what's up guys my name is Brandon and the iphone 12 pro and pro max have been out for almost a
year and after using each of them nearly every single day since release i wanted to share my
updated thoughts on which one i prefer now because my opinions have changed quite a few times as you
guys saw in my two weeks later comparison that i posted last year so in this video we're going to
be comparing the 12 pro and pro max in terms of comfort and reliability the speed the cameras the
durability the battery life and much much more pretty much everything you guys wanted to know
about these two compared after a long period of time so let's start off by answering a question
i know you probably have if you're new here and that is how have you used both of these phones
nearly every day since they were released and that's because i either switch between
the phones every couple of months or i just use one for beta testing and one for everything else
and now after nearly a year and switching back and forth numerous times my main device with
the sim card in it is the 12 pro and my beta testing device is currently the 12 pro max now
that might sound backwards and like it should be the opposite but one of the main reasons for this
is comfort and as much as i love the battery life the camera and the screen size of the 12 pro max
the trade-off is just a much bigger and heavier phone that just doesn't really suit my lifestyle
as well so the 12 pro has a 6.1 inch display and the 12 pro max has a 6.7 inch display and both
have the same design all around so we have these squared off edges with the very fingerprint prone
stainless steel borders and of course we have that matte finish on the back so we have the 12
pro here in gold and the 12 pro max and the new pacific blue colorway now i have average sized
hands but reaching to the top of the pro max is just very difficult at certain angles especially
when laying down on your side or maybe when you're you know riding a bike or something like that
you can't really use one hand with average sized hands like if you have large hands if you're like
a basketball player or something obviously you'll have no issue going to the top but for average
sized hands you're gonna have a very difficult time using just one hand with the 12 pro max
and it also weighs 228 grams compared to 189 grams for the pro so that weight difference is enough to
wear down like my pinky right here after a while of holding the phone up i noticed that my pinky
when i hold the phone up for a while maybe after like 20 30 minutes i do notice some fatigue in
that finger i also wear basketball shorts a lot around the house and to the gym and the pro max
just looks huge in those pockets and it kind of just slings all around when inside of those flimsy
shorts like that whereas the 12 pro doesn't really look or feel nearly as big and it's the same with
jeans or golf shorts pretty much anything i wear their pro max is just going to bulge out and just
makes for a much tighter fit now this won't be a huge deal for everybody especially for women
who have a purse to put your phone in but for me personally the pro max is just too big and heavy
for my liking however with that in mind there are still two major reasons i kept going back
to the 12 pro max and putting my sim card in it every couple of months and those are battery life
and display now starting off with the battery life this is something that surprised me because
at first yes the better battery life as seen in my battery test video that i posted last year
the battery life was impressive but that's because both phones were brand new and they
were performing at their peak levels but what's even more impressive is the fact that now
after nearly a year the battery life on the pro max outperforms the pro by an even wider margin
than when they were new now this is likely due to the simple fact that i just use the pro more than
the pro max and also in more extreme conditions but it's not like the pro max has not been outside
or in heat before because it definitely has several times you know over multiple months
but when looking at the battery health so if we go into our settings here and look at the battery
health you can see a pretty big difference between the two so we go to our battery health right here
so we're at 100 still on the pro max and down to 91 on the 12 pro which is pretty interesting and
a little bit lower than i had expected and i do think that it's because i have had the 12 pro in
more situations where it's like an extreme heat like at the beach or at the pool than i have
with the 12 pro max but still that's a pretty big difference there and also another reason for this
is because i've definitely been using my phone more this year than i have in any previous year
so that's another reason that we probably have 91 battery health on the 12 pro after a year so
i will say if you care a lot about battery life like even more than your own comfort
then the pro max is going to be the way to go for sure i found myself constantly getting at least
two to three hours more of on-screen time and just battery life overall lasted at least two three
hours more on a consistent daily basis now another major pro of the pro max is the bigger display so
6.7 inches versus 6.1 inches and that makes quite the difference when watching videos browsing the
web and especially when playing games and i'll talk about that here in a little bit but they both
have the same super retina xdr display and all the same features so there's no benefit going from the
pro to the pro max in terms of you know resolution or anything like that but again the sheer size of
the screen on the pro max makes for a much more immersive experience and these guys also get very
bright so 800 nits of max brightness thanks to that oled display and they perform really well
under direct sunlight now i have seen some people report that the pro gets brighter than the pro max
but i personally have not been able to tell the difference between the two and i even took them
out under direct sunlight and compared them and i couldn't tell a difference with the naked eye and
while we're looking at these displays i did just want to briefly discuss the durability because if
you look closely at my screens you will see that i'm rocking a screen protector on both devices
and they have both been on there since day one but even if i did not have a screen protector
the iphone 12 series has improved glass with what apple calls the ceramic shield and this is said
to be the most durable glass on any smartphone so if you like you know to rock your phone without a
case or a screen protector you can probably get away with dropping them from maybe pocket height
without cracking the screen but it's been proven that this ceramic shield doesn't really prevent
scratches so that's the main reason i put a screen protector on my devices and i always
recommend everybody to put a screen protector on there just to protect that beautiful display
but as far as durability overall i mean both phones have held up really well over time of
course i've rocked a case on both devices as well so we're not going to have really any scratches
or nicks anywhere but even the borders which are not protected by some of the cases i wear
you can see there there's just a lot of smudging and things like that but really no
