Morning Beginnings and First Impressions
All right, it’s time to see how the iPhone 17 Pro Max holds up in the real world. We’re going to be spending a full day with the new phone, testing out everything from the screen, battery life, features, and more. Not to mention, this entire video was shot with the iPhone 17 Pro, so you should get a good idea of what the video capabilities are here. But today was a little bit different. The team and I went into the studio on a Sunday to knock out some extra work. But that was, of course, after a debrief about the new Demon Slayer movie because we had a lot to discuss. And after having a little bit of breakfast and talking over our game plan, it was time to grab some of the new Apple products. So, we can get to shooting.
Studio Setup and Apple Watch Workday
All right, y’all. So, we got a lot to do today. We got a bunch of Apple watches over here cuz we’re working on an Apple Watch video. By the time you see this video, our Apple Watch video should be up. So, I’ll have that like linked down below. But, we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about this guy, the iPhone 17 Pro. Now, you guys clearly see I’ve got it in that cosmic orange. I never imagined liking an orange iPhone, but I like this a lot. This thing looks so good and it feels really durable. We’ve seen rugged phones before, right? But Apples usually are just more on the like premium feeling side. This is like both. It feels both premium but also solid. Now, it does have a new unibody design. So, it’s encased entirely in aluminum. And this section right here is actually glass. So, this glass allows us to do wireless charging. Uh, it also has Mag Safe built in. So, Mag Safe accessories. Now, I don’t know how people feel about this whole thing Apple’s calling like what is it their camera plateau or something and it’s a different look. We’re used to that square where all the cameras are. This one’s a little bit bigger, but Apple did a lot of smart things here. They added a lot of the, you know, chips and internal pieces. A lot of that is up here now, which gives us space for a much larger battery. Anyway, I’m not going to geek out about it. I got to say in person, these phones look really good. If you’ve seen the images and they don’t really stand out to you, maybe the colors don’t or something, look at them in person. It also goes really well with the Apple Watch Ultra if you have one. That little orange button over there just kind of kind of works together.
Testing Out the Dual Capture and Editing Workflow
[Music] All right, you guys. So, I just unboxed this new Apple Watch Ultra 3, and that screen looks really, really good. Like, those bezels have gotten so much smaller. Now, I will say this dual capture, I like doing the dual capture, especially while showing you guys something. But, I’m getting a little bit of uh grandma holding her smartphone cuz I’m looking at my nostrils right now for this footage. Ideally, I’d want it to be like this. I wonder how how zoomed in this is. I feel like it could be even wider. I feel like we’re not using this to its full potential. I might just have to think about my angles now when it comes to shooting this stuff. But this feature is so dope. And after we knocked out our unboxing video, I had to stop and take a look at some videos that we’ve been working on and maybe put some notes together for my editors.
Shooting Short-Form Content and Audio Improvements
All right, so I finished putting down my notes for the edit. Now I got to shoot some content on the new Apple Watch. Uh, we got some new bands, so I want to highlight that in a short form video. And I’m just going to straight up use the phone for that. So, I’m going to record right here. I’m going to use the mics, everything. All right. So, we shot our short form video outside, but I want to give an on-screen intro a try. So, I’m going to record myself doing the intro. All right, guys. So, the new Apple Watches just dropped. Let’s check out some of these bands. Now, I got some of my computer sounds in the background. I’m wondering if we can eliminate that. All right, guys. So, the new Apple Watches just dropped. Let’s check out some of these bands. All right, guys. So, the new Apple Watches just dropped. Let’s check out some of these bands. And I was able to fix that audio there with the audio mix feature that was introduced last year, and it can make a huge difference in your audio if you’re using the microphones on your phone to make your content. And if you haven’t played around with it, and you use your phone to create content, definitely give it a shot.
