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00:00I promise I'm not going to put this in the title because it's clickbaity and annoying,
00:04but I have officially taken my personal sim out of this and switched to this, the 13 Pro
00:09Max.
00:10I've done it.
00:11Gone to the dark side.
00:13The thing is, I always carried an iPhone 12 Pro Max around with me and as you can see
00:17I've taken very good care of it.
00:19This was actually from accidentally dropping an iPad on it, don't ask, but I haven't fully
00:23switched to an iPhone for a few years.
00:26However, with a 120Hz screen, finally, on an iPhone, as well as longer battery life
00:31and a whole host of camera upgrades, this is a proper step up, even if it does feel
00:35a bit like a 12S Max rather than a 13.
00:39But historically, the S models have always been the one to get.
00:42It's where Apple refines and perfects the formula.
00:46So is this actually worth the upgrade?
00:48Are these new features genuinely worth having or just a bit, well, gimmicky?
00:53So is now a good time to jump ship from Android?
00:55And if you are tempted to buy an iPhone 13, is the Pro Max worth paying top dollar for?
01:00And actually, I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell, but this entire video so far, and
01:05for the rest of it, is being shot on the iPhone 13.
01:07This is the new cinematic mode, which we'll dive into in a second.
01:12But hopefully you get an idea of how it looks.
01:14What do you reckon?
01:17Okay, so really there's three big upgrades with the new Pro and Pro Max, which by the
01:21way are exactly the same this year.
01:23There's no exclusive features on the Pro Max.
01:26It just comes down to which size you prefer, 6.1 or 6.7, and if you want a very good or
01:32exceptional battery life.
01:34In fact, in a very un-Apple-like move, these 13s are actually a little bit thicker, but
01:39they have squeezed in a bigger battery and combined with a more efficient A15 chip and
01:43also the dynamic refresh rate we get as a result of the new LTPO panel, battery life
01:48is ridiculously good.
01:50I would go as far as to say that this has the best battery on any mainstream phone.
01:55To give you an idea, I've been using both the Pro and the Pro Max as similarly as possible
01:59this week, and on average, by the end of a normal day around 10.45, 11pm, I still have
02:04a good 40% left on the Pro Max and about 28% on the Pro, which is still very impressive,
02:10but this Pro Max is just in another league.
02:13We're talking 10 hours of screen on time, and so two full days of regular use is easily
02:18achievable.
02:19It's the only phone I've ever properly used where I don't have any battery anxiety at
02:24all.
02:25And in a quick side-by-side test with the 11 Pro Max and the 12 Pro Max, after three
02:29hours of YouTube, gaming, social media benchmarks, we're down to 70, 67 and 73% respectively.
02:37But I would suggest giving my good friend Arun's video a watch, as he's posted a great
02:41battery rundown test with all the latest iPhones, and I will leave a link below.
02:45So hats off to Apple.
02:46They made a slightly thinner phone, and with the A15 chip, they kind of prioritised efficiency
02:51over ridiculous gains in performance, which perhaps we don't need, although we'll come
02:55to the fact that it is still quite a bit faster, and as a result, we have two of the longest
02:59lasting phones you can buy.
03:02Now if they could just turn their attention to faster charging, because while we do have
03:05the MagSafe ecosystem for pretty quick wireless charging, in terms of the wired lightning
03:10port, it's 20 watts, and even then you have to buy the charger yourself for the privilege
03:14of charging it at a fairly slow pace.
03:16Coming from an Android phone, pretty much any modern Android phone, it does feel painfully
03:21slow to charge.
03:22Let's talk about this screen, because it's 200 nits brighter than before, now up to 1000
03:27nits, and it is noticeably brighter than the 800 nits we get on last year's iPhones, and
03:32also on the new 13 and 13 mini.
03:36The notch is 20% smaller, but only horizontally, and they don't even utilise that extra space
03:41right now.
03:42There's still no battery indicator, so that's not really a big upgrade.
03:46But the big one is ProMotion.
03:48We finally get an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate on an iPhone, and from the moment you turn
03:53it on for the first time, you definitely notice how much smoother everything is.
03:57I must admit, it is partly why I didn't end up switching to the 12 Pro Max, back of this
04:02thing is so sad, because coming from an Android phone with a high refresh screen, on an iPhone
04:07that's 60Hz with these pretty long animation times, it did feel a bit sluggish to me.
04:12So while this may not be a huge deal for the average Joe buying an iPhone, if you are
04:16a bit more of a techie, then you will definitely appreciate this 120Hz.
04:20But if you're not a fan, for whatever reason, in the accessibility settings you can turn
04:24it off and limit it to 60Hz, but crucially it is still dynamic, so you're getting 10
04:28to 60, rather than 10 to 120Hz.
04:32The only downside is there aren't really any games that properly support 120Hz right
04:36now on iPhone, because while the iPad Pro has a few dozen, tacked to cool for example,
04:42it's still 60Hz on the iPhone, but hopefully in a few months as developers update their
04:46games, we'll have a few more to play with.
