Introduction
Hi everyone, Aaron here for zolotete and the iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro are Apple’s flagship phones this year. I thought we’d talk about the good and the bad. I’ve been using it for a week and I’ll focus mostly on the iPhone 17 Pro Max as the iPhone 17 Pro is pretty much identical other than the size, battery life, and overall screen size. So, first let’s start off with what’s good.
Display and Design Improvements
Now, the first good thing this year is the display. The display is 3000 nits and stays bright even in hot weather. So, previous generations would typically dim the display as it gets hotter outside. I was at a drag strip this weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, and in 90 degree heat and high humidity as it is today at 85 degree heat and it stays bright even in the hottest of weather. I didn’t notice it dim. And I even tried recording Apple ProRes RAW for 4K 60 video and it stayed bright for a half an hour. So, no issues there. The bezels are also noticeably thinner this year. They appear that way with it giving way to some of the color on the outside. So, if you have the orange or blue color, you’ll actually see that on the outside and it shows through. Some people will really like the look of this, some may not, but it’s definitely a different look and let you know you have a new phone. Now, the overall design may be a bit controversial this year, but I really like the feel of it while you’re holding on to it. The curved edges are super comfortable and it’s one of the best feeling phones in years from Apple. So, if you don’t like the aluminum frame, and we’ll talk more about that a little bit later, it’s still something that’s really nice to hold even if you’re not using a case. It just feels like it’s very comfortable. It’s easy to reach side to side. And of course with the Pro Max, my hands are huge. So it’s easy to reach side to side here on the display. But overall, it just is very comfortable to hold. Feels secure with the squared off edges, but very nice with the curved edges over to the display and to the back.
Case Protection and Accessories
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Camera Upgrades and Video Features
The rear cameras, of course, are similar to what we had last year, but with an upgraded 48 megapixel telephoto zoom lens. It seems like the post-processing on photos and videos seem a little bit different and maybe a little bit better. Of course, with the telephoto zoom lens, we have four times and eight times optical zoom, or really four times optical zoom with a crop zoom into the sensor, and it looks pretty good. You can see what it looks like when you’re in photos and video. And when you’re in video, I think this is where it has the best cameras of any phone out there. Apple’s consistently had really great video overall, and the cameras just work really well, as you would expect, and you can get great quality images that are super sharp and have a lot of detail. Of course, we have Pro Raw this year. So, we have ProRes RAW that you can find in things such as Final Cut or you can use the Blackmagic app, but you can use one of these apps with an external drive, plug it into the USBC port, and now you can record directly to an SSD with super high quality video that you can change things such as the exposure and white balance after the fact when you’re in Final Cut Pro. So, some really great options this year.
Front Camera and New Sensor
The overall detail of the four times and eight time zoom seem to be about the same as the 16 Pro Max until you zoom way in and get a little extra detail. Other than that though, most people can’t tell the difference. But where you can tell the difference is with the front-facing camera. We have an 18 megapixel sensor in the front camera this year. Apple’s calling it a center stage camera, but if we press the button here, we can go to landscape, press it again, go to portrait. This is because it’s an open gate sensor or a square sensor that lets us get the whole sensor’s use and just change it based on the actual thing we want rather than turning the phone horizontally or vertically. So, we have this option now and we can also record the front and rear camera at the same time.
5G and Connectivity Performance
Now, the disadvantage is you can’t split these into different files. So, if I’m recording here, tap and stop, go into the recording, you’ll see that it’s up here in the upper right and you can’t split those into two separate files. Maybe we’ll get that in a future update, but right now there’s no option for it. But you can move it around on the screen as maybe you’re reacting to something. Maybe we’ll get those separate files in a future software update. Now, for recording video with the rear camera, of course, we have ultrawide, 1x, 2x, four times, and then eight time zoom. We can zoom in to 40 times here, and we’ve got this little box to help us stabilize it. But overall, it’s pretty good. Zoom back out, and you’ve got the smooth zoom. So, it works really well, just like we’ve had in previous years. And of course, you can change things such as the frame rate and other things after the fact.
Battery Life and Performance
The next updated thing is the new 5G modem. If we turn off Wi-Fi here, I typically have more bars in the same spot. You’ll see currently it’s at LTE. I have had a couple odd issues where I’ve had to turn on airplane mode and then turn it back off and then it jumps over to LTE and works a little bit differently, but in general, I’m seeing more signal overall based in the same location. So you’ll see now we’re at 5G with two bars. In this specific location, I’d probably be at about one bar or so. So it’s doing a little bit better. Now it jumped up to three. I also get faster speeds. So if we go into speed test here, you’ll see at this current location, I’m getting about 140 megabits per second down. It’s jumping up and down between 80 and 140. And then upload speeds can vary, of course, but we’ll give it a second to complete so we can check the upload. And we’re getting about 20 megabits per second up in this specific location. It’s much better than I would typically get.
Display Enhancements and PWM
Now, before we talk about PWM, one thing I wanted to mention is the anti-reflective display. It cuts down on reflections quite a bit, but it’s not perfect. And you’ll see here if I turn off the display with the 16 Pro Max on the left and the 17 Pro Max on the right, it’s definitely an improvement. However, compared to things such as the S25 Ultra, well, it’s just night and day difference there. So you can hardly see any reflections in it whatsoever. So it’s definitely better than other iPhones, but not as good as some of the competition.
Speaker Quality
One other good thing is the speakers this year. Of course, we have our speakers on the bottom in the reverse this year from last year, but either way, it doesn’t really matter when you’re using it. And of course, we have a top speaker as well. the the overall sound and quality seems to be a little bit better and also it seems to be a little bit louder. So, let’s bring in the 16 Pro Max and then we have the 17 Pro Max here and then I’ll bring in a decibel meter so you can see the difference between both of them.
The Downsides
Now, when it comes to the bad things, there’s not a whole lot to talk about, but one of them is possible long-term durability. One thing is this overall anodized aluminum this year instead of titanium is a softer material. It could dent, it could scratch more easily. I’ve set this on tile and it still hasn’t scratched for me at all, but I know some people are experiencing this. So far, I don’t have a single nick on any of the frame of the aluminum or anything like that. It’s holding up really well.
Final Verdict
So, that’s the good and bad about the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. And if you’re wondering if you should pick one up for yourself, while it is a nice upgrade over the 16 Pro Max after using it for a week, it’s noticeably smoother. It definitely does get warm, but dissipates that heat a little bit better. And the usability and just sort of display in bright sunlight is definitely a noticeable improvement. However, if none of those things matter, maybe you’re inside all of the time, you’re on a charger all the time, and the battery life doesn’t matter, well, then it won’t be much of an upgrade.
Closing Thoughts
But the cameras for me, they’re very much the same. And the 48 megapixel telephoto zoom is nice, but it’s not that big of a deal. The front-facing camera, however, if you use that for a selfie camera or maybe you’re vlogging, that’s a huge deal and would be a nice upgrade. So, let me know what you think of the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max in the comments below. And if you haven’t subscribed already, 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. [Music]
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