iPhone 12 Pro Max Review: Going large in all aspects is really awesome!!

The iPhone 12 Pro Max packs in the best of everything!!

This year Apple has launched four of its smartphones in the iPhone 12 series that include the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, and a much affordable iPhone 12 Mini. The iPhone 12 (Review) is a great smartphone and is a very strong contender, then the iPhone 12 Pro with an extra telephoto camera and the larger size is appealing.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max is a complete iPhone with all the larger specifications with a larger display, cameras, battery and has all the best in terms of software and hardware. The iPhone 12 series have the newer Apple A14 Bionic chipset and come with newer designs. The iPhone 12 Pro Max is set to take the brand to a newer level.

Let's dive deeper into the review of the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

iPhone 12 Pro Max Design:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max is the largest among the iPhone 12 series lineup of smartphones compared to the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and the smaller iPhone 12 Mini. The newer iPhone 12 series have squared edges with flatter edges. The back of the iPhone 12 Pro Max houses a larger square camera module housing the three cameras with a lidar sensor.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max has the largest screen size at 6.7 inches and comes with a wider notch like the iPhone 12. This wider notch houses the TrueDepth camera which comes effective using FaceID. The sides of the smartphone have volume buttons, a power button, and a toggle for the notifications.

There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present either and at the bottom, there is the lightning port with a larger speaker grill which is the largest among all iPhones to date. On the front, there are slimmer bezels and is sleeker than the iPhone 11 Pro Max. 

With the iPhone 12 Pro Max, you get dual SIM functionality where in some markets you get a full-fledged Dual SIM card slot and in some regions, there is a single SIM card slot and e-SIM capability.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max comes in different colors - Pacific Blue, Gold, Silver, and Graphite out of which the Gold color with stainless steel frame looks good and polished. Like always, the iPhone 12 Pro Max has the official IP68 rating and support for wireless charging.

Overall, the iPhone 12 Pro Max feels like a solid smartphone with a premium build and design and coming to looks, if you are okay with the larger notch.

iPhone 12 Pro Max Display:

This is the largest display on an iPhone to date. The iPhone 12 Pro Max houses a 6.7 inches OLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9 which is slightly larger than the 6.5 inches display on the iPhone 11 Pro Max. With the newer iPhone 12 series, Apple has added a new layer of protection called Ceramic Shield.

This Ceramic Shield is much stronger than the regular Gorilla Glass and is also four times stronger and is shatterproof also. There is no fingerprint scanner and you need to rely on the FaceID which is a much-secured approach using the front camera.

The display with an average of 662 nits is good and under sunlight, the legibility is good and the Super Retina XDR display has good viewing angles. The display can go as bright as 1200nits and even in low-light, the display looks good and you can change different color temperatures from the settings.

These iPhone 12 series come with Dolby True Vision HDR and you can stream HD contents from third-party applications like Netflix, Amazon, etc. Though the display on the iPhone 12 Pro Max has good legibility and looks brighter, it does miss out on the higher refresh rates when compared to other 120Hz display on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, OnePlus 8 Pro (Review), etc.

If you do not want that higher refresh rate display that comes into effect during gaming, the iPhone 12 Pro Max display feels good and it is a treat for watching videos on it. 

See also: iPhone 11 Pro Review

iPhone 12 Pro Max Performance:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max houses a newer Apple A14 Bionic chipset built on a 5nm process and packs in 6GB of RAM compared to last year's 4GB RAM on the iPhone 11 Pro Mx. The Apple A14 Bionic chipset is built on a much more efficient process which dissipates heat and handles all heavy games with ease.

Sadly there is no high refresh rate but the touch responses are super quick and responsive. There is no 120Hz display but still, the standard 60Hz display is good on the iPhone 12 Pro Max and has a good touch response and with the more upgraded GPU, the gameplay is better.

This A14 Bionic chipset is slightly powerful than the Snapdragon 865 chipset on all the flagship Android smartphones of 2020 in the market. When you compare the Geekbench 5.1 scores, the A14 Bionic scores 1603 in single-core and 4111 in multi-core tests compared to 981 and 3270 on the Snapdragon 865 on the OnePlus 8 Pro.