04:49Now powering everything, we have the new A15 Bionic chip, along with 6GB of RAM, and in
04:54all models of the 13, it is a 6-core CPU, but only in the Pro and Pro Max do we get
05:00the slightly beefier 5-core GPU, versus 4-cores on the 13 and 13 Mini.
05:06Which does seem to make a difference in benchmarks actually, and will no doubt come in handy
05:10when games do start supporting 120Hz and are more demanding.
05:13But if we then bring in the 11 and 12 Pro Max, you can see a pretty significant uptick
05:18in graphics performance, even over just the last couple of years.
05:22What's interesting though, is that a lot of people will then think, well, what's the
05:25point of the A15, do I really need that extra performance when, you know, these still play
05:29everything flawlessly?
05:30Well, that's kind of the point, the longevity of it, because you know that getting the latest
05:35iPhone, in this case with the A15, will comfortably last you 3, 4, 5 years from now, which is
05:41not something you can say about the Android competition.
05:45You've got that future-proofing built in, so not only is this the longest lasting phone
05:50you can buy in terms of battery life, it is also the most powerful.
05:54But does it have the best camera?
05:57Well, while it is very subjective, and you don't have as many options as some Android
06:01rivals, as a whole, photos, selfies, videos, the UI, I would say, yeah, this is the best.
06:07I can't wait to see what Google does with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, definitely make sure
06:11you subscribe as I'll be doing a big comparison between this, the S21 Ultra, and the Pixel.
06:17But while I don't necessarily agree with Apple that this is the biggest leap ever for their
06:21cameras on an iPhone, it's certainly a step up, with bigger sensors and wider apertures
06:26across the board, and also a couple of very interesting new features.
06:30And these photography styles are a definite highlight, and you get 5 different style options.
06:35Now these aren't filters that just holistically apply over the whole image, Apple's semantic
06:39rendering, as they call it, makes specific adjustments so you still have natural skin
06:43tones.
06:44But it does give you a lot more flexibility to make your iPhone photos look more like
06:48something you'd get from maybe a Samsung or Google phone, with rich contrast and cool options.
06:54And then you can go further, adjusting each style's tone and warmth, which gives it a new name.
06:58I did ask Apple if this would be coming to the 12 series, but they wouldn't say.
07:02It is very cool though, and it works with both front and back cameras, and all 3 lenses.
07:07Speaking of lenses, the telephoto is now a 3x optical zoom, up from 2.5 on the 12 Pro
07:13Max, and it's fantastic for portraits.
07:16But for longer zooms, well, it can't compete with the periscope lens on the S21 Ultra,
07:21which has genuinely usable shots up to 30x.
07:26Although somehow, Apple is the only one who can make the transition between lenses this
07:31smooth.
07:32The S21, and frankly all Android phones, always feel laggy when switching between them.
07:37The ultrawide lens now has a f1.8 aperture vs 2.4 last year, and also now has autofocus
07:43pixels so it doubles as a macro lens, which means you can get up to 2cm from your subject
07:49for some fascinating or creepy or just bizarre looking shots.
07:53And then of course we have the LiDAR sensor, although Apple didn't mention this once
07:57during their launch event, so nothing really new here, but it does continue to come in
08:01handy, although pretty much just for the more accurate measuring.
08:05The biggest surprise though, aside from that incredible battery life, is that this cinematic
08:09mode actually works really well.
08:12I didn't think it would.
08:14So on a basic level, you get a nice bokeh effect so your subject stands out, but then
08:18you can also adjust the aperture as well to make it more or less intense, which I would
08:22tinker with because by default I find it a bit too strong and artificial looking, so
08:26I would tone it down a bit.
08:28But crucially, you can change the intensity and also the focal point of the video before,
08:33during and after you shoot it.
08:36And also if you think afterwards, I don't really like that, you can fully turn off cinematic
08:40mode on a video you've already shot.
08:42And as for automatically racking focus between subjects based on face detection and the scene,
08:48it actually works.
08:49Not flawlessly, but much better than I expected, and it uses the depth disparity between the
08:54multiple lenses and also a bit of machine learning to figure out when to change focus.
08:59But then when it comes to editing, you can only change the focus and aperture in iMovie,
09:03plus it seems to record in HDR, hybrid log gamma specifically, which makes it a little
09:07bit trickier to edit with, although in Final Cut Pro you can convert it from Rec. 2020
09:13to Rec. 709, which then you can export and use normally.
09:17However, there are a couple of compromises, because right now it is limited to 1080p30,
09:22although that's not really a problem if you're just using it for TikTok or something,
09:25and also you can't switch lenses once you start filming.
09:28To be fair, you may actually never want to use cinematic mode.
09:31If not, well, the 13 Pro Max still shoots the best video on a phone in terms of overall
09:36quality and stabilisation, particularly with that sensor shift OIS that now all iPhone
09:4113s get.
09:43But we do also have ProRes video to look forward to.
09:46It's not available right now, it's coming soon, but one thing to bear in mind is only
09:50the Pro models will get that, and also not the base 128GB storage, because apparently
09:55shooting in ProRes on this will use about 6GB of storage per minute, so you'll have
10:00to get the 256, 512 or 1TB versions of this to eventually get that ProRes support.