chips or cracks or anything like that after a year of usage but you know i have dropped my phone a
couple of times as well and nothing has happened because i have had a case on every time that
either phone has dropped so over 10 months the durability is excellent now one other major aspect
that's different on the pro max is the camera and that's because it has a 47 larger camera sensor
versus the pro and when i first tested these two against each other i hardly noticed any
difference whatsoever even in low light which is where the 12 pro max was supposed to shine
but after using both cameras more extensively and in more conditions and more situations i now
respect the 12 pro max just that much more because it is definitely a noticeable difference and there
have been times where on my 12 pro i would be in low light or you know it's starting to get dark
maybe at dusk and i would have to enter into night mode to take a picture whereas on the pro max
i wouldn't need night mode and it would just take the photo normally and it would turn out better of
course since it didn't have to do any additional processing so i do love that it's definitely
superior in low light also the pro max has superior zoom capabilities thanks to that improved
telephoto lens that has a 5x optical zoom range compared to 4x on the pro and it can also digital
zoom up to 12x versus 10x on the pro and also when shooting video you get 7x digital zoom versus 6x
on the pro and it seems small but it definitely makes a difference the pro max also has sensor
shift stabilization which essentially means that videos you take while walking or moving won't be
nearly as shaky and this is normally something you see in higher end like dslr or mirrorless cameras
but it's actually in a smartphone and it makes a big difference when you're walking and recording
something it actually looks like the phone is kind of like floating it looks really really
good so basically what i'm saying is that the 12 pro max is going to shine but only in specific
scenarios like the main ones i noticed are with low light with portrait photos with zoom and also
with video while walking or while shaking so those are the main areas where you'll see a difference
in the pro max versus the pro but again those are specific scenarios it's not going to be you know
you're not going to be able to tell a difference when you just take a photo of a family or you take
a photo of your food or you take a photo of your dog i mean if you're just taking regular photos
like that you're not going to be able to tell a difference in the quality compared to these
two but again the main areas you're going to see a difference are when you do things like you zoom in
you do portrait photos and you really zoom in closely and look at the edges of the person when
you're in really low light you know you're maybe not going to have to go into night mode on the
pro max whereas you will on the pro but again it's just a lot of very specific scenarios which is why
after the first couple of weeks i didn't really tell a difference at all in the cameras but
again after a long time and a lot of different scenarios now i can see the difference and i can
really respect the 12 pro max a lot more but for your average everyday person it's not going to be
a huge deal and definitely not something i would pay the extra hundred dollars for unless you just
really need the best of the best now as far as performance goes these two are identical so we
have the a14 bionic chip and six gigabytes of ram on both and i was not able to tell a difference at
all in terms of raw performance here on ios 15 or ram management nothing at all is different between
these two however if you are into gaming the bigger screen on this pro max actually makes a big
difference for pretty much any game but especially with games like call of duty mobile and pubg
so if i'm feeling like hopping on cod mobile and i don't have my ipad around i'm only considering
playing on the pro max i won't even play call of duty mobile on my 12 pro or pub g on my 12 pro
because i'm quite literally at a disadvantage compared to other players because i cannot see
much of the battlefield the chances of me running into somebody on an ipad or a big plus size phone
is pretty high so i just feel like if i'm gonna play i'm gonna play on the pro max or on my ipad
so that's another major advantage of the 12 pro max so in conclusion after these past 10 months
i have used the 12 pro more than the 12 pro max and i still prefer it to the pro max but i will
admit that there have been several instances where i wished i had my pro max to record video
and for that better battery life now again i did mention that it's very specific situations so like
i said during concerts when you're shaking around the 12-pro max won't be as shaky because of that
ois or when you're walking through the woods or on a trail it's not going to be as shaky so those are
the times i wish i had my pro max and of course when my phone dies because i don't have as good
of battery life on the pro max i do sometimes wish i had the pro max with me but again it
really just came down to the comfort level for me the 12 pro max is better in a lot of areas but if
i'm not comfortable with it on a day-to-day basis and i'm constantly having to use two hands or i
wish i could just use one hand and it's tiring my pinky that's going to do it for me that's really
all it takes but again if you're a woman and you have a purse and you have to worry about that
or if you have big hands or if you just don't mind using two hands like for me i personally don't
like using two hands that's a personal preference but if you don't mind using two hands and you're
fine with that then by all means the pro max is probably gonna be the better option for a hundred
dollars because you do get some improvements like that bigger screen you know the better camera and
things like that and of course the better battery life and that's just where you're going to have
to make your decision if you're going to try to decide on which one to buy so if you don't think
you're going to mind that bulkier heavier phone and have never cared about one-handed use then go
ahead and pay the extra hundred dollars and get the pro max but if you are not a fan of large
heavy phones and don't need you know the best of the best in terms of the camera but you want the
second best pretty much camera in the industry i would just stick with the 12 pro and throw that
extra 100 into the stock market and watch that grow but again these are just my opinions this
has just been my experience after nearly a year of owning both i prefer the 12 pro still over the pro
max just simply because of that comfort factor but let me know what you guys think down in a comment
below i would be very curious to see what you guys think i know a lot of you guys have the pro
max and you love it so i would be curious to see what you guys have to say about this down in those
comments below have you used the pro is it too small for you let me know your opinion down there
in the comments below and also if you guys enjoyed this video i would appreciate if you gave it a
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those new videos and comparisons but anyways guys thanks again for watching and i'll see you soon
you