Smooth Video Editing and Gaming Performance
Now, I spent more time editing that video, and video editing here is a pretty smooth experience. I mean, honestly, video editing on iPhones these days is more than feasible. And if anything, what will hold you back with video editing is skill, not really the performance. But speaking of performance, it’s really surprising to see how far gaming has gotten on the iPhone. I mean, have you seen the graphics on some of these games coming out? So, I’ve been playing Destiny Rising, and that has some of the best graphics I’ve seen on a mobile game, like ever. With the A19 Pro and the Vapor Chamber in here, you’ll start to see the performance benefits definitely when you’re playing games like this, especially if you play in long sessions. NAP has been steadily adding to their gaming capabilities, and now we’re starting to see actual solid titles come from this, like Destiny. Of course, this also means the use of AI heavy tasks are also more performant. And all of these super demanding tasks, whether it’s like the video editing, gaming, or AI, they won’t make the phone as hot as they used to because of that new aluminum unibody. Apple went back to aluminum and added that whole vapor chamber specifically to keep the phone cooler and performance higher this year. So, the Pro can feel more pro by adding more performance capabilities. And I say all that to say, this phone can handle a lot, but getting hot and slowing down isn’t something you’re going to see as frequently here.
Outdoor Shooting and Display Brightness
But we got to get back to the day. All right. And now I’m feeling inspired. We did a bunch of shooting outside and just on our deck, but we could go even further and test out a couple other things. Meanwhile, y’all see that sign? Um, yeah. Prevent tick bites. I don’t know about that. Wear repellent. Check for ticks daily. Shower soon after being outdoors. Call your doctor if you get a fever or rash. Hold on. This thing you got to shower as soon as you walk up out of here. I mean, I’m wearing an Apple Watch Ultra. That don’t mean I like it in there. Let’s go to the more civilized part of this area. This is I mean, sure, it looks nice, but I don’t have repellent and I don’t play that either. So, now I know you hikers and whatnot are judging me right now. I don’t care from the city. I don’t do ticks. It’s disgusting. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with switching it up. We’re still outside. It was just wasn’t on my to-do list to bring tick repellent today. So, we got plenty of room to test some stuff right out here. All right, so we’ve got the iPhone 17 Pro over here. And one of the new additions to the iPhone lineup are these displays. These displays get up to 3,000 nits of peak outdoor brightness. And what that means is even when the sun is beaming on you right like this, you can still see everything on the screen. And this thing is insanely bright. And guys, let me tell you, the sun was out that day, which means two things. We got to see that 3000nit display in its full glory. But the other side of this is the new reflective coating on the screen, which means you’ll get less glare and reflections, which really help when you’ve got a big light source, whether that’s outdoors or indoors. The way I’ve been seeing it in person is you can see the sun producing a giant white glare across the screen and you have to tilt down in order to see it. But with this, you’re able to see the sun as just like a little circle on your display. Unfortunately, you can’t really see it in the footage that we have over here. But I’m telling you, in person, the difference is huge. And I got to say, I am glad that this 30,000 nits of peak outdoor brightness is becoming a thing among smartphones. I definitely think this should be the new bar.
