Hi everyone Aaron here for Zollotech and the iphone 12 pro max has been out for a little
over six months and it's been my main phone since it released this is my pacific blue 12 pro max
and this is the 256 gigabyte model i've used it every single day since it came out with the
exception of when another phone came out such as the 12 or 12 pro and i use those for up to a week
at a time otherwise this has been my main phone every single day and so i want to talk about its
overall durability how it's held up battery life and more and the first thing is its durability
now this is a stainless steel phone with glass front and back as many of you already know
and generally i don't use a case with it and so that's for a couple reasons i generally like the
feel of it and it's also to help durability test it for videos like this to see how well it holds
up even if you're not using a case occasionally i will use a case generally the silicone case
when i'm out and about if i'm in a situation maybe i'm on a beach maybe i'll throw a screen protector
on it so sand won't damage it or something like that but generally i do not use a case
unless it's neat this needs to be stored in a bag where it could bump into something else
otherwise i usually use it like this and then keep it in my pocket or put it on a desk just
like this so generally i don't use it any other way than what you see here so durability wise
outside it's held up pretty well it does have a lot of fingerprints on it as you can see and
if i wipe those off they come right back after i hold the phone but if i wipe the fingerprints off
you'll see that it's held up well generally if you're going to have scratches on it it's going
to be on the bottom the stainless steel does tend to hold up well but if again if i wipe this off
again you will see some scratches on the very bottom they're micro scratches though so they're
not a huge deal the same is true around the frame i don't have any issues at all around the glass
of the camera lens or the sapphire glass here they haven't had any scratches there's been no
issues no problems there whatsoever generally i will have a little bit of wear on the bottom just
from setting it down like this but i don't really see anything here it's held up well
the stainless steel is held up well and i don't drop my phone either i do have a scratch on the
display itself but only one and as you can see maybe right here by my finger where there's a
fingerprint and then a scratch right above it this is the only scratch on the entire display
there's none and this is held up much better than the previous generation iphone 11 pro max
for example so just for a quick comparison here's my 11 pro max and it has scratches all over it
so in my left hand is the 11 pro max you can see the scratches by my thumb all across the display
without using a screen protector or using a case of course that could be avoided by using a screen
protector but with the 12 pro max i don't know if it's its frame or something else it's held
up extremely well with just that one scratch and that's actually where it fell off the table
and hit a tripod stand and sort of nicked to the display otherwise that wouldn't be there
at all and so that's unfortunate but it's held up incredibly well compared to previous iphones with
the ceramic shield that's on this now as far as its display that's probably its best feature it's
super bright and if you're playing hdr content it goes super bright it's easily viewable in sunlight
and probably the only the display that's brighter is the new ipad pro otherwise this is crazy bright
and has great viewing angles so if you're outside in the sun or inside the viewing angles are great
and it's great to watch hdr videos on as well so the brightness is great and you have
hdr like i said now i've used the camera to record hdr and it looks great on this display so if you
go to youtube here's one of my youtube videos in 4k hdr that you can watch here and if you'll see
here under the settings you have 2160p hdr and it looks great it's super bright let me turn it down
here for just a moment but you can see it looks washed out to you in this video because the video
is not in hdr but the actual screen is and i can see the background the blue sky no problem so if
i hit play and then turn the brightness all the way up i can see all the details of this image
but unless you have an hdr display you can't see that but it looks really really nice so that's a
huge advantage with this whether you're watching a video on youtube or you have an hdr video playing
from say apple tv for example it looks great on this display now as far as pwm the display does
have pwm and it does flash to control brightness however the the rate that it flashes at is high
enough that it doesn't bother my eyes at all now i've talked about this at length before but
generally it affects 1 in 10 people if you can see higher frame rates it will bother you for example
and usually tends to bother me this display doesn't bother me at all because it's at a high
enough rate where i just can't see it you can only capture it with a slow-mo camera at 240 frames per
second where it's actually flashing otherwise you just can't see it as far as green tint well
a lot of people have had that issue when maybe in settings you're on dark mode and depending on your
brightness level you may see some green fringing around the outside edge or something like that
i've not seen that on the 12 pro max in fact i haven't seen it on my 12 pro or any of the current
iphones that i've seen some people still have it despite the newer updates generally fixing most
of those issues but i haven't seen that at all and it seems to hold up well as far as that goes and
i haven't had any problems with that or even the backlighting effect if you're watching hdr where
it looks like some of the black pixels didn't turn off i haven't had that issue although that
was fixed for most people with ios 14.5 and more recently 14.6 so in general it seems much better
as far as the speakers go they've held up well they go nice and loud like normal like you would
expect and they held up well meaning they still sound as good as they did when i got it new
so here's a camera comparison i did with some background music from the different phones
here take a listen to this so you can hear how they still sound
so the speakers still sound great even at the highest volume levels
however just like when it was new i would normally back that off just a little bit because
it distorts at its very highest volume otherwise back it off a little bit and it'll sound great
now as far as overall reception while i've had the least amount of
issues with this phone compared to the others this has the new qualcomm modem in it with 5g
and millimeter wave if you actually have that i'm on t-mobile so i don't have use of the millimeter
wave antenna but i do have 5g so if i turn off wi-fi you'll see that it'll switch over to 5g here
and where i'm at i currently have 3 out of 4 bars of 5g generally i get good speeds indoors
i have great coverage and i don't drop calls it's very rare if ever it's happened and generally if
it's happened it's usually on wi-fi not when i'm connected to cellular so it's pretty good that way