The biggest upgrade that comes with the A14 Bionic chipset is the support for 5G. In terms of performance the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro, etc. have the same performance.

Overall, Apple has stepped the game in terms of performance and gaming with the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

iPhone 12 Pro Max Software:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max runs on the latest iOS 14.1 and brings a different look to the software by allowing the placement of widgets on the home screen and the applications are well organized in the App Library into different categories.

There are some newer animations and you get the newer App Clips which lets you use some particular application without downloading it from the App Store, the Music comes in a new look and Apple Pay has been much secured with double factor authentication, and the FaceID works really well.

Overall, iOS 14 makes the iPhone 12 Pro Max feels like a breeze to use and Apple's ecosystem feels really good to use.

iPhone 12 Pro Max Cameras:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max sports the best camera on any iPhone to date. It comes with three cameras at the rear that includes:

• 12MP f/1.6 aperture main camera with OIS
• 12MP f/2.4 ultrawide camera
• 12MP f/2.2 telephoto camera with 2.5x zoom

Like the previous iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max that has the same three cameras, with the iPhone 12 Pro and the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the cameras do differ slightly. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has a larger sensor compared to the iPhone 12 Pro which gathers in more light resulting in good, clearer images with good saturation and details.

The f/1.6 aperture helps it achieve more light and prevents over saturation of color in the background. Talking about the main camera, the images have an excellent dynamic range and look very natural. There is no sharpness and the noise is almost not present. There is a LiDAR sensor for fast and improved autofocus.

Coming at night or low-light, the f/1.6 aperture captures in a lot of light and this reduces noise a lot and improves the dynamic range. The images have a good amount of details and the color reproduction is good. The dynamic range is excellent. This is because of the enhanced image processing due to the A14 Bionic chipset.

There is Smart HDR 3 works well in all images as brings in the right exposure in the background, brings in better contrast, and also makes the color look much natural. Apple's Deep Fusion works really well in capturing images by bringing in images with better contrast.

The 12MP ultrawide camera takes images with natural colors and a wider field of view. The image quality is not as good as the main camera but the colors look natural and the dynamic range works well. There is a fair bit of noise but still, you will find some amount of softness in the corners.

In terms of low-light, the ultrawide camera has also the Night Mode which triggers automatically when taken in low-light and the dynamic range is wider with good contrast in the background. The colors look good and it brings out good highlights in the shadows. If you turn off the Night Mode, the images from the ultrawide camera have less contrast and there is a lot of noise present.

Another addition is the 12MP telephoto camera which we get with the iPhone 12 Pro and this supports up to 2.5 x zoom only. This may not provide the 50x zoom on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra or 100x zoom on the Galaxy S20 Ultra.  The zoomed images come out with excellent detail and the contrast is good with more natural-looking colors and lesser noise in the images.

In low-light or night, the telephoto camera takes images with a good amount of details and the dynamic range is good. There is some noise present but the contrast is good with a good level of saturation. However, there is no Night Mode but still, the exposure is well maintained in the background.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max uses the telephoto camera for the portraits by default so it crops in a lot of subjects into the frame resulting in good dynamic range and the background blur is well maintained. The LiDAR sensor tries to map the depth in portraits by providing perfect edge detection and subject separation is good.

In terms of portraits, the iPhone 12 Pro Max does a good job in night portraits with the LiDAR sensor gathering in more light and mapping the depth really well with good edge detection and perfect background blur. The noise is also lower and you can use different portrait effects and can adjust the background blur.

You can switch the main camera for the portraits where the images have excellent detail and good edge detection. Overall, the portraits are excellent on the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the best in any smartphone to date.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max has a 12MP front camera which results in 7MP images by default due to some reason. The selfies come out with excellent detail and the skin tones look more natural as there is no too much sharpness and the noise is also lower considerably. The colors look good but the dynamic range is above average and needs a slight improvement.

The portraits come out really good from the front camera with really good subject separation and the dynamic range works well. The field of view is not so wide as the images have lesser detail in the images since it crops the portraits in 7MP resolution.

There is Night Mode present on the front camera also resulting in images with good contrast and reduces noise a lot. The dynamic range is good with long exposures in the background.