Camera Performance and Pro Features
Hey guys, what’s up? Where you at? Where am I at? I’m out. I’m outside. Outside. Why am I outside? Are you outside? Yeah. I I’m shooting a video. Oh, that’s so dope. Look, it it went it it widened automatically once Bee stepped into the frame. It’s so funny that the I love that the center stage works here, too, though. And then when it’s just back to me, it zooms in. That’s dope. I like that. I’ll call you guys back once I got a bit of reception. You know what? While we’re here, we might as well compare the cameras. We honestly spent a long time shooting and testing out the cameras of the Pro while out at the park. And here are my thoughts. The cameras, they’re fantastic. The main wide-angle lens continues to be the strongest here. And whether I’ve taken photos of like my family, landscapes, or even like products, I know I can reliably use this lens and pretty much always get a good shot. What they’ve done with this Pro model to me is they’ve increased the reliability of the telephoto lens. So, that new telephoto lens doesn’t zoom in the way that the previous versions have. Instead of that five time zoom, we’re now looking at a fourx zoom and an eight time zoom. And I know some people weren’t really crazy about the initial zoom going down to four times instead of five. But when you know you’ve got the ability to zoom it up to eight times and you keep your quality, I feel like we can’t complain. Honestly, tend to stay away from the telephoto lens unless I really need to use it. But you get a lot of flexibility here and the quality is actually legit. They’ve also increased the overall zoom range of the new Pro models. So, now you’re able to get closer to the subject, and that post-processing actually makes the photo come out really well. The photos actually come out pretty sharp with more detail, and they’re not as noisy as they used to be. So, now I feel like the telephoto is way more reliable and more of an option to me than it used to be in the past, which is just based on my own preference. And when it comes to that ultra wide lens, I mean, these are great for multiple reasons. if you want to get macro shots, which means taking a really close photo of something. The quality looks great here. And I feel like the low light performance has been much better than what I’m used to in the past. I feel like I can fall back on that in areas that I typically wouldn’t. But from what I’ve seen out of the ultrawide and the entire lineup, honestly, I’ve been more than impressed. But you guys let me know what you think of the shots with a comment down below. And in terms of video, this entire video was shot on the iPhone 17 Pro, so you know what the video quality is like and what it’s capable of, but Apple did add a lot of pro features here like ProRes RAW, which is mainly what we used here. And one thing I will call out to my fellow creators is the ability to use OpenGate when you’re shooting ProRes RAW. Basically, get access to the full camera sensor. So, you are not getting a 16×9 video or a 17×9 video. you are getting the whole thing which gives you a lot of room to work around with. So you can crop in and get the kind of shot that you want. The only trade-off here is that you lose stabilization in this mode. So I think unless you’re doing something really professional and your camera is stabilized in the best way possible, be mindful when you use it. And last but not least, we’ve got that front-facing camera, which they call their center stage camera. And this is probably my favorite feature across all of the iPhones. We now have a wider front-facing camera so you can get more in the shot. And I love that it automatically can detect when more and more people are coming into your shot and it automatically widens it or turns it into a landscape photo. What kind of blew my mind though was being able to shoot horizontal video while using the front-facing camera with your phone in a comfortable position. And last but not least, the front-facing camera is now going to be a lot more stable. So, if you’re on like a video call, you can actually move around with your phone and the person on the other side will see a more stable video because it has so much more room to work with. So, that’s definitely a nice plus.
Battery Life and Final Thoughts
All right, y’all. We’re back at the studio. It is what 5:01 now. We kind of killed the battery outside just now. We kind of ran through it because we put the phone at max brightness in the sun for a long time. And on top of that, we were recording the biggest file size you possibly can, uh, with a bunch of accessories taking up more juice. So, we kind of went through it with that little stint out there, but this would have easily lasted another hour, hour and a half. Now, we’re at 8%. By the time I get home, I’ll probably need to throw it on the charger. The battery life, I got to say, solid. I’m not mad at this. Is this the best battery life ever on an iPhone? Probably, but we’ll talk about that some more. And that was pretty much it for the workday and I spent the rest of the night with the family. But I will say using the iPhone 17 Pro Max has been a solid experience. I like the orange, but I’m realizing I don’t really like the look of it in a lot of cases actually. So something to keep in mind. But outside of that, it’s been a really solid experience. We already talked about how good the performance is and the fact that it has honestly all day battery life. This thing has lasted me all day until it’s time to go to bed. So, battery life here is definitely strong. And if you somehow manage to deplete the battery, you can charge up to 50% in 20 minutes. And with a battery like the one on the 17 Pro Max, that’s getting a lot of usage in just 20 minutes. Overall, this is a really solid phone. And it has me curious for what next year even looks like, how Apple does something different, because I feel like right now, especially with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, this is peak. So, we got to see what next year brings. But I know a lot of people are wondering, what do I choose? One of the 17 Pros or the Air? And honestly, you’re just going to have to wait till my video on the iPhone Air. So, make sure you’re subscribed to see that and I’ll catch you guys in the next one. Until then, peace.
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