10:07But what about low light shots?
10:08Well, if we bring in the 12 Pro Max again for comparison, I would have thought this
10:12is where we'd see the biggest improvement, but actually, with these first few examples,
10:17they're pretty indistinguishable.
10:18However, switching to the ultrawide lens, we do start to see more of a difference.
10:23It's a little bit sharper and less noisy, and it's the same again here.
10:26In fact, just look how noisy that sky is on the 12 Pro Max, plus the castle is just a
10:31little bit more evenly exposed on the 13.
10:33And actually, if we punch up the exposure on both, you can see just how much cleaner
10:37and more detailed the 13's shot is.
10:40So the ultrawide is significantly better, and there's also a marked improvement with
10:43the telephoto as well.
10:45You do have to look closely, but the 13 Pro Max retains a lot more of that fine detail.
10:51Switching back to the main lens, and the 13 is noticeably brighter here, and there's
10:55also a more natural colour tone across the whole photo.
10:58The 13 is a touch noisier, but there's also a lot more detail here.
11:02Low light video does seem to be broadly similar between them.
11:05The 13 Pro Max has maybe slightly fewer artifacts and less noise, but there's not much in
11:09it.
11:10And annoyingly, they both still suffer from that lens flare, which darts around when there's
11:13a strong light source.
11:15So we're not really seeing much improvement to low light video.
11:18And I think the only other slightly disappointing aspect of the camera is the front selfie is
11:22basically the same as before.
11:24There's no changes, aside from perhaps some minor improvements with the new ISP on the
11:28A15 chip.
11:29It is still very good, and again, particularly for video, but it can look a bit soft and
11:33lacking in detail sometimes.
11:36This is turning out to be a long video, hopefully you're still with me.
11:39But just quickly, I've got a few thoughts on my transition from, I was going to say
11:43I'm transitioning, but it sounds kind of dodgy, my switching from Android and the S21 Ultra
11:49to the iPhone.
11:50There's a few good things and a few bad things.
11:52Firstly, this is surprisingly big and bulky.
11:55It's wider than the S21 Ultra, and once you put a case on it, it really is a bit of a
11:59chunky monkey.
12:00The regular 13 Pro is a lot more comfortable, and I kind of wish the 13 Pro Max was just
12:05a little bit smaller.
12:06I do also kind of miss having a fingerprint reader, because while the TrueDepth Face ID
12:11we get with this, I would say is the best face unlocking on any phone.
12:15When you're wearing a mask and just sometimes, I kind of wish I still had a fingerprint reader
12:19like you do on the S21.
12:21Also, as much as I do love iOS, the lack of a proper split screen mode for multitasking,
12:27especially on a phone this big, seems like a real missed opportunity.
12:30I mean, iPads have it, why can't I have it on the Pro Max as well?
12:34And I also do miss the customization of Android, like being able to speed up animations, add
12:38launchers or really customize my home screen.
12:41But on the more positive side, the speakers are incredible.
12:44I love the little alert slider, which really is only an option on the OnePlus phones.
12:49But the biggest selling point of an iPhone is of course that ecosystem, iCloud, AirDrop,
12:54iMessage, FaceTime and even other hardware like the Apple Watch and AirPods.
12:58For most people, this is the biggest reason they wouldn't switch to Android.
13:02Honestly, I don't think one is better than the other.
13:05I think they both have their strengths and their weaknesses.
13:08But the hardware of the 13 Pro Max in terms of offering the best performance, the best
13:13battery and arguably the best all-round camera, and I've just realized I'm holding the wrong
13:18one, this is the 12 Pro Max, goes to show how similar they look, the battery, the performance
13:22and the camera.
13:23The package I think makes this 13 Pro Max the best phone you can buy right now, which
13:28you'd hope it might be given that it costs £1,100.
13:32All I need now is a USB-C port, perhaps a slightly better selfie camera, faster charging
13:37and maybe cinematic mode in 4K.
13:40However, while this is going to be my new everyday phone and I think it's fantastic,
13:45if my friends or family asked which iPhone should they buy, I wouldn't recommend the
13:4913 Pro Max to most of them.
13:51I would say get the 13 Pro.
13:54It's £100 cheaper, it's a lot more comfortable to hold, you really do appreciate that smaller
13:58size and also while the battery life isn't quite to the same level, it's still very good
14:03and a step up from last year's.
14:05So for most of you guys, I would recommend getting the 13 Pro.
14:09But what do you reckon?
14:10Are you going to upgrade to a 13?
14:12And if so, which one?
14:13Let me know in the comments below.
14:14Oh and don't forget, of course, this entire video was shot on the iPhone 13 between the
14:19video and the cinematic mode.
14:20So let us know what you think of the quality, excuse me pigeon, in the comments below and
14:26also whether my cameraman James maybe is out of a job because all I need now is a phone.
14:31Thank you so much for watching guys.
14:33Don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you enjoyed the video and I'll see you
14:36next time right here on The Tech Chat.