On the video side, the iPhone 12 Pro Max can shoot up to 4K videos at 60fps which is the highest and this is the first smartphone to get Dolby Vision HDR which allows HDR recording in 1080p resolution in 30 or 60fps from all the three different cameras. The colors look slightly oversaturated and the noise is also less.

The videos from the main camera have excellent color reproduction with a wider dynamic range. The exposure works well in the background and the noise is much lower. This is in fact the best video quality and it is leaps better compared to the iPhone 11 series and also slightly better than the iPhone 12 and the 12 Pro. 

The videos from the ultrawide camera have average details as the contrast needs to be improved and the dynamic range is above average. The noise is present clearly in the images and there is quite a bit of softness around in the images.

The telephoto camera takes videos with a good amount of detail and the dynamic range is excellent with lower noise. The contrast is good and also at 1080p resolution, the videos have a good dynamic range and contrast. The Night Mode works perfectly well in the main and telephoto cameras when it comes to videos.

The 4K videos from both the main camera and telephoto camera come out with excellent detail and dynamic range and the noise is also lower. The ultrawide camera takes videos with slightly more noise and the dynamic range needs some improvement.

All the videos use the Dolby Vision HDR which results in a difference in darker and clearer environments with punchier colors and the image processing works well thanks to the A14 Bionic chipset being built on the 5nm process.

In terms of cameras, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the perfect smartphone as it has the best cameras on a flagship smartphone to date and with the LiDAR sensor and A14 Bionic chipset efficient processing, it provides mobile photography to a different level.

iPhone 12 Pro Max Battery Life:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max has the largest battery 3687mAh battery which is the largest among all the iPhones this year but slightly smaller in capacity compared to iPhone 11 Pro Max's battery. Here the larger battery makes up for the larger display so compared to the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, the battery life is slightly better also.

The screen-on time recorded on the iPhone 12 Pro Max was around 7-8 hours which is really good as the A14 Bionic chipset is much more power-efficient since it is built on the smaller 5nm process. 

With normal to heavy usage, the smartphone can easily last for one single day with casual web browsing, playing games like Call of Duty for 3-4 hours, and streaming social media, the iPhone 12 Pro Max easily lasted for one and half day with around 20 percent left.

There is also no fancy high refresh rate display on the iPhone 12 Pro Max as with the standard 60Hz display, you are getting really good battery backup. There is also support for wireless charging and as seen on the iPhone 12, the back of the iPhone 12 Pro Max is magnetic, so you can use all the MagSafe accessories with it.

Talking about MagSafe, the charger can be attached to the back of the iPhone 12 Pro Max and you can achieve 20W charging and also this is the first time, Apple is not shipping the charger with the iPhone 12 series inside the box. You do get a 20W fast charger that can fuel the iPhone 12 Pro Max from 0 to 100 percent in 1 hour 10 minutes completely.

Overall, the battery life feels great on the iPhone 12 Pro Max with that massive battery and brings in support for MagSafe accessories.

iPhone 12 Pro Max Audio Quality:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max has a set of stereo speakers where both the earpiece and the loudspeaker vent at the bottom together give a stereo effect with clear and louder sound. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack, so you are only left with a pair of wireless earphones only.

The speakers are one of the best in terms of sound on a flagship smartphone and there is Dolby Atmos to get enhanced sound effects while playing games or watching videos. Sound is one of the best on this smartphone.

Verdict:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max serves as the perfect smartphone and feels like a complete flagship from Apple which shows how much effort Apple has put in order to make such a smartphone. It has a larger display, slightly better cameras than the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, and also comes with a newer Apple A14 Bionic chipset which is much more efficient and powerful also.

Comparing with the last year's iPhone 11 Pro Max and this year's iPhone 12 Pro, there is not much of a difference but still, it offers everything and makes it the great one to be considered. However, there are some downgrades like there is no charger included inside the box and the display has the standard 60Hz refresh rate in the age of 120Hz displays.

If you do not want that high refresh rate display, then also with the iOS 14 providing great software optimizations and having that powerful A14 Bionic chipset, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the best iPhone made to date.