the original samsung galaxy s
and what sold me on it was the huge
gorgeous display at a massive 4 inches
which sounds hilarious now with screen
sizes that we have but when i saw the
galaxy note i knew i had to have it even
though i was making barely any money at
the time i saved up and i bought one
because i love the idea of the s-pen and
that huge 5.3 inch display which
actually sounds small now that phone
proved that people wanted phablets and
it really propelled the whole android
market since apple wanted to stick to
small screens for many years three years
later they finally caved and had to
start making large screen phones and
that is what finally got me to buy into
apple's ecosystem with the iphone 6 plus
and i became a big apple fan now like
most tech enthusiasts i stayed with
their large screen phones because they
offered much better battery life than
the smaller phones along with exclusive
features the biggest one probably being
portrait mode which was a game changer
and it started the demise of dedicated
cameras for most people as the years
went on the big iphones kept growing and
growing both in size and weight with the
iphone 13 pro max being 240 grams now
close to 50 percent heavier than the
original big iphone and weighing closer
now to the z full 3 which is a much
bigger phone so as these phones got
bigger and heavier at some point it just
got unwieldy but i still stuck with the
larger ones because of the regular
iphones they're just too small the 4.7
inch ones um and even the 5.8 up until
the iphone 10r came out with a 6.1 inch
screen which i absolutely love that size
of it was like the old goldilocks story
the 10r fit perfectly in my hand where
the 10s was too small and the 10s max
was a bit too large but of course apple
still gave enough reasons for me to keep
buying the big phones even up until the
iphone 12 series because if you cared
about having the best camera quality and
i do you have to buy the 12 pro max for
its superior cameras but this year for
the first time ever apple made a change
that we weren't expecting with the
iphone 13 lineup they finally stopped
forcing people to buy the biggest phone
if they wanted the best or the full set
of features the smaller iphone 13 pro
has the same exact camera system with
the same updated ultra wide the three
times telephoto and the larger main
sensor now they did put in one
limitation if you buy the base 128 gig
model you can't shoot prores video in 4k
but only 1080p in an attempt i think to
get more people to spend extra money to
get the larger capacity and of course
that's exactly what i ended up doing for
the first time ever i purchased myself
the smaller iphone and because the 13
pro cost a hundred dollars less even
with that extra storage i still ended up
paying the same i would have for a base
level 13 pro max so how has it been did
my concerns come true and has the
battery life been good enough compared
to having that massive battery of the
max well first off i want to comment on
that prores and if spending the extra
for the larger storage was worth it now
i've always bought the base storage
amount with iphones for two reasons the
first being resale now i'm obviously
somebody who upgrades phones every year
i kind of need to do that for my job and
i sell my older ones and if you're
somebody that's looked online at use
prices with the iphones that have more
storage they don't really sell for much
more than just the base amount and with
that apple charges way too much money to
upgrade storage in my opinion and second
i've been using icloud for many years
now so i don't really need the extra
space with that said within the last
year or so i started noticing that my
phone kept having a buffer because my
photo library has grown so much that
everything has started to stream and the
local photos are really low quality and
a lot of the videos they wouldn't even
play if i don't have internet connection
because they're all stored completely up
in the cloud and that started to get
really annoying at times the whole 1080p
prores really pushed me over that edge
and finally got me to spend extra on
more storage because how could i a video
shooter be forced to shoot 1080p video
in 2021 right well four months later i
am not shooting prores at all for me it
was not enough of a quality difference
to be you know willing to spend extra
time the extra capacity to actually use
it so if you're somebody that is
wondering about that and thinking about
spending extra money on storage for that
i wouldn't do it i will say though that
i don't remember the last time that i
had to buffer video or wait for a photo
to display in better quality which has
been really nice so i'm glad that i
finally got the 256 days of storage and
thanks to downsizing to a smaller phone
it didn't cost me any extra compared to
previous years now by far my biggest
concern going with the smaller iphone
this year was the battery life larger
iphones have always had much bigger
batteries inside and even though the 13
lineup has grown as far as battery life
overall the max model grew the most now
over 40 percent larger battery compared
to the 13 pro so i wondered if i would
struggle with battery life going with
the smaller phone so how has the battery
life been over the last four months well
to be honest at first it was a bit of a
pain 13 pro max was getting absolutely
insane battery life but i wasn't getting
through a full day with my 13 pro like i
had with my previous 12 pro max and at
one point i was so close to upgrading to
a max and selling my regular pro just
because i was getting annoyed with
constantly having the battery died
before the day was over unless i plugged
in some time during the day thankfully
battery life actually got quite a bit
better after about a month or so and i
can now get through a full day and still
have about 10 to 15 battery left when i
go to plug it in and charge it at night
with my mac safe charger even though i'm
still using it the same so i'm really
glad that i did not ditch it and go back
to the max now that is pretty much
exactly what i got with my 12 pro max
and better than what i had with my 11
pro max so it definitely isn't a
downside now my only guess is that this
is because of software optimization and
when the 13s came out with ios 15
software just wasn't well optimized
enough for the a15 processor and the new
features that it packed but now that it
has been the battery life is fantastic
now sure the 13 pro max can get some
people through two full days of use but
for most people that charge their phone
every night anyways the deciding point
is really if that phone can get through
a full day without needing to be plugged
in or charged and for the first time
ever a regular sized iphone can do that
even for power users like myself which
is really impressive because i have a
ton of apps on here that are always
running in the background and looking at
location and things like that so if
you're somebody that's been wanting to
go to a smaller phone and you are
hesitant don't be and give it a try i
think you'll be pleasantly surprised now
how has it been sacrificing the huge
gorgeous screen and how has the comfort
been going with the smaller phone well i
have to say that i love this smaller
phone the 6.1 inch size is perfect in
the hand as i can actually use it
one-handed without any issues and that
has been really nice now when i go back
and pick up a pro max it feels unwieldy
and i remember having to deal with that
all the time in order to get the
top-of-the-line features and the all-day
battery now as far as media do i miss
having that huge screen well for videos
no not at all you actually just get used
to the slightly smaller screen and then
you don't even notice it and for
websites and doing things like that
everything is just a little bit smaller
so you still get the same amount of
usable screen real estate i will say
that for gaming that is the one area
where i do sometimes wish that i had the
larger display especially with shooting
games like call of duty where you have a
lot going on a lot of things on the
screen but of course it's still
perfectly playable now overall i will
say that after finally deciding to ditch
the massive max size phone or the plus
models in the past and finally going
with this model or one i'm really happy
that i did and i have no regrets and i
really hope that the iphone 14 line up
that one also doesn't have any
limitations with the smaller one and
they don't add any extra features to the
max model and if that's the case then i
will still go with the 6.1 inch size so
overall after finally ditching the
massive max phone and going with a
smaller model i'm really happy that i
did that and i have no regrets of course
the phone is a huge improvement compared
to the iphone 12 lineup especially with
the battery life and the cameras but
also with 5g speeds and most of all the
graphics performance without having any
screen dimming or very little compared
to the iphone 12. i really hope that
apple keeps the iphone 14s the same and
they don't give the max model exclusive
features over the regular pro so i can
stick with the smaller size so if you're
somebody that wants to buy an iphone 13
and you're not sure if you just go for
the pro model or spend extra for the max
i would say if you've been wanting to go
for a smaller phone that's more
comfortable now is the time and i think
you'll be very happy thank you guys for
watching check out our long term review
on the iphone 13 pro max over there or
one of our comparisons click above to
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this is max and i'll see you in the next
video
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