and if we go into speed test we'll go here go to speed test wait for it to load and we'll just
hit go and see what kind of speeds we get speeds generally tend to get a little bit better and with
the initial launch of the 12 pro max i did have some issues from time to time switching between 4g
and 5g those have since been resolved with recent updates for me and it's much better and as you can
see we're getting about 85 megabits per second as far as download up to 86 and upload speeds we're
at eight to nine megabits per second as far as upload so it's not incredible upload speeds but
i am indoors this increases if i go outside and it's plenty fast to stream 4k video for example
or upload a youtube video even so it might be a little bit slow compared to some internet but
it's generally pretty fast and as you get to different areas you'll have different speeds
of course without millimeter wave i'm not going to get gigabit speeds but in general it's pretty good
as far as wi-fi i haven't had too many issues occasionally i will have some issues
with bluetooth and that seems to be typical to everyone today with the most recent updates so
with my airpods pro for example sometimes they just take a moment to connect or play and that
seems to be an issue with maybe bluetooth and the software rather than the phone so at the beginning
it was fine sometimes now it's just not great but other times it seems to work okay and in general i
haven't had any disconnects really or any problems like that with a few of the different versions i'm
testing different ios versions all the time i've had some issues but in general i really haven't
now as far as battery life and battery health if we go into settings here we'll go down to
battery under battery health it's at 100 percent now i charge this every single night on a magsafe
charger i put it on a belkan magsafe charger i did a video on that and that's how it's charged every
single night if i'm in the car it's wirelessly charged now not having a case on it probably
helps dissipate some of that heat but it's stayed at 100 capacity it's normal for this to go down
so if you're at 99 or 97 or even 95 it's completely normal as 80 after two years is normal
so i do expect this to go down at some point but right now it's still at 100 percent
and i generally just enjoy using the phone if we look at the last 10 days of battery life
you'll see a couple days ago i used about fifty percent of my battery and got four hours and four
minutes of screen on time two hours and twelve minutes of screen off time that's about what i
can expect eight to ten hours of screen on time with a few hours maybe two to four hours of screen
off time playing music and things like that in the background it easily lasts me through a day again
eight to ten hours and that's if i'm just using twitter and youtube and just doing different tasks
in general it seems to hold up well i will say that it's not as good as the 11 pro max was early
on where i would regularly get 10 to 12 hours of screen on time i think the 5g modem has some
a little bit to do with this and you could turn off 5g but i generally tend to use that so
i leave it on since normally by the time i go to bed i'm at about 50 of my battery life left so in
general it's holding up well with that software updates can affect the overall battery life so
it seems to be doing good for me in general now as far as the cameras are concerned well this
is a huge high point for this phone cameras in particular with video with dolby vision hdr i've
recorded quite a few videos using this camera on these phones these are phenomenal cameras that can
do 4k60 dolby vision hdr in fact i would recommend that if you don't have a camera yet and maybe you
want to get into photography or even maybe you want to start a youtube channel i would highly
recommend this as a camera because the microphone is great in it you can use external audio with it
and the clarity overall is good if i hit record here you can see the video from the iphone
it looks pretty much as good as what we're seeing from my main camera which is a sony a7s3
it's working fine and in general you can use it for whatever you'd like if you want to use it to
maybe vlog you can do that so if i flip it around here hit record you'll see now i'm recording from
the forward-facing camera of the 12 pro max all i did was hit record and we're using the microphone
from it as well so it's pretty good compared to even my studio microphone that you have here
so as far as that goes with photos and everything else some people use this for their thumbnails on
youtube even professional photographers use it from time to time when they're in a pinch and
they don't have their main camera or maybe they run out of memory for example so it's a really
great camera has great night photos as well and it's definitely something that's a highlight of
this device now as far as ios versions and in the future well you can expect this to go for at
least five years based on what apple's done in the past so that means it was shipped with ios 14 that
means probably ios 19 or even ios 20 at the time when it won't get updates anymore so you're good
for another four to five years at this point and i think it's really a great device as far as what
it offers with its battery life and everything else so ios 14.6 updates and 14.7 to 15 you'll
get all of the latest updates for many years to come and so that leads me to should you still
pick up an iphone 12 pro max i probably get asked this question every single day and i would say if
you have a phone that just stopped working for example maybe you have an older phone an iphone
7 for example and it just stopped working and you want to pick up a new phone well then definitely
go ahead and pick one up however if you're someone that wants the latest and greatest all of the time
well we're only a few months away from seeing what iphone 13 is which will usually be in september
if apple continues to do what they normally do so that will get updates with things like the camera
the processor and we're even hearing battery life so if you have to have the latest and greatest
and those things matter the most to you then sure go ahead and wait until september otherwise you
could pick one up now generally sometimes with discounts or good trade-in deals as well from
your carrier so i highly recommend it if you need a new phone or maybe you don't care about having
the latest then definitely i would recommend picking one of these up so that's it for the
iphone 12 pro max i'll still continue to use it until the next iphone comes out and it's what i
really enjoy using i love the squared off design by the way i forgot to mention that earlier on
it's just something i've wanted for years to come back since the iphone 5. so i like the squared
off design i know some people like the rounded edges but i like the square design it's easier
to hold and it just makes it feel more sturdy to me overall but let me know what you think about
the iphone 12 pro max in the comments below and of course i'll link this wallpaper in the description
like i normally do if you haven't subscribed already though please subscribe and if you enjoyed
the video please give it a like as always thanks for watching this is Aaron i'll see you next time
you